Liberal MP Parm Bains said he won his B.C. riding in the last election “fair and square” after his former opponent told a parliamentary committee foreign interference by Beijing played a role in his victory.
Bains sits on the Commons ethics committee and was sitting across the table when former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu told MPs on the committee Friday he believed Bains was the “beneficiary” of a disinformation campaign he suspects was tied to the Chinese Communist Party during the 2021 election campaign.
The threat from foreign interference, with Beijing as the main culprit, has evolved to become more dangerous to the state than traditional espionage, a former executive with Canada’s spy agency told MPs.
“What we’ve seen, in the last 30 years, is that foreign interference has eclipsed classic espionage as a national security threat, both in terms of its scope and its speed,” said Dan Stanton, a 32-year veteran of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).
Among the various types of outlandish and sinister responses to the recent revelations about Beijing’s emissaries interfering in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections to the purpose of re-electing a Liberal government, the conjuring of bogeymen has been especially destructive to any clear public consensus about what’s at stake here, and what’s really going on.
Two former intelligence officials called for a complete transformation of Canada’s security apparatus to counter expanding foreign interference operations that they say have been essentially ignored by Ottawa since the 1990s.
On Friday the House of Commons standing committee on access to information, privacy and ethics heard recommendations for a new national and independent office with powers to investigate and prosecute acts of foreign interference, and also rapid adoption of counter-interference laws that have already been implemented by Canadian allies such as Australia.
Chinese state media outlets should not be granted broadcasting licences in Canada because their content is meant to feed “misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda” to overseas Chinese, an expert witness told a House committee on March 30.
The Chinese regime has made it clear it wishes to use overseas Chinese to exert influence abroad, and “this becomes interference instead of simple influence,” said Katherine Leung, policy advisor for the non-governmental organization Hong Kong Watch.
Detractors wrongly implicated in fake terror scares as regime accused of trying to ‘harass and target’ those who dare to speak out
False bomb threats at luxury hotels and embassies in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia appear to be part of a harassment campaign against critics of the Chinese government, according to a new investigation.
More than a dozen threats have falsely implicated Germany-based Chinese journalist Su Yutong, as well as activists Bob Fu, who lives in the US, and Wang Jingyu in the Netherlands, reported the Axios news outlet.
“So today, I applaud China for stepping out,” said Joe Biden on Friday before the Canadian Parliament. The members immediately burst out in laughter. “Excuse me,” Biden said, “I applaud Canada.” The Delaware Democrat might have been right the first time.
Under Justin Trudeau, it’s becoming ever harder to distinguish Canada from China, and Trudeau is a big fan of the Middle Kingdom. He made that clear back in 2013, when asked which nation he admired the most.
World War II was already a year old when Germany, Japan and Italy formally signed the Tripartite Pact in 1940, creating a military alliance among three nations intent on world domination. History would subsequently call them the Axis powers. It would be another year before America entered the conflict, but this Axis alliance of power sent a sharp and chilling message to Washington. There was no mistaking now that our nation, and our very civilization, was now in serious jeopardy.
In its wake, America accelerated its defense planning and just prior to the Axis pact being signed, the United States reintroduced the draft in recognition that, pact or no pact, democracy was at risk.
A third of Chinese Canadians believe Beijing meddling in elections, pressuring Canadians: poll
Just over a third of Chinese Canadians believe the government of China has tried to interfere in elections here and pressure Canadians in pursuit of its political aims, suggests a new Postmedia-Leger poll of an ethnic group at the centre of the foreign interference affair.
… At the same time, more than half thought suggesting certain Chinese-Canadian politicians are under Beijing’s influence is racist.
As discussion and debate rages over allegations of meddling by Beijing in Canadian affairs, much attention has turned to the country’s 1.7 million or so residents of Chinese descent.
No punches pulled those numbers indicate a clear danger to our society.
Our Politicians have remade Canada into a balkanized 5th Columnist state via mass immigration, multiculturalism and the denigration of our nations values and heritage.
Playing identity politics with Canada’s security is a vile and dangerous practice that all our political parties engage in.
The RCMP is not investigating foreign interference in Vancouver’s election last year, despite a Canadian intelligence report that China’s consul-general sought to shape the outcome of that vote.
The report from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service describes Tong Xiaoling, then China’s chief representative to the West Coast city, as saying that “they needed to get all eligible voters to come out and elect a specific Chinese-Canadian candidate,” in the mayoral race, while also assessing a specific person to “groom” as a councillor.
Han Dong has made his position very clear: the former Liberal MP says he never told a Chinese diplomat to put off releasing two imprisoned Canadians to avoid helping the Conservatives. And he announced Monday he’s already hired a lawyer to sue the news outlet that reported the alleged conversation.
Chinese Canadians in public office and academia are warning the recent claims China interfered in Canadian politics could stigmatize an entire community and dissuade them from running for public office or taking on public-facing roles.
“There is a lot of fear,” said Keren Tang, a city councillor in Edmonton.
Tang and others in the Chinese community are worried racism resulting from the federal investigations into the alleged Chinese government interference could roll back years of progress of getting more diverse voices in all levels of government.
Just the CBC running interference for Trudeau and his ChiCom allies.
Any strong words Trudeau may mouth about China are to be taken with a very large grain of salt.
Most Canadians have no idea where the country’s spy agency is located, nor do they know much about its daily operations. This is not because the Canadian Security Intelligence Service operates in a particularly clandestine fashion, it’s because most Canadians don’t care.
The CSIS, a civilian-run organisation based in a triangular structure of concrete and glass on the outskirts of Ottawa, lacks the intrigue of Britain’s MI5 and the notoriety of America’s Central Intelligence Agency.
“I look nothing like Daniel Craig, and I did not arrive here in an Aston Martin. I’m just as disappointed as you are – on both fronts,” its director, David Vigneault, said in a speech in 2018, poking fun at the service’s largely uncharismatic reputation. “Most of you remember the movie Fight Club. And you will know that the first rule of Fight Club is ‘don’t talk about Fight Club’. Well, the first rule of CSIS has always been ‘don’t talk’. Period.”
During the SNC Lavalin Scandal Katie Telford is said to have told Jody Wilson-Raybould’s chief of staff that she could arrange for her connections to ‘Write op-eds saying that what she is doing is proper.’This piece fits the bill for narrative control.
I don’t know of anyone who thinks ill of CSIS for these leaks, other than the CCP compromised Liberal Party. In fact most of us are grateful for having this criminal chicanery exposed.
The federal government is establishing an office to counter foreign interference and giving nearly $50-million to the RCMP to combat harassment of Canadians by powers such as China and Russia.
The government said in the 2023 budget that it will spend more than $16-million to create a National Counter-Foreign Interference Office in the Department of Public Safety, citing the threat of espionage.
Both pose serious threats to our nation, as Congress’ recent hearing reveals.
What does TikTok have in common with 9/11?
On Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked airplanes and committed suicide attacks on the World Trade Center’s twin towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. These terrorists took advantage of the freedoms in the U.S. to be trained as pilots and organize the attacks. In responding to this new type of terrorist attack, the U.S. instituted several new measures.
Liberal MP Parm Bains said he won his B.C. riding in the last election “fair and square” after his former opponent told a parliamentary committee foreign interference by Beijing played a role in his victory.
