Former Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole said Wednesday he is considering expelling a Conservative senator from his party's caucus over concerns the senator is involved in foreign influence.
Testifying in Ottawa before an inquiry into foreign interference, O'Toole said one of his MPs was told by the local mayor that a Conservative senator was actively working on behalf of a Chinese state-owned company.
“There was a member of our upper house caucus who was brought to me by an MP and alleged that he was directly or indirectly promoting or lobbying for the interests of a Chinese state-owned company in an electorate in Ontario,” O'Toole told the inquiry.
“There have been some stories in the past about sponsored travel and other things that have given me some serious concerns given some of the issues we've discussed in caucus. But it was this issue in a city in Ontario, potentially advocating for economic interests, that really forced me to make a decision about some of the concerns the member had.”
O'Toole said the senator had taken a “fairly extensive trip” to China, which was the subject of media reports.
O'Toole said he found it “completely inappropriate for a member of the Senate to be championing commercial interests associated with a foreign entity in a Canadian constituency.”
“Given that we were having very serious discussions at the time about the relationship with China, the situation with the two Michaels, the plight of the Uighurs, Hong Kong, I felt very concerned about this member,” he said.
O'Toole said he could use help from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service or other government intelligence experts, but does not have access to them.
O'Toole warned about racism claims
“I'm exploring the possibility of removing this member from the caucus, but the challenge I face is that I don't have the support of the intelligence agencies,” he said. “I have allegations that I can't verify. There was no warning from the intelligence agencies that they knew about it.
“And the concern that some members of my caucus have expressed to me is that if I make a rash decision to remove the member, I could be accused of racism.”
Unable to consult government security or intelligence experts, O'Toole said he decided to have the Conservative leader in the Senate give the senator in question a “stern rebuke.”
O'Toole did not name the senator whose concerns he had raised.
Conservative sources who spoke to CBC News said O'Toole was referring in his testimony to former Conservative senator Victor Oh, who was appointed by former prime minister Stephen Harper and retired in June. In 2020, Senate ethics officials found that Oh violated the Senate's ethics and conflict of interest code when he accepted an all-expenses-paid trip to China in 2017.
When contacted by CBC News, Oh said no one in the Senate had ever spoken to him about concerns about China or “what I was doing to promote China.” He said he thought O'Toole was “confused.”
“I have never promoted any government-owned company in Ontario,” he said. “No way. And even if I did, it would be for economic reasons to help the state.”
During his testimony before the inquiry, O'Toole said political parties were vulnerable to foreign interference attempts, something he flagged during the last federal election.
“There are these vulnerabilities and we need to know that they exist, know that in some cases — limited cases — they are exploited and find ways to support our democratic systems.”
O'Toole said nominating contests in safe seats could determine who becomes the next member of parliament.
“If there is manipulation or interference, the parties must know about it before someone comes in to take the oath and sit in the DPR.”
O'Toole said the Liberal Party was particularly vulnerable.
“Because in that situation, there's no membership. There's no cost to join. If you give your email address, you're in. If you get an organizer or a diaspora figure to just collect emails, you can ask people to vote or participate in a nomination contest who may be non-citizens, visiting students and whether they're there because they want to be there, because it's their choice or whether they're deployed or pressured.”
O'Toole's bombshell testimony on Wednesday came as the foreign interference inquiry, led by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, continued its second phase of hearings.
The probe was formed in response to media reports accusing China of interfering in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.
In his initial report published in May, Hogue found that while foreign interference was likely to have occurred in a small number of precincts, he concluded it did not affect the overall election outcome.
In the second phase, the investigation will focus on how prepared the government is to combat foreign interference in elections and how that capacity has evolved over time.
More later…