Beijing supported Liberal candidate that echoed disinformation against Conservatives: Document Analysis
Key NSICOP allegation of foreign state supporting a witting politician apparently stems from defeat of MP Kenny Chiu and September 2021 CSIS brief
Ten days before Canada’s 2021 election, Justin Trudeau’s candidate in Richmond — former B.C. government staffer Parm Bains — was interviewed for Rise Media, a media platform with alleged ties to Chinese Communist Party foreign influence and intelligence arms.
The rookie Liberal was asked about the Foreign Influence Registry, a bill tabled that year by his opponent, Conservative MP Kenny Chiu.
“If you are elected as MP, will you support this bill?” a Chinese community activist asked Bains in a video segment for Rise Media.
“The simple answer is I’m not supporting that bill,” Bains answered. “I don’t believe that I can support any bill that is viewed as discriminatory against any community. A registry like this, to me looks like a very discriminatory policy.”
The same day, September 10, Bains got a front-page election ad from Rise Weekly and a glowing endorsement article inside the magazine.
Titled “Should Chinese people support him?” the piece urged citizens of Richmond — a riding of about 50 percent Chinese ethnic voters — to vote for Bains and Justin Trudeau on September 20th.
It argued that Trudeau “and Bains himself have promised to introduce legislation within 100 days of taking office to combat online violence, especially to severely punish online hate speech.”
Days later Chinese Canadians Goto Vote Association (CCGV), a group started by Rise Media journalists during the 2021 campaign, pounded the pavement for Bains as he stumped near Kenny Chiu’s constituency office alongside several of Beijing’s top proxies in British Columbia.
Social media videos showed Bains apparently echoing insinuations of racism against Conservative leader Erin O’Toole and Kenny Chiu that were proliferating during the campaign on China-linked media in Toronto and Vancouver.
It had all the appearances of a reciprocal relationship involving Chinese media and political foot soldiers guided and funded by the United Front Work Department, Beijing’s foreign-influence arm.
What’s the evidence of this?
To start with, one Chinese community leader campaigning for Bains with CCGV has so much power in Vancouver’s diaspora that he was later personally recognized in a meeting with President Xi Jinping and Beijing’s United Front Work Department cadres, after the RCMP opened investigations into his group’s alleged involvement in Chinese police stations in Canada.
Now, three years after Parm Bains defeated Kenny Chiu in Richmond, a firestorm over Chinese election interference has reignited in Ottawa with the release of a Parliamentary committee’s 92-page review of allegations first reported by Global News in November 2022.
National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) has alleged some MPs and Senators were “witting or semi-witting” collaborators with China’s interference in Canada’s 2019 and 2021 elections, and opposition parties are demanding to know their identities.
But Justin Trudeau’s government refuses to disclose the politicians named in NSICOP’s review of 33,000 pages of intelligence.
Some experts argue Parliament is in crisis because representatives of both Houses are alleged by NSICOP to be working secretly with foreign states including China and India, but Ottawa has no remedy, as the RCMP and CSIS lack powers to hold political suspects accountable. Meanwhile the Canadian public is pressing for transparency.
In these circumstances,The Bureau’s analysis of thousands of public records raises questions of whether Parm Bains and other Parliamentarians could be seen by CSIS as witting, semi-witting, or merely duped collaborators in sophisticated Chinese media operations that support some candidates and attack others in Canadian elections at all levels.
In response to The Bureau’s questions Parm Bains emailed a statement denying any inappropriate influence in his 2021 campaign.
“The only interests that have ever influenced my actions are those of the nation I was born in, Canada,” Bains wrote, “and the community where I was raised, Richmond.”
ButThe Bureau’s analysis suggests China’s disinformation against Kenny Chiu and support for Bains in Richmond is the case that NSICOP’s censored 56th paragraph calls “a textbook example of foreign interference that saw a foreign state support a witting politician.”
Furthermore, comparing NSICOP’s redacted documents with thousands of related records from Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue’s Foreign Interference hearings suggests the Liberal Party judged against action after receiving specific intelligence from CSIS on September 12, 2021, regarding China’s attacks on Kenny Chiu and support for Parm Bains.
As elected representative for Richmond-Steveston, Parm Bains sits on six inter-parliamentary associations with some of Canada’s most important allies, the United States, Japan, European Union and the United Kingdom.
Bains also serves on two influential Parliamentary committees, including the Commons Ethics Committee, which has been examining allegations of China’s interference in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.
Ironically, Kenny Chiu recently testified for Bains and the Ethics Committee, calling his former opponent a “willing participant in a now proven disinformation campaign.”
“He willingly embraced and propagated accusations targeting Conservatives, including our then leader Erin O’Toole and me, accusing Conservatives of racism and of harbouring anti-Asian sentiments,” Chiu testified in May. “From what I've gathered, it was by attending radio interviews and community events where he publicly announced that he was not going to support what he called this ‘anti-Asian foreign interference registry.’”
In response to The Bureau’s questions Bains wrote that “last week, I accepted the apology of a [Conservative MP] for making baseless allegations using my personal opinion to a question from Rise Media about the registry.”
“A paid advertisement is not an endorsement from the publisher,” Bains argued, also noting his working this year on a Liberal colleague’s bill “to address the ever-evolving threat of foreign interference and have been actively engaged in pushing for a modernization of the Security of Information Act and the CSIS Act.”
CSIS Brief: “Action based on your judgement”
NSICOP’s June 2024 report suggested unidentified MPs undermined Canadian democracy by wittingly collaborating with China and India while accepting benefits and campaign support.
NSICOP said China, through its United Front Work Department and intelligence arms in Canada, established “reciprocal relationships” with MPs and Senators through Chinese diaspora front groups hidden within media, community and business organizations.
Going further than Justice Hogue’s March 2024 report, NSICOP’s secret probe alleged some Parliamentarians are “accepting knowingly, or through willful blindness, funds or benefits from foreign missions or their proxies which have been layered or otherwise disguised to conceal their source.”
Hogue’s Commission focused on Kenny Chiu’s case and briefings to Justin Trudeau’s administration before and after the September 20, 2021 election.
In testimony, CSIS director David Vigneault was questioned on a briefing note called “Current Situation” that was circulated within Trudeau’s administration after Kenny Chiu’s defeat.
A line in the redacted brief says “PRC officials could be emboldened in their electoral interference efforts by the 2021 defeat of former Richmond MP Kenny Chiu.”
“[Redacted] acquiesce to PRC officials and the United Front Work Department, co-opted community leaders and associates provided assistance in fundraising and material support,” the document explains.
Referring to the United Front’s leverage over Parliamentarians, it adds “[redacted] channeling donations and other assistance to preferred candidates will foster a bond of obligation to the PRC that will pay dividends for the promotion of Chinese Communist Party interest if elected.”
In cross-examinations regarding this document a Human Rights lawyer asked Vigneault: “The point about ‘Will foster a bond of obligation to the PRC that will pay dividends for the promotion of CCP interest, if elected.’ Is this a line that you briefed the Prime Minister or the Prime Minister's Office about?”
“I spoke to a very specific aspect of this case, that I cannot go into details because of the sensitivity,” the CSIS director answered. “I spoke about the work of the United Front Work Department. And this statement directly refers to these types of activities.”
Asked by a Conservative Party lawyer whether he briefed the Prime Minister’s Office of Chinese funding allegations in Kenny Chiu’s riding, Vigneault refused to answer the question.
Without naming Kenny Chiu or Parm Bains, Justice Hogue’s March 2024 report indicates Trudeau’s senior aides were briefed on China’s attacks against O’Toole and Chiu in August and September 2021.
The brief involved Jeremy Broadhurst, Justin Trudeau’s senior advisor.