Red Chinese Diplomats Interfered in Last Two Canadian Federal Elections

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[Paul Fromm of CAFE in Canada sent me this. Jan]

The minority government of Justin Trudeau, who has stated his admiration for the communist Chinese dictatorship in Peking is reeling from revelations in documents leaked from the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS), Canada’s domestic spy agency.

The information shows that Red Chinese consulates in Toronto and Vancouver funnelled money and organized volunteers to assist Liberal candidates, seen as favourable to Peking, in both the 2019 and 2021 federal elections. Peking’s goal was to elect a minority Liberal government — minority governments being seen to be more open to influence. In this they succeeded. Such funding is utterly illegal under Canada’s election laws but Elections Canada, the body that governs federal elections, and the RCMP have thus far not investigated.

The Globe and Mail has reported that, in 2021, Red Chinese Consul General in Vancouver, Tong Xiaoling boasted about helping to defeat two Conservative candidates in the area.

The CSIS document also quotes an official at the Red Chinese Consulate in Toronto saying: "The Liberal Party of Canada is becoming the only party that the PPC (People’s Republic of China) can support."

On the orders of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, however, the Mounties are investigating who might have leaked reports from CSIS.

At least 11 ridings were targeted. Only two have been publicly revealed thus far. In the Vancouver suburb of Steveston-Richmond North, Conservative MP Kenny Chiu was targeted for defeat. He had called for a registry of foreign agents and was highly critical of communist China. During the 2021 election, he found himself the target of a Chinese social media smear campaign, especially on WeChat, where he was called a |"racist" and anti-Chinese. On election day, his Liberal opponent beat him by 3,000 votes.

In the Toronto riding of Don Valley North, Han Dong, a Chinese businessman with close ties to Red China, was aided by the Red Chinese consulate in Toronto which organized large numbers of Chinese to attend his nomination meeting. The majority of Canadian seats are safe for one party or another. In such ridings, winning the safe party’s nomination is almost certainly a sure ticket to Ottawa.

CSIS warned the Liberal Party before the election of Dong’s ties, but they still let him run and win.

Erin O’Toole, Conservative Party leader during the 2021 federal election, says Red Chinese money and meddling, especially in the greater Vancouver and Toronto areas, where there are large immigrant Chinese populations, cost his party at least eight seats.

The scandal has dominated the news and federal politics for almost a month. Growing calls, even from the leftwing New Democratic Party, are for a full, independent inquiry to answer such questions as to just which ridings were targeted, which specific candidates benefitted, what their ties to Red China were.

Trudeau has staggered from one lame response to another. Initially, he claimed, contrary to CSIS reports, that he hadn’t been briefed. Then, he said that a special government security committee of insiders had decided that the meddling hadn’t reached a sufficient level to alert voters during the election. Then, he said "Canadians decide" at the ballot box. His next defence was that the meddling hadn’t changed the election results. On one level, that might have been true. Even if all 11 ridings had gone Conservative, he’d have still returned with a smaller minority government.

However, we do know the interference changed the results in at least one of the two ridings we know about. Finally, the last resort of a woke Liberal, Trudeau blamed the opposition for stirring up "anti-Asian racism" by asking questions about Red Chinese interference.

Over the past few decades, Red China has made major inroads into Canadian politics. Pierre Trudeau, who was prime minister from 1968 to 1982 with just one short interlude, was a big admirer of both Mao Tse-tung and Fidel Castro. In 1959, he and fellow leftist Jacques Hebert travelled to Red China. On their return, they penned a glowing tribute to Mao’s revolution in a book entitled Two Innocents in China. As part of Red China’s efforts to curry favour with the powerful Trudeau family, in 2005 a Chinese-state owned publishing company translated and republished this now forgotten book in China. In 1971, under Pierre Trudeau, Canada abandoned Taiwan and recognized Red China instead.

After the public relations debacle of the massacre of unarmed protesters at Tienanmen Square in 1989, the now retired Pierre Trudeau, accompanied by his sons Sacha and Justin, toured Red China. Fr. Raymond de Souza, a columnist for the National Post (March 1m 2023), concludes: Thus, "the G7’s longest serving head of government was saying that Tienanmen should be put in the rearview mirror." This was a public relations coup for Peking.

The immensely wealthy and powerful Desmarais family in Quebec has long had business interests in China and are avid Red China boosters. Politically, they have backed both Liberals and Conservatives. In 1978, family patriarch Paul Desmarais founded the Canada-China Business Council that lobbies for more trade with the Red Chinese and downplays the appalling human rights record of the communist state. Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney worked closely with the Desmarais interests. Shortly before leaving office in 1993, Mulroney co-hosted a dinner in Ottawa with Paul and Andre Desmarais for then Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji.A few months after leaving office, Brian Mulroney was off on business trips to Red China.

Brian Mulroney’s successor was Liberal Jean Chretien who had worked for the Desmarais family in the 1980s and whose daughter married Andre Desmarais. One of his first acts was a huge much publicized"Team Canada" trade mission to Red China.

As soon as Justin Trudeau appeared to be interested in following in his father’s footsteps, the Red Chinese influence apparatus swung into high gear. CSIS learned that a Chinese consular official promised to reimburse Red Chinese billionaire Zhang Bin $1-million if he donated it to Trudeau family interests, including a $200,000 donation to the Trudeau Foundation, in a move reminiscent of the pay for access shenanigans of the Clinton Foundation. The donation occurred after Trudeau met Zhang Bin at a pricey $1,500 a plate fundraiser for Trudeau sponsored by the Chinese Business Chamber of Commerce in Vancouver.

Until 2013, the Trudeau Foundation had received no foreign donations. When Trudeau became Prime Minister in 2015, the money began to roll in: $438,000 that year; $535,000 the next year.

Amazingly, Red China has been allowed to set up a chain of police stations in areas where there are many Chinese, ostensibly to deal with visa issues or legal issues back home, but often to intimidate Chinese to return to China to face prosecution. Literally for years, the RCMP and other authorities have done nothing about this brazen interference into Canadian sovereignty. Bloc Quebecois leader Yves-Francois Blanchet has complained that these "police stations" could be used to intimidate or manipulate Chinese voters in upcoming elections.

In her column "We’ve only scratched the surface of foreign interference and espionage Canadian public kept in the dark about espionage scandal inside their own country" Financial Post (March 6, 2023), Diane Francis revealed the remarkable story of Cameron Ortiz. the case of Cameron Ortis, the former RCMP spy master who was charged in 2019 with violating the Security of Information Act, is still hidden in the shadows. He was released on bail in December and is set to be tried in October, but the details of the case, likely involving China, have been hidden from the public. They should be disclosed immediately." That in itself is appalling. An accused super spy walks free on bail, but the Crown kept non-violent dissident Tamara Lich in prison for 57 days, without bail. Her crime? Being a major organizer of the Truckers’ Freedom Convoy.

Ms Francis continues: "Ortis, who served as director general of the RCMP’s national intelligence co-ordination centre, is charged with violating the Security of Information Act. He is accused of trying to share sensitive information with a foreign entity or terrorist organization and also has been charged with sharing operational information in 2015,” CBC News reported last year. “RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki has said that, by virtue of his position, Ortis had access to intelligence gathered by both Canadian authorities and foreign allies.” His arrest shocked Canada’s international allies and tainted the country’s reputation because Ortis had access to intelligence from the Five Eyes military-intelligence alliance — which consists of Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand — and law enforcement agencies involved with ongoing criminal investigations.

Ortis, who is fluent in Mandarin and a cybersecurity expert, joined the RCMP in 2007 and was nicknamed “James Bond” because of his international connections. He monitored the dark web used by organized criminals and terrorists and was eventually promoted to director general of the RCMP’s cybersecurity division.

Now, over three years after he was arrested, Canadians still largely remain in the dark. In May 2020, an article in American Military News written by a retired CIA official spelled out the seriousness of this case. ‘A potential Chinese spy infiltrated the highest levels of the Canadian intelligence service which is part of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). The implications extend far beyond the borders of Canada,” wrote Brad Johnson. “Canada already received a warning back in 2013 that unless it tightened security procedures, Five Eyes would withhold the shared classified information.’”

Paul Fromm