Follow the Money: Diaspora Researchers Map CCP Influence on Canadian Prime Ministers in Voter Education Push

VANCOUVER, Canada — In a sweeping new effort to map elite influence and Beijing’s corrosive political incursions in Canada, two human rights advocacy groups from Hong Kong and mainland China immigrant communities have published a series of striking visual charts connecting decades of Canadian prime ministers and business leaders to entities linked with the Chinese Communist Party, including its powerful United Front apparatus.

The initiative—titled "Dotting the Map"—was launched by Canadian Friends of Hong Kong and Found in Translation on Monday.

The researchers, who have provided detailed open-source intelligence data to support some of The Bureau’s investigations—including Chinese state-sourced documents and corporate registry links that are difficult for most Canadian-based reporters to access—aim to provide Canadian voters with a tool to make informed decisions in the current federal election, which they believe is deeply exposed to candidates supported by Beijing’s United Front structures.

They note that the information is drawn from open sources and supported by research from noted sinologists such as Jonathan Manthorpe, author of Claws of the Panda, and Dr. Charles Burton, a former Canadian diplomat in China.

“Our aim is to inform the public about patterns and networks that may be relevant to understanding the influence activities of the Chinese Communist Party, including the United Front system, in Canada,” the authors note.

They also caution:

“We do not assert or imply that any individual or organization named on this site is knowingly involved in foreign interference, espionage, or illegal activity. The inclusion of names or associations reflects open-source indicators of proximity to United Front-related organizations, as defined by the Chinese government itself and documented by credible international research institutions.”

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Follow the Money: The Dots Are Not Random

The most explosive of the charts—Map 1: “Follow the Money, Follow our PMs”—presents a decades-long visual timeline tying high-level Canadian officials to Chinese state-linked institutions. It begins with Pierre Trudeau’s 1960 trip to Mao’s China—which he memorialized in a book co-authored with Jacques Hebert praising the regime during the Great Leap Forward—and ends with Mark Carney’s recent refinancing deal through the Bank of China, secured during a 2024 visit to Beijing.

From Pierre Trudeau to Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin, Stephen Harper, Justin Trudeau, and Mark Carney, the chart suggests a multi-generational continuity of elite Canadian actors engaged in business and political dealings with China-based entities closely tied to the CCP and its United Front networks.

A central node in the chart is Power Corporation of Canada, controlled by the Desmarais family. Paul Desmarais Sr., founder and longtime chairman of Power Corp., is listed as an advisor to both Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chrétien, and as the founding chair of the Canada-China Business Council (CCBC)—an organization repeatedly cited in the chart as shaping Canadian policy toward “business as usual” with the PRC, even after major human rights violations such as the Tiananmen Massacre.

The map shows:

• Paul Martin’s early presidency of Canada Steamship Lines, a Power Corp. subsidiary, before entering politics.

• Jean Chrétien’s dismantling of port police in 1997, followed by the penetration of PRC state-owned COSCO and triad-linked entities into B.C. ports.

• Stephen Harper’s reversal from hawkish rhetoric in 2006 to deepened economic ties by 2009, reportedly under pressure from the CCBC.

• Justin Trudeau’s multiple visits to China and the controversial lobbying effort to grant a DPA to SNC-Lavalin—another founding member of the CCBC with deep exposure in China.

The visual further illustrates how Huawei, CITIC Group, and other PRC state-controlled firms embedded themselves in Canadian markets, and in some cases, into elite philanthropic vehicles like the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation—highlighted for a 2016 donation traced back to PRC sources.

Also noted: Brookfield Asset Management, chaired by Mark Carney, reportedly secured a $276 million refinancing deal from the Bank of China in late 2024, despite the CCP’s deteriorating global credit profile and a real estate market crisis inside China.

Commenting on the research, Burton wrote:

“This highly impressive guide gives a detailed schematic of the tangled relations between agencies of the Chinese Communist Party, Chinese business, Beijing-supported astro-turf social organizations in the guise of Chinese diaspora civil society, their Chinese-Canadian leaders—and Canada’s political and economic elite.”

Veteran investigative journalist and China specialist Jonathan Manthorpe added:

“The visual guide contains fascinating pictorial charts showing the flow of business deals or other favours to Canadian business and political leaders. The nine graphics of Beijing’s network of links with the upper echelons in Canadian business and political life is far more potent than a simple verbal description.”