Who is Katie Telford, the top Trudeau aide set to testify on foreign ...

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s chief of staff, Katie Telford, is at the centre of a concerted Conservative attack on the Liberal government over questions about what the Liberals knew about foreign election interference, and how it dealt with that information.

The top Liberal aide is the subject of a Conservative motion tabled Monday, which, if passed Tuesday, would force Telford to testify at a parliamentary committee looking into allegations that the Chinese government interfered in Canada’s last two federal elections.

Earlier in the week, Liberals floated the idea of turning the motion into a confidence vote, which could have toppled the government and would have tested the strength of the supply-and-confidence deal between the minority Liberal government and the opposition NDP.

On Tuesday morning, however, Trudeau confirmed the motion would not be a confidence vote. Later in the morning, the prime minister’s office also released a statement saying Telford has agreed to appear as a witness before a separate House committee also investigating election meddling.

Ahead of Telford’s expected appearance in front of the committee, here’s what we know about the top Liberal staffer and how she is connected to the investigation into foreign interference.

Why do Conservatives want Telford to testify?

Conservative MPs have been pushing to have Telford, along with more than a dozen other individuals, share what they know about the alleged election meddling.

Alberta MP Michael Cooper said Telford is “a critical witness to get to the heart of the scandal.” He said she should be able to answer what Trudeau knows about Beijing’s attempts at meddling, when he learned about it and what he did about it.

For weeks, however, Liberals have filibustered the House procedure committee to prevent Telford from being summoned.

The growing controversy comes after a series of media reports alleging Trudeau ignored specific CSIS warnings about the Chinese government funding Canadian political candidates.

After increasing scrutiny last week, Trudeau announced he had appointed former Governor General David Johnston to probe the claims of election interference.

Who is Katie Telford?

Telford is a long-time Trudeau ally who was one of the key architects behind the Liberals’ sweeping victory in the 2015 federal election. A successful campaigner and a masterful political strategist, she also helped Trudeau win the Liberal leadership election in 2013 as campaign chief.

Telford’s interest in politics stretches back to her youth. At age 12, she worked as a page for several weeks in the Ontario legislature. Later, as a political science student at the University of Ottawa, Telford was an active member of the debate club. She was a two-time national semifinalist, going on to compete at the world championship debating event in Scotland.

Before her time on Trudeau’s team, Telford had spent about a decade in high-profile political roles. From 2004 to 2006, she was chief of staff to Gerard Kennedy, the former Ontario education minister in Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government. She later headed Kennedy’s unsuccessful bid in 2006 to lead the federal Grits.

Following the leadership election, Telford then worked as deputy chief of staff for the eventual Liberal leader, Stéphane Dion. Between working for Dion and Trudeau, Telford briefly moved to the private sector, working as a consultant at Strategy Corp. in Toronto.

As chief of staff, Telford was one of Trudeau’s closest advisers, along with former principal secretary Gerald Butts, who resigned after the demotion and the departure of Jody Wilson-Raybould from Trudeau’s cabinet. The two insiders were considered part of Trudeau’s inner circle and were often seen together with the prime minister.

Though Telford keeps a lower profile than Butts and has a shorter personal history with Trudeau — Butts and the prime minister were university friends — political pundits agree that she has played a formative role in shaping the government’s agenda and policies, including championing gender equity.

Has Telford testified at a House committee before?

This would not be the first time Telford has testified before a House committee following a scandal involving the Trudeau government.

In 2020, Telford and Trudeau testified at a parliamentary committee looking into the prime minister’s family ties to WE Charity, to which the Liberal government awarded a $544-million grant program.

A year later in 2021, she was summoned to answer questions about a 2018 allegation levelled against now-retired general Jonathan Vance. Telford repeatedly dodged questions about why she didn’t inform Trudeau about the allegation against Vance, which emails appear to show was a case of sexual misconduct. Vance later pled guilty to obstruction of justice.

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