Facebook removed false article about Trudeau during 2019 election, inquiry hears

One of Canada's top civil servants asked that a false article about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau be removed from Facebook during the 2019 election, according to Friday testimony and documents tabled at the public inquiry into foreign interference.

The article in question was published by the Buffalo Chronicle. It contained uncorroborated claims involving Trudeau and was spreading online during the 2019 election campaign.

The Buffalo Chronicle website, which covers local news in New York State, has been accused of publishing fake or misleading stories about Canada during and after the 2019 election.

The allegations in the article were being discussed at the very top levels of Canadian government, documents tabled with the inquiry show.

Notes from an interview with Privy Council Office employee Allen Sutherland, tabled with the inquiry, say he claimed Facebook brought the article to his attention.

"The content might have gained significant attention were it amplified, and therefore risked threatening the integrity of the election," said the notes from Sutherland's interview with a lawyer acting for the the Foreign Interference Commission, which is conducting the inquiry.

"At the direction of then-Clerk of the Privy Council Ian Shugart, Mr. Sutherland asked Facebook to remove the article. Facebook complied."

According to the lawyer's notes, Sutherland said the government did not make this information public because the online "information ecosystem" had debunked the false report.

Sutherland said government officials asked whether requesting the removal of the article merited a public announcement but decided that doing so could end up amplifying misinformation.

Further testimony on Monday described what happened slightly differently.

Members of the five-member panel set up to warn the public in the event of foreign interference told the commission that Facebook, along with other social media giants, signed an undertaking to remove any misleading or false information leading up to the election. They said Facebook didn't remove the article at the request of PCO but was following through on its obligations.

WeChat misinformation handled differently

A lawyer representing Conservative MP Michael Chong before the inquiry noted the differences between the government's handling of the Buffalo Chronicle article and its approach to multiple false articles about Erin O'Toole's Conservative Party circulating on the social media platform WeChat during the 2021 election.

Documents show Sutherland believed the two instances were separate: the WeChat articles were in Mandarin, meaning the content likely would only reach Chinese readers.

As well, Sutherland said the Buffalo Chronicle article presented inflammatory information directly targeting the prime minister's character, while the WeChat postings were about policy issues — even though they contained falsehoods.

"There was less concern about misinformation targeted at the Chinese diaspora than the English speaking public?" asked lawyer Gib Van Ert.

"I talked about the Buffalo Chronicle article as being something that was highly inflammatory and was seen that it might go viral and become a national event," said Sutherland.

Conservative Party representatives at the inquiry, including former leader O'Toole, have said they believe Chinese foreign interference may have cost their party up to nine seats in the 2021 election in ridings with large Chinese diaspora communities in British Columbia and Toronto.

While some of the articles highlighted in 2021 by CSIS and other monitoring bodies were about O'Toole's promises on China, others were more personal in nature. One article regarding former CPC member Kenny Chiu's proposed private members' bill calling for a foreign influence registry act calls Chiu "anti-Chinese." 

Another said O'Toole would "ban WeChat, if elected," described him as the "Canadian version of Trump" and called him "significantly more radical and tougher on China" than his predecessor Andrew Scheer.

Sutherland said officials must be cautious about setting the threshold for responding to false reports during an election because setting it too low could play into the objectives of adversaries trying to sow doubt about Canadian democracy.