The RCMP has questioned a veteran Liberal political operative who handled the finances associated with Han Dong’s 2019 campaign for the federal Liberal Party nomination in Toronto’s Don Valley North riding.
In November 2023, the RCMP met and questioned David Pretlove, an Ontario Liberal aide who was Dong’s financial officer for the 2019 nomination contest, but the police force won’t release a recording of that interview, saying its investigation is ongoing.
It is unclear what issues the RCMP are specifically probing and whether they involve criminal allegations, possible campaign finance breaches under the Elections Act or another area of federal jurisdiction.
Han Dong told Global News this spring the RCMP had not contacted him. No charges have been filed. He has denied all wrongdoing.
“I have always been diligent to follow election rules, dating back to 2013,” Dong said in an April 23 email response to Global News. He did not respond to a second, additional request for comment in the past week.
David Pretlove, a longtime Liberal Party of Ontario staffer and ex-staffer for the federal Liberal Party of Canada, was questioned by two RCMP members in Toronto.
The RCMP interviewed Pretlove eight months after Han Dong resigned as a member of Liberal caucus to sit as an independent member of Parliament. Dong left Liberal caucus after Global News reports about his alleged ties to the People’s Republic of China.
In a series of five interviews with Global News in April and May, Pretlove said two RCMP members interviewed him for almost an hour in November 2023 at Metro Toronto Police Service Division 51 offices, located at Parliament Street and Eastern Avenue. The meeting was arranged by phone.
“It was a conversation more so than answering of any questions,” Pretlove said, adding: “There was no indication that I should bring counsel. . . They were just trying to get their heads around how this process worked.”
Liberal staffer David Pretlove says he met two RCMP members at Toronto Police Service Division 51 offices in this building last November.
Kurt Brownridge / Global National
Inside the TPS police station, Pretlove said, the two Mounties – he declined to name them – asked him about alleged foreign interference in the Dong nomination campaign; political fundraising methods used for nomination races; and how Liberal party members and Dong supporters were allegedly transported to the nomination voting meeting.
Pretlove said the RCMP also asked him a follow-up, post-interview question about the physical location of the ballots for the Don Valley North nomination vote.
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Pretlove said he told the Mounties ballots were destroyed sometime after the Sept. 12, 2019 vote, under a longstanding Liberal Party of Canada policy.
The RCMP confirmed that its meeting with Pretlove was videotaped. It declined to disclose a copy of the recording or a transcript in response to a Global News request under the Access to Information Act.
The federal police force said in a letter to Global News that the records are exempt from disclosure under law enforcement provisions of the Access to Information Act because it is conducting a lawful and ongoing investigation.
Pretlove said the RCMP wanted to speak with him because he was the person declared the “financial agent” of record responsible for the Dong 2019 nomination campaign and statutory financial reporting to Elections Canada.
In that role, Pretlove was responsible for gathering and reporting details of the campaign’s fundraising revenues and expenses and submitting receipts to confirm expenses.
Then and now, Pretlove was a full-time employee of the Liberal Party of Ontario. (He has done similar financial work for seven different federal Liberal candidates between 2019-2021).
According to its website, his day job is to oversee the provincial party’s campaign compliance matters.
Pretlove has worked for former Ontario Liberal premiers Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne but also Ontario federal Liberal cabinet ministers, including Carolyn Bennett and the late John Godfrey during his decades-long political career.
The RCMP officers did not ask him for documents or to sign a statement, Pretlove said.
Global News learned about Pretlove’s RCMP interview when a reporter contacted him to discuss the Dong campaign’s use of bus transportation during the nomination race. The subject had come up during the foreign interference inquiry in April.
Pretlove, who has not been called to testify at the foreign interference inquiry, said that during his meeting with the RCMP, he pressed Mounties to provide “clarity” and explain why they were all sitting around a table at a police station.
Pretlove said RCMP members told him their investigation was triggered by a complaint. They declined to share details, he said.
Pretlove recalled that the RCMP asked him how political fundraising actually happens and generalities about election spending reporting practices.
“Maybe they were guarding some information they were seeking but it was a very broad process-focused conversation.”
Dong’s campaign team included his wife Sophia Qiao, a marketing executive for China-based video streaming service iQIYI’s North American unit. She handled several financial transactions for her husband’s 2019 Liberal nomination contest.
Qiao didn’t respond to questions about those transactions or multiple requests for comment.
Dong’s rival in the 2019 Liberal nomination race, Markham lawyer “Julie” Bang-Gu Jiang, did not respond to several messages. Jiang has not testified at the foreign interference inquiry so far, either.
The RCMP has publicly confirmed launching several ongoing probes into possible foreign interference in Canadian elections but has not revealed details about specific targets or individual investigations.
Pretlove said he never saw any sign of foreign interference or irregularities in the Don Valley North nomination or general election soon afterward.
Nobody has questioned him about the source of the campaign’s donations either, he added.
“All expenses of the campaign are to be disclosed and all expenses were disclosed, as far as I am aware,” he said.
Pretlove said he has known Han Dong, a former Ontario MPP, for years.
They have been political allies since their early days working as staffers for different Ontario legislators at Queen’s Park.
Han Dong appears as a witness at the Public Inquiry Into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions in Ottawa on Tuesday, April 2, 2024.
Adrian Wyld/ THE CANADIAN PRESS
Dong has testified at the Commission of Inquiry Into Foreign Interference that he personally has not seen evidence of foreign interference in Canadian politics.
Foreign Interference Inquiry Commissioner Marie-Josee Hogue said in her initial report that Canada has classified intelligence holdings indicating there were irregularities in the Don Valley North Liberal nomination contest that may have helped Dong win and may have included activities undertaken by unidentified individuals close to People’s Republic of China officials.
The inquiry report did not include any findings that Dong was involved or knew about the possible foreign interference, but it did reference the MP’s testimony about a busload of foreign Chinese high school students he was told attended his nomination meeting.
Dong testified that he believed these students were from a student residence where he had recruited the foreign students but said he was unaware who had organized and paid for the bus.
Dong is suing Global News’ parent company, Corus Entertainment, over its foreign interference coverage, which helped trigger the commission of inquiry into foreign interference into the 2019 and 2021 Canadian elections.
