China's North American Vassal State

Canada used to be a sovereign nation.

Used to be:

Just over a third of Chinese Canadians believe the government of China has tried to interfere in elections here and pressure Canadians in pursuit of its political aims, suggests a new Postmedia-Leger poll of an ethnic group at the centre of the foreign interference affair.

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The RCMP is not investigating foreign interference in Vancouver’s election last year, despite a Canadian intelligence report that China’s consul-general sought to shape the outcome of that vote.

The report from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service describes Tong Xiaoling, then China’s chief representative to the West Coast city, as saying that “they needed to get all eligible voters to come out and elect a specific Chinese-Canadian candidate,” in the mayoral race, while also assessing a specific person to “groom” as a councillor.

The description of that conduct, denied by the Chinese government, has added to calls for Canada to address more seriously the threat of foreign interference at all levels of government. Such meddling, some have said, constitutes a threat to national sovereignty.

But Canada’s national police force says it is not pursuing a case.

In a statement, spokeswoman Robin Percival said “there is no RCMP investigation into this matter at this time.” She suggested anyone who suspects foreign interference call local police.

In Tuesday’s federal budget, the Liberal government announced more than $60-million to fund counterinterference work, including nearly $50-million for the RCMP and $13.5-million to create a National Counter-Foreign Interference Office in the Department of Public Safety.

The lack of police action in Vancouver, however, underscores the breadth of obstacles to confronting interference by other countries. In part, that’s because Canada has made it difficult for information gathered by intelligence to be used in court.

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Chinese state media outlets should not be granted broadcasting licences in Canada because their content is meant to feed “misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda” to overseas Chinese, an expert witness told a House committee on March 30.

The Chinese regime has made it clear it wishes to use overseas Chinese to exert influence abroad, and “this becomes interference instead of simple influence,” said Katherine Leung, policy advisor for the non-governmental organization Hong Kong Watch.

Leung spoke to the Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs on the pending Bill C-281, also known as the “International Human Rights Act,” which is currently being studied by the committee.

Part of that bill would amend the Broadcasting Act to prohibit licensing broadcasting “vulnerable to being influenced by a foreign national or entity” that has committed serious human rights violations.

If passed into law, Leung said the bill would “rightly increase the government’s powers to ban state propaganda outfits operating in Canada,” noting that similar legislative actions have been taken in the United Kingdom, which banned China Global Television Network (CGTN) in 2021.

“In Canada, it is largely Chinese immigrant communities that are consuming this,” Leung said. “To allow CGTN to continue operating on public, state-owned Canadian airwaves is to allow Beijing’s propaganda to misinform, propagandize, and have direct influence on Chinese-speaking Canadians.”

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Then name names:

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service has 30 years’ worth of records on federal ridings that are “hunting grounds” for Chinese Communist agents, says a former chief analyst. The retired spy told the Commons ethics committee he was prepared to name names: “We have evidence, names, circumstances when all this happened.”