Hostile state agents could install Prime Minister without election, MP Michael Chong testifies
Liberal Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland didn't respond to "veiled threat" against MP Chong in 2019 FIC also hears
Canada’s Foreign Interference Commission heard Wednesday that Conservative MP Michael Chong, who was threatened by Chinese intelligence operators in Toronto, fears foreign agents could infiltrate closed party leadership races and effectively appoint Canadian prime ministers and premiers.
Chong’s testimony reflected concerns from CSIS intelligence documents exclusively reported by The Bureau, which found Chinese proxy agents have allegedly infiltrated leadership contests for provincial and national parties recently.
Networks of alleged United Front Work Department proxies and Chinese community leaders in Vancouver and Toronto have been the focus of Inquiry evidence so far, regarding Beijing’s attempts to attack candidates seen as “anti-China” and support candidates favoured by the Chinese Communist Party in recent federal elections.
Commission lawyers have produced sanitized Canadian intelligence reports on the 2019 and 2021 federal elections which have suggested Ottawa knew Beijing was clandestinely meddling in numerous ridings but took no steps to intervene or warn the candidates attacked by Beijing, such as NDP MP Jenny Kwan and former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu in Greater Vancouver, former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole, and also former Conservative MP Bob Saroya in Ontario.
Chong’s case stands out because Chinese intelligence agents linked to Beijing’s feared Ministry of State Security were proven to have targeted the MP and his family because he tabled legislation in early 2021 to recognize the genocide against Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
And yet Justin Trudeau’s administration failed to alert Chong that a Toronto consular agent Wei ZHAO was tasked to target Chong, the MP testified. He said diplomats from other Western nations “expressed surprise to me, that I wasn’t informed of being targeted.”
That concern was heightened, Chong said, because he sometimes worked in close vicinity to the Chinese Consulate in Toronto where Wei ZHAO was posted.
In a tense exchange with a government lawyer that questioned Chong on what he meant by being “targeted” the Ontario MP shot back:
“A Consular official named Wei ZHAO, who has protection from certain types of prosecutions that Canadians are not afforded to, was gathering information about me and my family to pass along to the Ministry of State Security, which is the ministry in Beijing responsible for Beijing's secret police, in order to potentially further target me and my extended family. That's what I mean by targeting.”
The inquiry also heard for the first time that Chinese agents or proxies could have targeted Chong with threats back in 2019.
But when Chong raised the concern of a “spoofed” email to Liberal Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, she neglected to respond.
The email came in relation to Chong advocating for human rights in Hong Kong.
The writer used an altered gmail account to appear as a message from China’s foreign affairs ministry, and the writer ominously informed Chong he was banned from entering Hong Kong and Beijing and other Asian nations would be notified of the ban.
The Bureau’s review of Chinese Consular accounts in Canada shows diplomats sometimes use gmail or hotmail accounts, as did alleged People’s Liberation Army agents exposed in the Winnipeg Lab investigations.
“The reason I reported it to the Minister of Foreign Affairs [Freeland] is I thought she would want to let the Chinese counterpart know that somebody is spoofing their account and purporting to act on their behalf,” Chong said.
While Freeland didn’t act on Chong’s initial complaint, after reports emerged of the Toronto Consular official Wei ZHAO and Ministry of State Security targeting Chong’s family last year, an RCMP national security team picked up on Chong’s spoofed email complaint, the inquiry heard.
Police found a second email in 2021 from a different account that aggressively attacked Chong’s political stances was sent by the same person outside Canada.
But the emails did not “satisfy the elements of an uttering threats offence,” an RCMP document tabled yesterday said.
“The information provided, although compelling, is not actionable,” RCMP informed Chong.
Foreigners could pick Canadian premiers and prime ministers
Chong testified that after media reports exposed allegations of China’s clandestine targeting of numerous MPs in the 2021 election he held a number of community roundtable discussions with Kenny Chiu and Bob Saroya, two 2021 Conservative candidates that are believed to have been directly targeted in Chinese intelligence operations in Vancouver and Toronto.
“We heard that the PRC often has a stronger presence in many Chinese communities in Canada than does the government of Canada,” Chong said. “And that is why part of the community are often fearful, because they don’t see the Canadian government, but they do see a large presence from PRC officials, including diplomatic officials.”
While the Commission’s mandate technically focuses on China’s clandestine meddling in the 2019 and 2021 votes, Chong told his lawyer he is deeply concerned that foreign states can manipulate party leadership contests, giving rise to concerns that national and provincial leaders could be installed.
Chong argued if the “vulnerabilities” to federal elections that have been demonstrated to the Commission so far are not countered within party contests, “we are effectively opening up the appointment of heads of state or provinces.”
“We could have a situation where a Prime Minister resigns, and a Prime Minister is appointed and elected through a leadership process impacted by non citizens and foreign state actors,” Chong testified.
As The Bureau has reported, an October 2022 CSIS assessment alleges Chinese Communist proxy agents infiltrated a provincial and national party leadership contest in 2022.
In response to questions on the CSIS provincial investigation, in which a candidate allegedly met secretly with Consular officials before receiving support from the Consulate’s community proxies, a spokesman for B.C. Premier David Eby stated:
"There is absolutely no truth to the assertion that Premier Eby had any meetings with or invited support from the Chinese Consulate, or any of their representatives, during his time as a candidate for the leadership of the BC NDP. The publishing of such an assertion is defamatory."
The same CSIS report indicated in 2022 “a PRC-linked proxy” was attempting to “help elect the next leader of a federal political party in Canada.”
It added the proxy was also “encouraging individuals who are supportive of the Chinese Communist Party in Canada to join this same political party in an effort to influence ‘the party towards having a more positive view of China.’”
The Bureau’s investigation and sources suggest the alleged Chinese proxy could have supported an unsuccessful Conservative Party leader candidate in 2022.
Previously, The Bureau reported that in October 2021, a Chinese community group made headlines, asking then leader Erin O’Toole to step down and claiming that his criticism of Beijing had alienated Chinese-Canadian voters.
In testimony Wednesday, O’Toole told Commission lawyers he believes Chinese clandestine attacks on his leadership and candidates including Kenny Chiu in the 2021 contest could have impacted O’Toole’s opportunity to continue leading the party.
O’Toole said he believes China wanted to defeat him because he would have taken a relatively harder line on national security and Chinese human rights abuses as prime minister than Justin Trudeau’s party has.
The same group that undermined O’Toole in October 2021 subsequently supported a Conservative leadership candidate that was disqualified by the party in mid-2022, several months before Pierre Poilievre won the Conservative leadership race.
Party spokesperson Sarah Fischer previously told The Bureau “The Conservative Party of Canada is not aware of the allegations you mention.”
“Party memberships purchased during the last leadership race could only be purchased with a personal credit card, personal cheque or Canadian bank-issued money order,” Fischer said, in response to The Bureau’s questions.
"Could"? The Chinese government "could" infiltrate parties and install Prime Ministers? How can this even be conjecture? Hypothetically, if China had actually installed their own Prime Minister in Canada - what would he have done differently over the last 4 years than what Trudeau had done? Dude, China owns this guy - lock, stock and barrel.
I’m starting to see comments that are devolving into conspiracy theories. The reason why I trust Sam’s reporting is because he will not make grand statements that are not backed by strong evidence.
It is alright to be outraged by what is going on. Stay mad, but stay focused. We do not empower our cause by making baseless accusations untethered from credible reporting, it in fact, undermines our credibility as a community, and you can be sure that an apparatus as powerful as the Chinese state will make use of that.