Liberal national director on the hot seat over foreign interference

Three months after it was tabled in Parliament, the Liberal Party of Canada's national director says he still hasn't read a bombshell report that concluded one of his party's nomination races had been affected by foreign interference by China.

Testifying before the public inquiry into foreign interference Friday, Azam Ishmael initially told the inquiry he didn't think the Liberal Party had ever been a victim of foreign interference.

Under questioning by Sujit Choudhry, lawyer for NDP MP Jenny Kwan, Ishmael admitted he had never read the entire report prepared by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) that was made public in early June.

«Not the 92 pages, no,» Ishmael responded.

Choudhry then took the inquiry through several paragraphs of the report related to the 2019 Liberal nomination race in the Toronto-area riding of Don Valley North won by Han Dong — paragraphs Ishmael admitted he had never read.

The report, which cited information from the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS), described how the People's Republic of China (PRC) consulate in Toronto rented buses to bring 175 to 200 Chinese international students to the nomination meeting and reportedly told them they had to vote for Dong if they wanted to maintain their visas to study in Canada.

It said the consulate also broke the Liberal Party's rule that requires voters in a nomination process to live in the riding, by supplying students who lived outside the riding with fraudulent paper work.

«By successfully interfering in the nomination process of what can be considered a safe riding for the Liberal Party of Canada, the PRC was well-positioned to ensure its preferred candidate was elected to Parliament,» said the