Liberal leader Mark Carney speaks to a crowd outside that weren't able to get into his event due to capacity, before a meet-and-greet at the Victoria Edelweiss Club in Victoria, B.C., on April 6.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
A federal election-interference watchdog has uncovered an information operation from Beijing aimed at shaping public opinion among Chinese Canadians about Liberal Leader Mark Carney.
Some of the messaging it found was laudatory toward Mr. Carney with a social-media post carrying a headline saying “the United States is facing a tough prime minister from Canada.” This post said the Liberal Leader has been praised for his “quick and effective response” to the 2008 financial crisis, was called a “rock star economist” by British media and had been described as “the only adult in the room” during the Brexit crisis.
The Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force announced Monday this effort is taking place on the Chinese-language social-media platform WeChat and through Youli-Youmian, WeChat’s most popular news account. The task force says intelligence reporting links the Youli-Youmian account to the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission.
During hearings in the 2024-25 public inquiry into foreign interference, the Canadian government came under fire for not alerting voters during election campaigns of foreign-interference efforts. In her final report in January, 2025, inquiry head Justice Marie-Josée Hogue had recommended a different approach. “There may be a level of interference that is not sufficient to affect the integrity of the elections overall but is nonetheless significant enough to warrant some action,” she wrote.
SITE’s Monday announcement is the first time during a federal election campaign that Ottawa has notified the public of an effort at foreign interference.
“The People’s Republic of China should not be trying to shape the opinions of Canadians, especially during an election period,” Laurie-Anne Kempton, an assistant secretary to the cabinet, said Monday during a SITE briefing.
The SITE task force said in a release it believes the “information operation was intended to influence Canadian-Chinese communities in Canada (i.e. speakers of a Chinese language, such as Mandarin, Cantonese, or Hakka) and looked to mould perceptions” of Mr. Carney.
It said it saw “large spikes of coordinated inauthentic behaviour preceding the election campaign, on March 10, and again during the writ period on March 25, 2025.”
Federal officials vow greater transparency around foreign interference
Ms. Kempton said SITE informed the Liberal Party of the Chinese manipulation effort April 6.
The Monday briefing included members of the SITE task force from the Privy Council Office, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the department of Global Affairs, RCMP and the Communications Security Establishment. They declined to say whether the overall tone of the messaging being pushed on WeChat was positive or negative for Mr. Carney. They said they saw both.
“This content has been amplified in a co-ordinated and inauthentic way. This information operation had contrasting positive and negative narratives, first amplifying Mr. Carney’s stance with the United States and then targeting his experience and credentials,” Ms. Kempton said at the briefing.
The government has previously flagged this WeChat Youli-Youmian account as responsible for targeting cabinet minister Chrystia Freeland in January. But in that case, it characterized that information operation as “malicious activity” against Ms. Freeland.
SITE provided links to two posts that were promoted on WeChat as part of the information operation about Mr. Carney. Charles Burton, a former Canadian diplomat who speaks and reads Chinese, read the two posts at The Globe’s request and said one was fairly neutral and descriptive about Mr. Carney and the pre-election political environment in Canada while a second one was positive. The latter, which called him a technocrat, listed all his career achievements and repeated praise of him, including his skill in handling financial crises.
Stephanie Carvin, a former national-security analyst and a professor at Carleton University, said it’s possible the Chinese government is experimenting by promoting these Carney posts. “It could be a test of their ability to spread a narrative. They are always looking to improve,” she said. “There could be further attempts down the road.”
Conservative candidate Michael Chong, who has served as the party’s foreign affairs critic for years, said he considers the information operation an attempt by the Chinese government to promote Mr. Carney to Chinese-speaking communities in Canada.
“The next Government of Canada should be chosen by Canadians and Canadians alone,” Mr. Chong said.
He said in a news release the pre-election WeChat post played up the former central banker’s experience and credentials, noting it said, “Carney is a veteran who has been working in the financial circle for many years and is well-versed in the routine of ‘speaking with data.’” It said “as soon as he came to power, he quickly launched a tax reduction policy. For example, he proposed to reduce taxes on the middle class and reduce the minimum tax rate by 1 per cent. At the same time, he waved his hand and abolished the carbon emission tax. This ‘combination punch’ tried to please voters with the strategy of ‘giving money + environmental protection’” to Canadians.
Isabella Orozco-Madison, a spokeswoman for the Liberal Party, pointed out that SITE officials said the activity is limited to one platform and not affecting Canada’s ability to have a free and fair election.
She said the Liberals will “continue to work transparently with security officials to monitor any unusual activity.”