An RCMP official appearing before the foreign interference inquiry today refused to say whether any Chinese government “police stations” are still operating in Canada.
Asked by lawyers and later by journalists whether any of the so-called police stations are still active here, RCMP Deputy Commissioner Mark Flynn cited an ongoing investigation.
“That again falls into part of our ongoing investigation and I’m not speaking about it at this time,” Flynn told reporters.
China’s influence on Canada is evolving from influencing political and economic elites to a more dangerous form of “state capture,” says a former diplomat posted to Canada’s embassy in China.
Charles Burton, a sinologist who is now a senior fellow at the think tank Sinopsis, made the remark during a Sept. 26 event in Ottawa for the launch of investigative journalist Sam Cooper’s third edition of “Wilful Blindness,” a book that examines China’s influence in Canada.
It took at least six weeks for Bill Blair, then-public safety minister, to sign an electronic and entry warrant to monitor former Ontario cabinet minister Michael Chan in the lead-up to the 2021 federal election, according to documents tabled at the foreign-interference inquiry.
Sworn testimony made public Friday suggests that the delay was eight weeks or more.
A former Canadian politician is suspected of trying to influence Parliament’s work on behalf of a foreign government, according to documents released by the foreign interference commission Friday.
No identifying information about the parliamentarian — whether they were a senator or MP, or what party they belonged to — was included in the documents, nor was the country they were allegedly working for named.
An independent journalist was suspended from X on Thursday after sharing documents about Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance that were allegedly obtained through the Iranians’ hack on the Trump campaign.
For a few weeks in June, concerns ran high on Parliament Hill about unnamed MPs or senators possibly being compromised, perhaps even consciously, by foreign states — fears raised by a startling but opaque report by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians.
“We cannot and must not remain indifferent in light of such a revelation,” Bloc Quebecois MP Rene Villemure said.
As Parliamentarians spar over a DOA non-confidence motion and the prime minister chats with late-night host Stephen Colbert, the drama Canadians should really be watching is Season Two of the Hogue Commission on foreign interference. From a clueless Liberal party apparatchik to the Speaker’s refusal to prioritize issues of national security, it is the best spy show going — if only Canadians would tune in. So here are the highlights from the latest instalments.
Former Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole told the Foreign Interference Commission about a suspected influence attempt that involved being repeatedly approached by a “flirtatious” Chinese woman.
O’Toole recounted two incidents he believes may have involved foreign interference, according to a summary of interviews with commission counsel conducted in March and released on Sept. 18, which was first covered by Blacklock’s Reporter.
Canada’s inquiry into foreign interference entered its second half this week, with a shift in focus from the meddling that occurred in the last two federal elections to the issue of the targetting of MPs in general, and the things Ottawa needs to do to protect democracy from malevolent actors.
Potentially included in that latter category is an unnamed group of MPs who are alleged to have wittingly colluded with foreign governments in the past – a shocking revelation made in a heavily redacted report released in June by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians.
After years of downplaying foreign interference in our democracy by China, the Trudeau government has belatedly set its hair on fire about foreign interference by Russia.
This in the wake of the U.S. Department of Justice announcing last week that it has charged two employees of RT, a Russian state-controlled media outlet, in a covert $10-million scheme to create and distribute video content to North American audiences with pro-Russian messaging, delivered by a handful of American and Canadian podcasters.
The U.S. Department of Justice on September 4 announced it was seizing 32 internet domains “used in Russian government-directed foreign malign influence campaigns colloquially referred to as ‘Doppelganger.'” DOJ also announced criminal charges against two Russian media executives.
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control at the same time designated 10 individuals and two entities “as part of a coordinated U.S. government response to Moscow’s malign influence efforts targeting the 2024 U.S. presidential election.” The State Department also took actions against Russian parties for such conduct.
Liberal MP Leah Taylor Roy (Aurora-Oak Ridges, ON) on Monday would not comment on an affidavit alleging Chinese Communist Party (CCP) operatives interfered in her riding.
Taylor Roy was honoured as a “new local star” at a Chinese Canadian banquet nine days before the election was called, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.
WASHINGTON/TORONTO, Aug 12 (Reuters) – As a physician specializing in addiction, Dr. Jasmeet Bains, the first Sikh American elected to the California assembly, was used to risky situations.
Even so, Bains said she was shocked when four men came to her office in August last year, shortly after California adopted her resolution declaring the killing of thousands of Sikhs in India in 1984 a genocide. The men, who appeared to be of Indian origin, warned they would “do whatever it takes to go after you,” Bains said.
China and India have been accused of exploiting the opaque nomination contests of Canadian political parties to meddle in elections.
It is the “Wild West” of Canada’s political system, a “critical gap” in its democracy. But Canadian political leaders — and some foreign nations — are big fans.
Canadian elections have long rested on what many experts say is an undemocratic foundation: opaque nomination races in which political parties select their candidates for general contests in a process mystifying to most Canadians.
Party bosses enjoy an unshakable grip. Money flows, often unaccounted for. Rules tend to be lax, with no impartial judge in sight.
Elections Canada, in a recent report to the China inquiry, has now revealed it was aware of at least 149 complaints of foreign interference during the last two general elections.
Blacklock’s Reporter says this contrasts sharply with the agency’s previous assurances to MPs, where it claimed no knowledge of such interference.
