Government reveals new alleged Chinese-backed misinformation campaign against Conservative MP Michael Chong
‘Most of the activity centred on spreading false narratives about his identity,’ government said in statement about social media campaign Author of the article: Ryan Tumilty Published Aug 09, 2023 •
Conservative member of Parliament Michael Chong, middle, was a witness at the Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Parliament Hill last month. Photo by Sean Kilpatrick /THE CANADIAN PRESS
OTTAWA — Conservative MP Michael Chong has once again become a target of what the federal government suspects is a targeted misinformation campaign backed by China.
Global Affairs Canada’s Rapid Response Mechanism, a program the government set up to track misinformation, identified the campaign against Chong happening on the social media app WeChat between May 4 and May 13, during recent federal byelection races. The byelections did not involve Chong directly, but his Conservative party did compete.
Global Affairs found a network of accounts spreading false or misleading information about Chong. It found a third of the accounts likely have some link to the Chinese government, while two-thirds of the accounts were anonymous and had not previously promoted news stories about Canadian politics.
The accounts also seemed to be co-ordinated, pushing the information out at roughly the same time, increasing the chance that WeChat users would see it.
“Most of the activity centred on spreading false narratives about his identity, including commentary and claims about his background, political stances and family heritage,” according to a statement from the government.
Chong released a statement and said this is a troubling incident and the Liberals should be calling an inquiry into foreign interference.
“This is another serious example of the communist government in Beijing attempting to interfere in our democracy by targeting elected officials,” he said.
Chong has also said he has informed CSIS about direct threats he has received that he believes are from the Chinese government.
Chong said he appreciates the government informing him promptly this time, instead of waiting two years as it did when he was last targeted. He said the government needs to address all of these issues more quickly.
“The Trudeau government has failed to take several important actions to protect Canadians and our democracy. They have failed to introduce a foreign influence registry for those being paid to act on behalf of hostile foreign governments. They have failed to give our intelligence and law enforcement agencies the resources and tools they need to do their jobs.”
Chong also advocated for the government to expel Zhao Wei, a Chinese diplomat accused of being involved in the operation targeting his family. The government eventually expelled Zhao in May, after months of calls from the opposition, including Chong, to take that step.
Chong said the government should be taking a closer look at other Chinese officials in Canada.
Stephanie Carvin, a former national security analyst with the Canadian government now a professor at Carleton University, said it’s possible Chong was targeted, despite not being a candidate in the byelections because China doesn’t have a good grasp of how Canadian democracy works. It could also be that this was simply a trial run by Beijing for a bigger election campaign, she said.
“We do know that states that do online foreign interference; like Russia, like Iran, like China, absolutely experiment and practice before they do larger-scale things,” she said.
In its statement, the government also noted that the actions targeting Chong would appear to be a violation of WeChat’s own terms of service, but it detected no indication WeChat took any steps to do anything.
WeChat was developed by a Chinese software company and is wildly popular in China where it operates under the name Weixin.
Brian Lee Crowley, founder the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a public policy think tank focused on Canadian national issues, has unpleasant things to say about China’s presence in Canada. Crowley pulls no punches in an article published this month by The Telegraph in the U.K.
‘Canada’s Secret Service Is Fighting A Hidden Civil War’
“The leaks reveal a China hell-bent on suborning Canadian institutions. The allegations include: charges of Chinese interference in elections at every level (federal, provincial and municipal), the existence of Chinese police stations operating with impunity on Canadian soil, the intimidation of Canadians and permanent residents of Chinese origin, and threats to the families of prominent Canadian politicians.”
A motherload of condemnation it is– from the foreign press. It’s Justin Trudeau’s good fortune that he has been successful in taking the anti-China wind out of media sails in Canada.
Stalling, excuses, futile appointments(David Johnson), obfuscation and delays. Government understand the methodology. Each time a piece of damnation bubbles to the political surface, drawing out conclusions for as long as possible is the remedy. Part of which is preventing articles like Crowley’s from penetrating the consciousness of Canadian society.
This man is no conspiracy theory-pushing flake. He holds degrees from McGill and the London School of Economics, including a doctorate in political economy from the latter. His doctoral thesis focused on F.A. Hayek’s social and political philosophy and was published by the Oxford University Press.
“This civil war doesn’t pit Quebec nationalists against English Canada, but centres instead on China.”
“For decades Canada’s national security establishment has sounded the alarm about foreign authoritarian interference. Their dire warnings were ignored.”
By the Liberal Party of Canada, that is. And why not? It’s a reciprocal relationship. The government of China prop-up Justin Trudeau, and in return receive open doors for communist infiltration of Canadian society.
Think this to be a paranoid delusion? Is it not a fact that ex-Liberal PM Pierre Trudeau was a communist enthusiast who opened the doors for China to waltz into Canada, impacting everything from mineral resources to public education.
Sam Cooper is a Canadian investigative journalist and best-selling author, best known for his coverage of Canada-China relations. In a recent article, Cooper writes:
“Based on recent information from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), those efforts allegedly involve payments through intermediaries to candidates affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
“Placing agents into the offices of MPs in order to influence policy, seeking to co-opt and corrupt former Canadian officials to gain leverage in Ottawa, and mounting aggressive campaigns to punish Canadian politicians whom the People’s Republic of China (PRC) views as threats to its interests.”
And still we wait in silence. In an authentic democratic society, inclusive of media independence, these developments would bring down the ruling government.
The fact that it isn’t happening tells us that Canada is no longer an authentic democracy. Adding to the absurdity is the fact that Trudeau’s Liberals are more concerned about uncovering and punishing those who leaked the information than preventing China’s infiltration of our federal political arena.
It’s a surreal experience not once alluded to by mainstream media. Their job has transitioned away from objective news reporting. As financed by the Feds, the role is monolithic in intent: to preserve Justin Trudeau’s pseudo-dictatorship indefinitely. If and when a replacement is appointed, CBC and corporate media will back that candidate.
On the opposite side of the political spectrum is the Conservative Party. Media’s goal here is equally one-dimensional. No matter who leads the party, depict that individual as “right-wing,” racist and homophobic. Crush their potential for victory at all costs.
All of which fits into the pro-China bag that government, media and academia currently work out of. It should come as no surprise that our government is today chock full of China-apologists.
One of them is Senator Yuen Pau Woo, arguably Canada’s greatest China-pusher, appointed to the Senate by PM Trudeau in 2016. Another goes back to the days of Conservative PM Stephen Harper.
Senator Victor Oh, Vice-Chair of the Canada-China Legislative Association, thinks that our China-detractors are serious meanies.
In a video posted to WeChat, Senator Oh spoke about the “need to raise money to cover costs for [people affected] by all of these unreasonable reporters who try to smear Chinese and discredit Chinese.”
Commonly known as the “race card,” we witness how the China-lovers conflate the issues to arrive at a favourite hobby indulged in by Justin Trudeau and his motley crew of neo-communists.
It’s “racism”– end of story. Senators Victor Oh and Yuen Pau Woo wish it was. Likely, they will get all they ask for. The Chinese interference will eventually blow over. Until this is achieved, no federal election will be called.
Upon which we leap to the Mount Everest of foreign infiltration in Canadian society:
Did the government of China win the past federal election for Justin Trudeau?
According to a series of reports in the Globe and Mail newspaper and by Global News, CSIS intelligence sources, “China provided secret funding through its Toronto consulate to 11 candidates who ran in the 2019 federal election.”
The popular vote was won by the Conservative Party, meaning that 11 ridings may have been enough to seal the deal for Trudeau’s Liberals. Media breathe not a word about the possibility.
Is China in charge, or what? It’s the $8,888,888 million dollar question which, more than likely, won’t be answered for decades, if ever.
Justin Trudeau empowers China, damages democracy, and because of media, gets away with it. Isn’t post-modern Canada just the greatest thing?
Red Chinese Diplomat in Canada Threatens Tory MP’s Relatives in China — Trudeau Does Nothing
Conservative MP Michael Chong says feds did not brief him on alleged threats to his family in China China sanctioned Chong in 2021, barring him from entering the county and prohibiting Chinese citizens from conducting business with him Author of the article: The Canadian Press Published May 01, 2023 • Last updated 1 day ago • 1 minute read 102 Comments FILE: Conservative foreign-affairs critic Michael Chong rises during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Monday, Feb. 13, 2023. Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Patrick Doyle
Conservative member of Parliament Michael Chong says Ottawa should have informed him about potential threats to his family made by China’s government. Chong released a statement after the Globe and Mail reported, citing a top-secret document and an anonymous national security source, that China’s intelligence service sought to target the MP and his family. The former cabinet minister currently serves as the Tories’ foreign-affairs critic and routinely criticizes the regime in Beijing for its human-rights record and its alleged attempts to meddle in Canada’s affairs. Chong says in a statement today that like other Canadians, he has family overseas — and any attempts to threaten them in an attempt to intimidate or coerce people in Canada constitutes a national threat. Chong says the Canadian Security Intelligence Service never briefed him about any threats made against him or his family, adding he believes that is because Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office did not authorize such a warning.
[ Sources told the Globe that the MP is Conservative Michael Chong and that the diplomat in Canada handling the file, Zhao Wei, is still accredited to work in this country.] (National Post, May 2, 2023) Trudeau’s office and the security agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment and The Canadian Press has not independently verified the allegations published in the Globe and Mail. China sanctioned Chong in 2021, barring him from entering the county and prohibiting Chinese citizens from conducting business with him. — This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 1, 2
The Conservatives are crying foul over the appointment of former Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation president and CEO Morris Rosenberg to head up a panel examining foreign interference in Canadian elections.
Rosenberg was CEO in 2016 when the Trudeau Foundation received $200,000 in donations from Zhang Bin, a wealthy Chinese businessman tied to the Chinese communist regime, who was also in attendance at a Liberal Party cash-for-access fundraiser event in 2016 with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The Conservatives issued a statement on the matter late on Feb. 27, just before a Globe and Mail report the following day citing an unnamed national security source saying that in 2014, a Chinese diplomat had instructed Zhang to donate $1 million to the Trudeau Foundation, and that Beijing would reimburse him for the amount.
The source told the Globe that the conversation was captured by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) in 2014, soon after Trudeau became Liberal leader in 2013. According to the Globe, the source said the diplomat and Zhang discussed the upcoming 2015 federal election, and the possibility that the Liberals could defeat the Conservatives to form government.
Shortly after the 2016 fundraiser, Zhang and another Chinese businessman donated $1 million to “honour the memory and leadership” of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, the Globe says. Of that amount, $200,000 went to the Trudeau Foundation, $50,000 toward the building of a statue of Pierre Trudeau, and $75,000 to the University of Montreal’s faculty of law, where the former prime minister had attended as a student and was later an instructor.
Panel
The Conservatives allege Trudeau handpicked Rosenberg, who is described by the Trudeau Foundation as “a previously appointed Trudeau mentor,” to write a report on foreign interference in the 2021 election.
The development comes following recent reporting based on leaked intelligence documents that China interfered in elections with the goal of electing a Liberal minority government, while obstructing some Conservative candidates.
“For months, Justin Trudeau has repeatedly attempted to deny, minimize and cover up reports of serious interference in Canadian elections,” says the Feb. 27 Conservative Party statement. “Serious questions must be asked about this appointment, and whether the Liberals are actually taking this threat against our democracy seriously.”
When tweeting the release, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre commented: “Trudeau says we shouldn’t worry about Beijing’s interference in our [elections] because he is having a report drafted on foreign interference. Who drafted it? The former head of the Trudeau Foundation—which got $200k in donations from … an official from Beijing’s communist government.”
Neither Rosenberg nor the Prime Minister’s Office replied to Epoch Times requests for comment.
Rosenberg, a former deputy minister of foreign affairs, served as president and CEO of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation from August 2014 to July 2018.
Liberal MP Mark Gerretsen, parliamentary secretary for the leader of the government in the House of Commons, said on Twitter that Poilievre is “playing a very dangerous game here.”
“To take partisan cheap shots at a dedicated public servant is truly irresponsible,” Gerretsen said on Feb. 27. “Morris Rosenberg has faithfully served Canadian (sic) for many years, including under Conservative governments.”
Rosenberg’s report on incidents of foreign interference in the 2021 election is now complete but is not yet available to the public, while the 2019 evaluation was completed about 13 months after the election that year. The panel didn’t make any announcement about foreign interference during the 2019 or 2021 elections.
CCP Ties
Zhang Bin was a member of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a political advisory body within the Chinese communist regime. He was also president of the China Cultural Industry Association (CCIA).
According to the CCIA’s English website, the organization is “empowered to develop China’s cultural industry, to boost the soft power of Chinese culture and advance the campaign of going global of [sic] Chinese culture, while striving to become a social organization with global standing in the cultural field.”
The Epoch Times contacted Zhang for comment but didn’t hear back.
China’s Election Interference
Recent reports by the Globe and Mail and Global News cited secret CSIS documents and intelligence sources detailing widespread election interference by China in Canada’s 2019 and 2021 federal elections.
Among the allegations are that Beijing provided funding to some candidates in the 2019 election; a Chinese diplomat boasting that she helped defeat two Conservative candidates whose positions weren’t favourable to Beijing in the 2021 election; and Chinese authorities wanting the outcome of the 2021 election to be a Liberal minority. A Liberal minority government would best serve Beijing’s interests, while keeping the Liberals’ power in check by opposition parties, a source told the Globe.
The Commons Procedure and House Affairs Committee is currently looking into the allegations in the news reports.
The Conservatives said they will be calling for a separate investigation, and for Rosenberg to appear before the committee to provide “answers on this attempt by the Liberals to paper over serious threats to our democracy.”
“Since the 1970s, there have been important political and economic pro-China vectors emanating out of Montreal and Ottawa.” byBrad Salzberg
“What in the world, you might be asking, is up with Canada? How did a country famed for its sensible, moderate attitudes and customs transform itself into the front rank of the woke phalanx?”
Who better than Dr. Jordan Peterson to pose this question to the people of Canada?It is of little surprise that such frank critique of PM Justin Trudeau should appear only within a non-Canadian media publication. By now, most Canadians would have recognized that citizens of our country are being subjected to a “woke media vacuum” within our dying democracy.“Canada, according to Trudeau, is a vacancy, bereft of civil history; a nothing place, waiting to be filled in. But nature abhors a vacuum, and that emptiness cries out to be filled. And who shall guide the infilling? Well obviously, Trudeau himself, along with his mentors and minions,” says Dr. Peterson. Absolutely correct. Early in his tenure, a specious Justin Trudeau blessed Canada with a piece of neo-communist ideology. His claim that our country is a nation with “no core identity” has opened the door for the next phase of our national state-of-being.Media won’t allude to it, but the words which Peterson speaks has set the stage for a post-modern brand of authoritarian governance in Canada.
Like presumed father Pierre Trudeau, PM Justin’s political cognition is firmly rooted in communist ideology.On this basis, no living Canadian should be surprised that Mr. Trudeau has put the kibosh on a formal inquiry into a CSIS report confirming interference from the government of China in the past two federal elections.‘Trudeau Rules Out Public Inquiry Into Chinese Electoral Interference,’ reads a headline this week in the Globe and Mail. No one should be surprised by the pronouncement.Legacy media has been doing all they can to provide damage control. PM Trudeau “knew about the interference, and warned Parliament accordingly.““The interference is damaging to Canadian democracy and related institutions,” reads the scroll of damage control.All the while eschewing a central fact within Canada’s political narrative: there is no human being on earth more responsible for a deterioration of freedom, democracy and the rule of law in Canada than Justin Trudeau.
Upon which Cultural Action Party repeat our well-worn mantra: The Liberal Party of Canada and the communist government of China have maintained a tacit form of partnership for the past 50-years. Beginning with former Liberal PM Pierre Trudeau in the early 1970’s, China’s path to power within our society is the most overlooked political story of our times.“In U.S. backyard: How China Embedded Itself In Canada”“
Since the 1970s, there have been important political and economic pro-China vectors emanating out of Montreal and Ottawa. Since then, that have broadened to influential pro-Beijing groups across Canada.”Extent to which this information has been disseminated within Canadian media? Blink, and you missed it– because it has never occurred.“Pierre Trudeau made no secret of his sympathies for communist leaders like Fidel Castro, and by the time he was elected Prime Minister, he had already visited China twice. He was there in 1949, the year the Communists took power, and then again on an official visit in 1960, when he was a labour lawyer. On the 1960s visit, he met Chairman Mao. After which CAP delve into an area intentionally hidden from mainstream society.
Quebec-centric power-players– of which the Trudeau family belong– have been responsible for the Liberal Party link to the communist government of China.In 1978 came the establishment of the Canada China Business Council. Founding members of CCBC included three major Montreal-based companies, Power Corporation,Bombardier, and SNC Lavalin.“For three generations, Power Corp. has been largely run by the Desmarais family. Paul Desmarais was the first generation. He had been an advisor to Pierre Trudeau, and later Trudeau was on the board of Power Corp. Paul’s son married the daughter of former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. Their son, Paul’s grandson, is the current Chair of the Canada China Business Council.”There you have it. The roots of Justin Trudeau’s refusal to drill-down on China’s election interference.
Degree of exposure from Canadian media totals zero– a proverbial goose egg,Conveniently omitted from the Liberal-China narrative is another salient fact. The Conservative Party of Canada won the popular vote in the last federal election. Meaning that it is possible that the 11 MP seats bribed by China’s government could have won the election for the Conservatives.
Did China win the 2021 election for Justin Trudeau? It’s darn well possible–the very reason why the Liberals are leveraging the billions paid to establishment media to obfuscative the election interference.The government of China know their business. With or without the right to vote, Chinese government leader know all about maintaining long-term governance. Decade after decade, the same power structure exists to control for the purpose of controlling public behaviour, and muting all forms of push-back against government leaders.
CBC won’t tell you, and Toronto Star won’t print it, but the very same structure is currently in place in Canada. The goal is singular: the Liberals are to be Canada’s government-for-life. Utilizing China’s methodology of media control, the Liberal Party has transitioned to Canada’s first neo-communist government. To be followed, in due time, by the real thing.
CSIS documents show China warned ‘Canadian friends’ of foreign-interference investigations
The Globe and Mail (Ontario Edition)
18 Feb 2023
ROBERT FIFE STEVEN CHASE With a report from Carrie Tait in Calgary.
CSIS reports show that Chinese influence included disinformation campaigns, undeclared cash donations and utilizing international students for voting.
Trudeau says he expects an investigation into the source of leaks to Globe, denies Beijing’s interference in elections
Chinese diplomats quietly issued warnings to “friendly” influential Canadians in early 2022, advising them to reduce their contact with federal politicians to avoid being caught up in foreign-interference investigations by Canada’s spy agency.
Secret and top-secret Canadian Security Intelligence Service documents viewed by The Globe and Mail reveal how China sought to protect its network of “Canadian friends” – a community it relies on to build relations, influence and covertly gather information from MPs and senators.
The Globe reported Friday how China employed a sophisticated strategy to seek the return of a minority Liberal government and to defeat Conservative politicians considered to be unfriendly to Beijing in the 2021 federal election.
The tactics, outlined in secret CSIS reports, included disinformation campaigns, undeclared cash donations and the use of international Chinese students, studying in Canada, as campaign volunteers to support preferred Liberal candidates.
The classified documents show that Chinese influence operations went beyond election interference, employing tactics to target Canadian legislators and sway public opinion through proxies in the business and academic communities.
In response to The Globe story, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters at a Friday news conference that he expects CSIS to find out who is leaking the secret reports, and stuck to his long-held view that Chinese interference operations did not affect the overall results of the 2019 and 2021 elections.
“It’s certainly a sign that security within CSIS needs to be reviewed. And I’m expecting CSIS to take the issue very seriously,” Mr. Trudeau said.
MPs on the Commons Procedure and House Affairs committee are already looking into allegations that China interfered in the 2019 campaign. Opposition parties want the committee to return from a scheduled two-week break on Wednesday to hold hearings on The Globe’s report concerning the 2021 election.
As for foreign interference in federal elections, the Prime Minister played down reports of Chinese state meddling. The CSIS report talked of how China’s former consul-general in Vancouver, Tong Xiaoling, boasted in 2021 about how she helped defeat two Conservative MPs.
“The fact that a Chinese diplomat would try to take credit for things that happened is not something that is unseen in diplomatic circles around the world,” Mr. Trudeau said.
He said a task force of civil servants in Ottawa is keeping Canada’s election results safe from foreign interference. “Canadians can have total confidence that the outcomes of the 2019 and the 2021 elections were determined by Canadians and Canadians alone at the voting booth.”
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre accused Mr. Trudeau of “covering up the interference of the authoritarian regime” in China. “He is perfectly happy to let a foreign authoritarian government interfere in our elections as long as they’re helping him,” he said in Calgary.
The highly classified information about China’s strategy of recruiting business executives, university professors and researchers were shared with senior Canadian government officials and Canada’s Fives Eyes intelligence allies: the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. The CSIS reports were also shared with German, French, Dutch and Swedish spy services.
In a Jan. 15, 2022, intelligence report, CSIS said China had learned that the spy agency for the first time was warning individual MPs and senators from all major parties about influence operations being carried out by Beijing. That set in motion an effort by Chinese diplomats to close down foreign-interference operations directed at elected officials in Ottawa.
“[People’s Republic of China] officials believe that CSIS is conducting investigations into Chinese foreign interference in Canada, resulting in officials considering that it is more prudent for “Canadian friends” to cease contacts with MPs for the time being,” the report said. “PRC officials will simply need to provide an ambiguous warning to the ‘Canadian friends’ in order for the latter to grasp the situation.”
The documents do not identify the Canadian business executives, academics or researchers.
CSIS has become increasingly alarmed about efforts by China and its agents of influence to covertly cultivate relations with elected officials to gain sway over parliamentary debates and government decision-making. The spy service had asked MPs to alert them of any suspicious activity, and provided the politicians with names and contact information of CSIS agents whom they can contact to pass on information.
Canadian friends were described by CSIS as non-ethnic-Chinese individuals who maintain relations with PRC officials in Canada and have close ties with federal politicians in the Liberal, Conservative and New Democratic parties. CSIS said the warning from China was not sent to Chinese-Canadians who were close to MPs as “PRC officials are very well acquainted with those individuals,” the report said.
Of particular concern to Beijing was CSIS’s new focus of trying to put pressure on Canadian universities and researchers from collaborating with China on leading-edge science and technology projects. The report said one Chinese diplomat in Canada said CSIS was “unnecessarily investigating PRC-focused academics” and said PRC officials should warn these academics about the investigations.
In 2021, Ottawa put in place stricter guidelines to require national-security reviews for academics seeking federal funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC). But that did not apply to other federal funding bodies.
Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne extended the ban to all federal granting agencies after The Globe revealed late last month that 50 Canadian universities had been collaborating with China’s National University of Defence Technology since 2005. Mr. Champagne announced on Tuesday that Ottawa would no longer fund research with Chinese military or state security institutions. He also urged Canadian universities to adopt the same stringent national-security measures.
China’s consulate-general in Vancouver accused The Globe of smearing and discrediting China. “The Chinese side has made it clear on many occasions that China has always adhered to the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries, and has never interfered in any Canadian election or internal affairs in any way,” said a statement on its website.
Walied Soliman, who served as the co-chair of the 2021 Conservative election campaign, said on Twitter Friday that the federal government’s Security and Intelligence Threats To Elections (SITE) task force did not take his party’s concerns about foreign interference seriously.
“Our party was seeing clear signs of tampering in ridings with substantial Chinese diasporas,” he said. “We were met with shrugged shoulders and complete ambivalence. It was truly unreal,” he said.
Andy Ellis, former CSIS assistant director of operations, said Ottawa should have expelled the Chinese diplomats behind the election interference operations even if it meant a tit-for-tat response from Beijing.
“There certainly should have been very, very serious consideration given to declaring them persona non grata,” Mr. Ellis said. “Making a hard judgment to say what is worse losing a diplomat in Beijing in retaliation for this or getting rid of someone who is disrupting Canadian elections.”
Mr. Poilievre called on the federal government to set up a foreign-agent registry that would keep track of all people paid to influence Canadian governments on behalf of foreign countries.
Mr. Trudeau declined to answer a question on whether Ottawa would proceed to set up a registry such as exist in Australia and the United States.
David Mulroney, a former Canadian ambassador to China with a diplomatic career stretching back more than 30 years, said The Globe’s reporting on China’s efforts to influence the 2021 election underscores the need to shine a light on those working for foreign states.
“These revelations make clear the extent to which China uses proxies to deliver its influence campaigns,” he said. The Canadian government “needs to move from musing about a registry of foreign agents to actually establishing one. And the sooner the better.”
He said a registry would make a difference.
“Simply announcing that we are going to require individuals to be transparent about disbursing funds for, lobbying for, or speaking for a foreign state would put China on notice,” he said.
“Much of Beijing’s interference effort in Canada is delivered through individuals who are paid to do those things by Chinese officials. Canadians need to know who’s pulling the strings and cutting the cheques.”
Chinese police stations indication of wider ‘bullying, intimidation’ tactics, experts say
A counter-intelligence expert says CSIS has known about foreign interference from China for decades
Christina (Hwa Song) Jung · CBC News · Posted: Dec 20, 2022 5:00 AM PT | Last Updated: December 20, 2022
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he raised the issue of interference with Chinese President Xi Jinping at last month’s G20 summit in Indonesia. (Prime Minister’s Office)
As allegations of five Chinese police stations located in Canada, including one in Vancouver, B.C., raise concerns of political interference, experts say the role of Chinese intelligence is far more widespread.
Earlier this month, a friendship society in Richmond was visited by RCMP officers after the Spanish human rights groups Safeguard Defenders published a report alleging that Chinese “police service stations” were operating in Canada, including one in Vancouver.
The group alleges the stations are operated out of four jurisdictions in China and are involved in “persuasion to return” operations, where nationals suspected of committing crimes are asked to return to China to face criminal proceedings.
“Former state functionaries that have been accused of bribery or corruption after a changing of the guards … have been telling us about these stations and undercover police officers from China as early as 2017,” Warda Shazadi Meighen, an immigration and refugee lawyer, told CBC News.
The Chinese Embassy has previously described the offices as volunteer-run service stations to process things like driver’s licences, which Meighen says is “a little bit suspicious” as passport and licence renewals are typically performed by embassies and consulates aboard.
“I’m aware of human rights defenders or dissidents or Fallon Gong practitioners [being] targeted through these security offices,” she said.
“Sometimes they’ll get messages on WeChat, which is a Chinese version of WhatsApp … to come to a certain location or they’ll start being followed by people.”
Criminal code law needed
Michel Juneau-Katsuya, a former senior intelligence expert and chief of Asia Pacific for CSIS, says more government intervention and foreign laws are needed to stop these types of foreign interference or intimidation techniques, which he says have been going on for a long time.
“We have been monitoring our foreign interference from the Chinese government for decades,” Katsuya said, adding that these stations are a symbol of much wider activities.
“But the problem we are currently facing is that … we don’t have the tools. What the criminal [and civil] codes offer currently are things like arrest [and] defamation, but it’s not enough.”
WATCH | Counter-intelligence expert explains how information is gathered by Chinese agencies:
Former senior intelligence officer provides explanation on how information is gathered by the Chinese government.
22 days agoDuration 0:47Michel Juneau-Katsuya, the former chief of Asia Pacific for CSIS says there’s a difference between how government officials in the West and China gather information.
He claims the alleged service stations are set up to control the Chinese Canadian community through “bullying and intimidation.”
“Basically, what we are talking about is literally having agents of influence bring messages, intimidate people, directly follow people, take pictures or spread rumours on their social media.”
Yiping Li said he moved to Vancouver as a refugee from Hong Kong in 1997 and believes he was a target of the Chinese government for his campaigns and social media messages advocating for minority rights in China.
“I got threats all the time from online and from my social media. They published my home address, my phone number and my mom’s phone number and asked everybody to phone me.”
Li says he believes he’s still being targeted by the Chinese government. (Submitted by Yiping Li)
Li lived in Vancouver for 20 years before moving out east, he said, but still experiences people following him or watching him.
“Just a month ago … I saw a guy parked in his SUV outside my house taking pictures.”
wHAT
Chinese police stations indication of wider ‘bullying, intimidation’ tactics, experts say
A counter-intelligence expert says CSIS has known about foreign interference from China for decades
Christina (Hwa Song) Jung · CBC News · Posted: Dec 20, 2022 5:00 AM PT | Last Updated: December 20, 2022
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he raised the issue of interference with Chinese President Xi Jinping at last month’s G20 summit in Indonesia. (Prime Minister’s Office)
As allegations of five Chinese police stations located in Canada, including one in Vancouver, B.C., raise concerns of political interference, experts say the role of Chinese intelligence is far more widespread.
Earlier this month, a friendship society in Richmond was visited by RCMP officers after the Spanish human rights groups Safeguard Defenders published a report alleging that Chinese “police service stations” were operating in Canada, including one in Vancouver.
The group alleges the stations are operated out of four jurisdictions in China and are involved in “persuasion to return” operations, where nationals suspected of committing crimes are asked to return to China to face criminal proceedings.
“Former state functionaries that have been accused of bribery or corruption after a changing of the guards … have been telling us about these stations and undercover police officers from China as early as 2017,” Warda Shazadi Meighen, an immigration and refugee lawyer, told CBC News.
The Chinese Embassy has previously described the offices as volunteer-run service stations to process things like driver’s licences, which Meighen says is “a little bit suspicious” as passport and licence renewals are typically performed by embassies and consulates aboard.
“I’m aware of human rights defenders or dissidents or Fallon Gong practitioners [being] targeted through these security offices,” she said.
“Sometimes they’ll get messages on WeChat, which is a Chinese version of WhatsApp … to come to a certain location or they’ll start being followed by people.”
Criminal code law needed
Michel Juneau-Katsuya, a former senior intelligence expert and chief of Asia Pacific for CSIS, says more government intervention and foreign laws are needed to stop these types of foreign interference or intimidation techniques, which he says have been going on for a long time.
“We have been monitoring our foreign interference from the Chinese government for decades,” Katsuya said, adding that these stations are a symbol of much wider activities.
“But the problem we are currently facing is that … we don’t have the tools. What the criminal [and civil] codes offer currently are things like arrest [and] defamation, but it’s not enough.”
WATCH | Counter-intelligence expert explains how information is gathered by Chinese agencies:
Former senior intelligence officer provides explanation on how information is gathered by the Chinese government.
22 days agoDuration 0:47Michel Juneau-Katsuya, the former chief of Asia Pacific for CSIS says there’s a difference between how government officials in the West and China gather information.
He claims the alleged service stations are set up to control the Chinese Canadian community through “bullying and intimidation.”
“Basically, what we are talking about is literally having agents of influence bring messages, intimidate people, directly follow people, take pictures or spread rumours on their social media.”
Yiping Li said he moved to Vancouver as a refugee from Hong Kong in 1997 and believes he was a target of the Chinese government for his campaigns and social media messages advocating for minority rights in China.
“I got threats all the time from online and from my social media. They published my home address, my phone number and my mom’s phone number and asked everybody to phone me.”
Li says he believes he’s still being targeted by the Chinese government. (Submitted by Yiping Li)
Li lived in Vancouver for 20 years before moving out east, he said, but still experiences people following him or watching him.
“Just a month ago … I saw a guy parked in his SUV outside my house taking pictures.”
Canadian intelligence warned PM Trudeau that China covertly funded 2019 election candidates: Sources
By Sam Cooper Global News Published November 7, 2022 11 min read
WATCH: How China allegedly interfered in the 2019 Canadian election – Nov 7, 2022
Canadian intelligence officials have warned Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that China has allegedly been targeting Canada with a vast campaign of foreign interference, which includes funding a clandestine network of at least 11 federal candidates running in the 2019 election, according to Global News sources.
Delivered to the prime minister and several cabinet members in a series of briefings and memos first presented in January, the allegations included other detailed examples of Beijing’s efforts to further its influence and, in turn, subvert Canada’s democratic process, sources said.
Based on recent information from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), those efforts allegedly involve payments through intermediaries to candidates affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), placing agents into the offices of MPs in order to influence policy, seeking to co-opt and corrupt former Canadian officials to gain leverage in Ottawa, and mounting aggressive campaigns to punish Canadian politicians whom the People’s Republic of China (PRC) views as threats to its interests.
CSIS told Global News it could not answer some questions for this story. But the service confirmed it has identified the PRC’s foreign interference in Canada, which can include covert funding to influence election outcomes.
“The Chinese Communist Party … is using all elements of state power to carry out activities that are a direct threat to our national security and sovereignty,” CSIS stated.
The briefings did not identify the 2019 candidates. But the alleged election interference network included members from both the Liberal and Conservative parties, according to sources with knowledge of the briefs.
Global News was not able to confirm from the sources which cabinet ministers may have been privy to the briefs nor the specific timing that the information was reportedly shared. 2:21 Canada ‘creating new tools’ to protect institutions against China, others seeking to influence elections
Chief among the allegations is that CSIS reported that China’s Toronto consulate directed a large clandestine transfer of funds to a network of at least eleven federal election candidates and numerous Beijing operatives who worked as their campaign staffers. Advertisement
The funds were allegedly transferred through an Ontario provincial MPP and a federal election candidate staffer. Separate sources aware of the situation said a CCP proxy group, acting as an intermediary, transferred around $250,000.
The 2022 briefs said that some, but not all, members of the alleged network are witting affiliates of the Chinese Communist Party.The intelligence did not conclude whether CSIS believes the network successfully influenced the October 2019 election results, sources say.
CSIS can capture its findings through warrants that allow electronic interception of communications among Chinese consulate officials and Canadian politicians and staffers.
Sources close to this situation say they are revealing details from the 2022 briefs to give Canadians a clearer understanding of China’s attacks on Canada’s democratic system. Out of fear of retribution, they have asked their names be withheld.
In response to the briefing details, experts say the alleged interference points to weakness in Canada’s outdated espionage and counterintelligence laws, which sophisticated interference networks run by China, Russia and Iran are exploiting.
Still, the 2022 intelligence asserts that China conducts more foreign interference than any other nation, and interference threats to Canada increased in 2015 when Chinese president Xi Jinping elevated the CCP’s so-called United Front influence networks abroad.
The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) did not directly answer a series of questions from Global News, including whether or not Prime Minister Trudeau was briefed in 2022 on Canadian intelligence that alleged China had covertly funded a clandestine network of candidates in the 2019 election.
It also did not respond to a question on the need for tighter federal rules against foreign influence on Canadian politics.
“Protecting Canadians’ security is our top priority. Threats, harassment, or intimidation of Canadian citizens are unacceptable, and all allegations of interference are investigated thoroughly by our security agencies,” a statement from the PMO said. “As threats evolve, so must the methods used to address them. That is why the Prime Minister has given the Minister of Public Safety the mandate to improve collaboration between Canadian security agencies.”
Conservative Party leadership did not respond to Global News questions by deadline for this story. 0:37 China responds to Trudeau, Global News investigation, says it has no interest in ‘Canada’s internal affairs’
“We simply don’t have a prosecutorial end game to deal with foreign interference,” said Dan Stanton, a former CSIS officer who studies Chinese interference, but isn’t privy to recent CSIS reporting. “The sophistication of the threat: it is not the guy with the fedora and black coat, like the old days with the KGB. The whole point of influence networks is that anyone can be used by a foreign state as a co-optee, or agent, or source.”
Stanton and other experts told Global News that CSIS benefits from modernized counter-terror laws that have enabled the service to mitigate terror planning and funding networks since 9/11, but Canada’s espionage laws are stuck in the Cold War era.
“So, until we make legislative changes on interference,” Stanton said, “it’s just CSIS telling our politicians, ‘Hey, be careful out there.’”
In April 2021, a private members bill in the House of Commons called for a foreign influence registry, but it did not become law.
Kenny Chiu, the B.C. Conservative MP who wrote the bill, was subsequently targeted by the CCP’s election interference network, sources said. Chiu says his law would have compelled anyone working for hostile regimes, such as Russia and Iran and China, to declare their interests, and this transparency would protect Canada’s democracy.
The Toronto Consulate and Chinese officials in Ottawa did not respond to questions from Global News about allegations in the 2022 briefs.
Money and influence
Interference on Canadian soil is orchestrated by the CCP’s powerful United Front Work Department, which mobilizes large sections of society abroad to fulfill Chinese Communist Party objectives, according to the 2022 briefs.
United Front operations can include politicians, media, business, student and community groups, and are aimed at consolidating support for CCP policy as well as targeting critics and the causes of ethnic groups seen as “poisons” by the CCP, such as Uyghurs and Tibetans.
Several federal candidates from Canada’s 2019 federal election met with China-based United Front Work Department officials, the intelligence alleges, but did not identify the politicians. Advertisement
While Xi’s United Front is not itself an espionage agency, intelligence briefs allege its networks in Canada facilitate interference operations by China’s foreign espionage service, the Ministry of State Security.
The briefs also reported that Xi’s United Front operates through Chinese consulates in Canada, from which officials direct funds into Canada’s political system, using CCP proxies.
The CSIS briefs also point to the 2014 imbroglio over Toronto District School Board’s partnership with the Confucius Institute, China’s controversial state-funded, culture-education program. Many parents, teachers and students opposed the involvement of these schools, which are guided by the United Front Work Department, according to the U.S. State Department.
According to the briefs, the Toronto Chinese Consulate allegedly transferred $1 million to unidentified proxy groups, which in turn organized protests to support the continued integration of the program into Toronto’s district school board system. That effort ultimately failed when the TDSB voted to sever its ties to the organization.
But China’s alleged United Front campaigns extend beyond financing to the co-opting of politicians and harassment of critics.
One of the more dramatic allegations from the briefs pertained to a pivotal February 2021 vote in the House of Commons, in which members would either support or reject a United Nations resolution declaring China’s treatment of the Uyghur people a genocide.
The intelligence also alleges that, in the aftermath of the House vote, Chinese intelligence agents conducted in-depth background research into MPs who voted in favour of the resolution, declaring China guilty of genocide.
The agents studied the ridings of specific, targeted MPs in order to learn what industries and companies were present and whether these companies had economic links to China.
The objective was to judge whether China could leverage the local economies of Canadian politicians seen as the CCP’s enemies, sources said.
In addition, it was alleged that before the September 2021 federal election, a small number of MPs reported they feared for their families and their reputations and believed they were being targeted in operations to hurt their election chances.
One of the MPs whom the CCP allegedly targeted, MP Kenny Chiu, said he believes Chinese agents succeeded in smearing him as a racist in WeChat and Mandarin-language media reports. As the member from Steveston-Richmond, Chiu had advocated for transparent elections in Hong Kong, voted in favour of declaring China’s actions in Xinjiang a genocide, and tabled his April 2021 bill calling for a foreign influence registry.
“The CCP didn’t have to send me a death threat, they just tried to kill my political career,” Chiu said in an interview.
“So ahead of the 2021 election, I was given a distancing treatment by Chinese-language media. And during the campaign people were shutting the door in my face. The messages I was getting were, ‘Kenny Chiu is a racist. Kenny is Anti-Asian.’”
Some pundits, however, argued that Chiu swung his riding for the Conservatives in 2019 and the riding simply reverted to the Liberals two years later.
Chinese intelligence in the field
The 2022 briefs alleged that one official in Toronto’s Chinese Consulate directed a 2019 federal election-campaign staffer to control and monitor their candidates’ meetings. These efforts included preventing meetings with representatives of Taiwan, a democratic country that Beijing claims is a renegade province.
This kind of interference extends to elected officials as well, according to the briefs, which referred to instances in which clandestine operatives were placed alongside elected officials in an attempt to control the policy choices of federal MPs.
“I’m not surprised at all,” said Harry Tseng, Taiwan’s deputy minister of foreign affairs and top diplomat in Ottawa. “This type of activity is directed from Beijing in many consulates abroad. I think China can be that coercive because they have a very comprehensive list of Canadian politicians.
And when they can find a connection to China, they can pull a string to influence the Canadians.”
The 2022 briefs also detailed Chinese intelligence efforts to infiltrate, surveil and “mess with” Chinese diaspora communities.
Fenella Sung, a Hong Kong Canadian community leader in Vancouver, said she has long believed that Chinese intelligence has infiltrated Canadian diaspora groups, by using business inducements and “subtle psychological warfare.”
She also believes that China’s United Front controls and funds an “interchangeable” network of candidates and nominations in some British Columbia and Ontario ridings.
Turnisa Matsedik-Qira, a Uyghur-Canadian activist, said many in her community believe Chinese agents monitored and harassed them. She provided photos from her December 2021 Facebook posting that showed one alleged incident. In the post, Matsedik-Qira says she was protesting outside the Chinese Consulate in Vancouver when a van pulled up, and two men jumped out. Advertisement
“One of them spit on me and said, “I wish all your people died,” she said.
“I’m scared and worried for my safety. I think he is connected to the Chinese Consulate, for sure. The Consulate has many people in Canada working for China.”
Coerced Repatriations
The 2022 briefs also shed light on the PRC’s so-called Fox Hunt, a high-profile international campaign in President Xi’s efforts to battle corruption and persuade economic fugitives to return to China.
National security experts argue the Fox Hunt is less about battling corruption and more about the CCP extending tentacles of repression into diaspora communities abroad and clamping down on rivals and dissidents.
The 2022 briefs alleged that one of China’s Fox Hunt targets in Canada had connections to the Politburo, the CCP’s elite inner circle of leaders.
Concern was raised in 2020 when a Chinese police agent worked with a Canadian police officer to repatriate an economic fugitive. In another coerced repatriation, Chinese police brought a Fox Hunt target’s brother and father into Canada and would not allow them to return to China unless the economic fugitive also agreed to return, the 2022 briefs alleged.
A new report from the Spanish human rights NGO SafeGuard Defenders bolsters these suspicions, identifying three alleged secret Chinese police stations in Toronto, among 50 similar worldwide, which are used to repatriate Fox Hunt targets. SafeGuard Defenders cited Chinese state records that connect the Toronto locations to police bureaus in Fujian province.
Dan Stanton, the former CSIS official, and David Mulroney, Canada’s former ambassador to China, said that Canada is more exposed than other Western democracies to China’s interference, and yet as the United States, UK and Australia strengthen their counter-interference laws and ramp up investigations into Xi’s United Front networks, Ottawa remains strangely inactive.
“The two most worrying aspects of this are direct interference in our electoral process, and we’re now seeing evidence of this,” Mulroney said, “and harassment of people in Canada of Uyghur and Tibetan origin who have vulnerable relatives back home.”
Global News also described some of the allegations sources say were briefed to Trudeau in 2022, including China’s election interference and targeting of MPs and diaspora communities in Canada, to Dennis Molinaro, a former senior CSIS analyst and expert on foreign interference, who now teaches legal studies at Ontario Tech University.
Molinaro said if the CSIS intelligence warnings sources say were provided to Trudeau are confirmed as accurate, they raise concerns about why the government hasn’t yet responded by tabling new legislation to counter the threats.
“The level of foreign interference activity you describe is serious and alarming,” Molinaro said. “And if confirmed, the level of interference you describe says to me that foreign adversaries understand the legislative loopholes that exist in Canada and are taking full advantage of them.”
Canadian diplomat Brian McAdam was posted at Canada’s Hong Kong consulate between 1989-1993. He became Canada’s immigration control officer in Hong Kong. He soon uncovered evidence of what he believed was a major scandal. Both Canadian and Chinese consular staff were selling visas to members of Hong Kong’s and Mainland China’s mafia as well as to Communist China’s intelligence service. The price, he heard, ranged from $10,000 to $100,000 per visa.
According to Postmedia reporter Don Butler, “McAdam had evidence that members of Chinese criminal gangs, known as Triads, were applying to enter Canada as entrepreneurs under the country’s business immigration program. And many were getting visas.
“What was very, very disturbing to McAdam was that he kept seeing connections of these Triad members to Canadian politicians.
He started writing reports — ultimately 32 — documenting the names of the gangsters who were getting into Canada. His reports provided details on murderers, money launderers, smugglers and spies.
The reports caused panic in the immigration minister’s office and at headquarters in Ottawa. McAdam alleged, “I was exposing incredible negligence. I was exposing incredible corruption. And I was exposing the flaws in our whole immigration system.
“People in Ottawa didn’t want to investigate anything. They just shut their eyes to everything.”
According to an Ottawa Citizen report, McAdam received dozens of threatening calls (from the Chinese Mafia) with messages such as “Stop what you’re doing or you’re going to find yourself dead”.
What finally broke him down, he said, was “the incredible feeling of betrayal from my colleagues”. One day, a Hong Kong police officer told McAdam that a Triad member whose phone was tapped, told the Hong Kong police officer that the Triad member had complained to someone in Canada’s immigration department. The Immigration Department official reassured the Triad boss, “Don’t worry about McAdam and what he’s doing. We’ll take care of him.”
And, says Mr. McAdam, they did “take care of him”
Macadam was shocked at what the Hong Kong officer said to him. I’d worked with these people for years.” “It goes to your very soul,” he says. “It is a spiritual crisis. It is a psychological breakdown.”
Immigration Canada offered him a good new job in Ottawa, supposedly in a new organized crime unit at Foreign Affairs. But when he showed up for work in 1993, he discovered the job didn’t exist. The personnel manager urged him to take a retirement package, though he was just 51.
Days later, he went on sick leave and never returned to work. His 30-year career in Europe, the Caribbean and Asia was over.
McAdam started preparing details about his experiences. In an 850-page manuscript titled “The Dragon’s (China’s) Deception” He writes: “I was mocked, demeaned and threatened in a hostile environment while dealing with some of the world’s most ruthless criminals. Staff in both Hong Kong and in Ottawa gave copies of my confidential reports about some of the criminals to the gangsters themselves, and that greatly put my life at risk. I received death threats for a number of years but no one was ever concerned about my safety. My big question (was): Why did Canadian diplomats in Hong Kong and bureaucrats in Ottawa do whatever they could to destroy my work and myself?”
Around that time, he was formulating the idea of a formal investigation to verify and enlarge his findings in Hong Kong. By 1995, a dozen CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) and RCMP officers formally launched their first joint project. Its name was “Operation Sidewinder”.
In spite of dealing with his ill health, Mr. McAdam supplied the team with extensive documentation of China’s criminals and the Communist government’s ambitious program of acquisition, espionage and political influence in Canada and around the world.
The RCMP’s own more narrow investigation into Mr. McAdam’s discoveries — separate from “Sidewinder” — had begun in 1992. They probed incidents of corruption but limited themselves to locally engaged staff — not Canadians.
A seven-year investigation ensued. Seven RCMP investigators came and went. “As soon as one (Mountie) would (find something damning), they’d pull him off the case,” Mr. McAdam says. (That pattern continued.)
“I believe both probes (by the Sidewinder team and by the RCMP) had considerable political interference to shut them down,” says Mr. McAdam, “and it seemed to be coming from the highest levels.”
David Kilgour, then Liberal MP for Edmonton-Strathcona and secretary of state for Latin America and Africa, wrote persistent letters sympathetic to McAdam’s concerns. Mr. Kilgour sent his first letter directly to then-prime minister Jean Chrétien asking for a public inquiry — which Mr. McAdam had requested. Instead, the government ordered an RCMP probe.
Among the RCMP officers sent to Hong Kong was a 26-year veteran, Cpl. Robert Read, who, in 1996, spent months reviewing and corroborating many of Mr. McAdam’s findings. RCMP Supt. Jean Dubé pulled Read off the file in 1997 and later fired Read.
“They fired him to stop the investigation,” says Mr. McAdam.
In 2003, an RCMP external committee confirmed Cpl. Read’s findings. It found the RCMP “consistently demonstrated a reluctance to investigate” and ordered the force to rehire him. The RCMP refused. Cpl. Read sued.
Prime Minister Chretien ordered that all copies of the Sidewinder report be destroyed, supposedly to avoid alienating China and endangering trade and other relations with China. More likely, Chretien was concerned about the money the Liberal Party’s major donors (developers, speculators, banks, media corps) made from the influx of Chinese into Canada. Chretien feared that these people would not stand to have their cash cow interfered with.
One copy of the Sidewinder report survived.
According to Postmedia reporter Don Butler, documents released in 2001 (under access to information rules) state that the RCMP believed the spy agency shelved the report because it was uneasy with its message that Beijing’s spies were working with Chinese criminal gangs in Canada.
According to an updated Globe and Mail report of April 6, 2018, which focused on the testimony of Canadian agent Michel Juneau, the original Sidewinder team culled some of its information from a Mainland Chinese intelligence officer who defected in 1997.
The man, who was a member of the United Front Work Department, one of China’s five espionage arms, went public with allegations that he had been ordered to go to Hong Kong to engineer a pact between Beijing and criminal gangs known as triads.
Mr. Juneau also pointed out that at the RCMP’s request, the original Sidewinder team produced a binder, brimming with what is known in the intelligence business as facting. It provided documented evidence, culled from secret CSIS reports, other government departments and agencies and foreign intelligence agencies, that supported every single line in the original report, he said.
Mr. Juneau noted that other Western intelligence organizations and a bipartisan U.S. congressional committee have since produced reports that echoed many of Sidewinder’s conclusions. “We were ahead of our time and that’s what probably killed our report.”
According to UBC Professor David Ley, between 200,000 and 300,000 Chinese entered Canada through the Business Immigrant program. Many of them and their families still live in Canada. It is extremely probable that many continue their criminal activities.
The downtown Vancouver skyline is seen at sunset, as houses line a hillside in Burnaby, B.C., on April 17, 2021. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press) Canada
Canada Naive in the Face of China’s Infiltration and Disinformation Campaigns: Expert
By Andrew Chen June 8, 2022 Updated: June 9, 2022 biggersmallerPrint 0:007:33
Canada has been naive about communist China its continued espionage and foreign interference campaigns, and as politicians willfully turn a blind eye to the threat, the country is also losing credibility among its democratic allies, an expert said at a panel discussion on June 7.
Sam Cooper, also an award-winning investigative journalist, said he was told by Canadian intelligence officials that Beijing had its spies collect information about him after his book, published last summer, exposed how corrupt politicians in the communist regime have been using gangs and casinos in Canada to launder dirty money made through the illicit drug trade, among other international criminal activities.
“Beijing wanted to know how the public was reacting to my book and whether it could damage the Chinese Communist Party,” Cooper said during the panel discussion, held on the occasion of the launch of the second edition of his book.
The event was hosted by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and featured panelists including Conservative MP Adam Chambers and James Cohen, executive director of Transparency International Canada, a Toronto-based global anti-corruption non-government coalition.
Cooper said he was shocked to learn that he was targeted by the Chinese Communist Party’s espionage activities, but “wasn’t surprised” that the regime’s United Front Work Department found his book a threat.
The book, titled “Wilful Blindness: How a Network of Narcos, Tycoons, and CCP Agents Infiltrated the West,” draws links between senior CCP officials and underground money-laundering suspects in British Columbia and shows how their criminal proceedings fuelled an opioid crisis in Canada while driving up real estate costs. It also reveals that Chinese state-backed companies donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s family foundation.
“Every parliamentarian and regulator should have the book, should read it,” said Chambers, who previously worked as a senior adviser to former finance minister Jim Flaherty.
The book also received praise on Twitter from Tory MP Garnett Genuis, who has been vocal against the CCP’s human rights abuses and violations of international law.
Misinformation in Canada’s 2021 Federal Election
A top priority of the CCP’s foreign infiltration campaign is to eliminate dissenting voices against the authoritarian regime and its questionable conduct, particularly those in overseas Chinese communities.
Cooper said one of his sources, who managed to get into some of Vancouver’s Chinese elite circles that are involved with the United Front, warned him about a CCP agent’s scheme to run a donation campaign to fund a lawsuit against critics of the regime based on claims that they are racially discriminatory against Asian Canadians.
“My source told me they want to make it an influential Chinese group to lobby and pressure governments, politicians, reporters, institutions, and incite national sentiment among Chinese Canadians,” Cooper said. “They want to promote lawsuits against anyone who dares to criticize China and elect more puppets into Canadian governments.”
He said the warnings became a reality during Canada’s 2021 federal election, when the same social media groups that had attacked him in 2020 for his previous reports on the United Front’s misconduct began to “amplify disinformation operations” against Conservative candidate Kenny Chiu, who was the incumbent MP seeking re-election.
Chiu, known for his pro-Chinese democracy stance and an outspoken critic of the Chinese Communist Party, lost his seat in the B.C. riding of Steveston–Richmond East in the 2021 election. He told The Epoch Times in a previous interview that while he had been a target of misinformation before, what happened last year was “exceptional.”
Through his private member’s bill, Bill C-282, Chiu sought to increase political transparency by compelling those working on behalf of foreign entities to register as foreign agents. But he said that bill was “deliberately” misrepresented to mislead people in the Chinese community to believe it was against their interests.
“Chiu didn’t even name China in his bill,” Cooper said. “Yet he was smeared and labelled anti-Chinese.”
“Any defender of Canada is an enemy of Beijing. These forces succeeded in taking Chiu out.”
Cooper noted similar misinformation campaigns also targeted Alice Wong, Tory MP for Richmond Centre, Ontario. In total, the CCP interference network had targeted 12 ridings in the 2021 election, mostly in Vancouver and Toronto, he said.
Targeting Elites
Cooper said the CCP’s cash-for-access influence over Western political elites, or what is known as “elite capture,” as seen in Vancouver and Toronto is also carried out in other democratic societies.
He pointed to a report in early 2022 from the United Kingdom’s intelligence agency MI5, which showed how a Chinese agent, Christine Ching Kui Lee, established ties with a number of British parliamentarians on behalf of the CCP through political donations.
However, unlike the MI5, Canadian intelligence agencies cannot make public alerts about infiltration from foreign agents from China, Russia, and Iran, due to the country’s “strict privacy laws and the mysterious political shackles that Canadian intelligence operates under,” even when the Canadian Security Intelligence Service has incredible intelligence showing the CCP’s United Front has targeted Trudeau and politicians in all Canadian parties, Cooper said.
“This isn’t a failure of the agency’s task with gathering intelligence. They ultimately report to their political masters. And if those political masters don’t want to heed the blaring alarms, the agencies have little recourse—reports will be buried, … and ultimately the intelligence agencies will stop producing these reports altogether,” Cooper said, citing an intelligence source.
“Bureaucrats don’t want to end their careers by delivering unwanted medicine to uncooperative patients.”
He said that according to Chiu, in Greater Vancouver, with its “three-dimensional control” of political candidates, culture, and businesses, China has gained sway over even the traditional pillars of society.
“People that are supposed to speak the truth, China has brought them down to their knees,” Cooper said.
As for politicians in Ottawa, they have been “naive at best about the threat China poses,” and many parliamentarians are near-sighted, focusing on microscopic concerns, while still others who do see the big picture “enrich themselves through sweet insider deals with Beijing,” he said, citing Chiu and his intelligence sources.
“Canada is faltering as a middle power,” Cooper said. “The nation isn’t taken seriously in the Five Eyes anymore. Canada isn’t a leader in the growing battle between democracy and authoritarianism.”
FILE: Conservative foreign-affairs critic Michael Chong rises during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Monday, Feb. 13, 2023. Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Patrick Doyle
2:21 Canada ‘creating new tools’ to protect institutions against China, others seeking to influence elections
0:37 China responds to Trudeau, Global News investigation, says it has no interest in ‘Canada’s internal affairs’
