Freeland target of ‘malicious’ foreign interference campaign linked to China: task force

Former Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland speaks with reporters in Ottawa, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

Liberal leadership candidate Chrystia Freeland has been targeted by a foreign interference campaign.

According to a news release from the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force (SITE), “coordinated and malicious” activity about Freeland has been traced to a WeChat account linked to the Chinese government.

In a post on X Friday evening, Freeland thanked Canada’s national security agencies for protecting Canada’s “strong” democracy.

“I will not be intimidated by Chinese foreign interference,” Freeland said in the post. “Having spent years confronting authoritarian regimes, I know firsthand the importance of defending our freedoms.”

Information on the foreign interference campaign was released by Canada’s Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force, which was established in 2019 to monitor electoral interference.

“The launch of this information operation was traced to WeChat’s most popular news account – an anonymous blog that has been previously linked by experts at the China Digital Times to the People’s Republic of China,” a news release explained. “The campaign received very high levels of engagement and views, with WeChat news articles disparaging Ms. Freeland netting over 140,000 interactions between January 29 and February 3, 2025.”

An estimated two to three million WeChat users saw the campaign, which involved more than 30 WeChat news accounts. WeChat is an enormously popular Chinese messaging and social medial app with more than one billion monthly active users.

Liberal Party leaders and Freeland’s campaign were briefed about the findings on Friday. Freeland, a member of Parliament for University-Rosedale and a former cabinet minister, is running to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The elections interference task force is comprised of experts from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSE), Global Affairs Canada (GAC) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).