Omidvar, Browder and Silver: Canada should honour Mahsa Amini’s memory by sanctioning her killers

2023/09/18 Leave a comment

Of note:

September 16 marks the first anniversary of the murder of Mahsa Amini in Iran. Those who killed her should be sanctioned by Canada.

Brutally beaten to death by Iranian authorities for not abiding by their strict restrictions against women’s autonomy and dress, Ms. Amini’s murder sparked global outrage and solidarity with the women of Iran.

Iranian women continue their brave campaign for freedom, unveiling themselves as acts of peaceful protest, knowing full well they may share the fate of Ms. Amini for doing so. Imagine their reaction when they learn that their torturers are visiting family in Toronto and vacationing in Vancouver.

In one of his first acts as Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Marc Miller rightly recognized and redressed this injustice, banning Iran’s former health minister, a major rights violator, from his frequent visits to Canada. But this lets the bigger fish off the hook.

Ebrahim Raisi used to be called The Hanging Judge from his time personally overseeing executions of political prisoners. Mr. Raisi’s cruelty followed him into Iran’s presidency, where he is now crucial to the brutal crackdown against women. Canada’s allies have already sanctioned him for his crimes, making Canada a curious outlier.

Similarly, Iran’s Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution was recently sanctioned by the U.S. and U.K. for designing the regime’s anti-women laws and demanding their violent enforcement. The fact that its leaders can visit Canada at their leisure is an affront to the dignity and equality of Canadians, and sends the wrong message to Iranians.

Canada should instead be communicating solidarity and extending support for Iranians through its sanctions systems. The new law on asset repurposing, which was first proposed by World Refugee and Migration Council members Allan Rock and Lloyd Axworthy and advanced by us in Parliament, is perfectly suited to address the situation.

Seizing assets is the natural next step after freezing them, and Iranian victims are the obvious beneficiaries. For those struggling to rebuild their lives in Canada after losing limbs or loved ones to the torturers in Tehran, it would be poetic justice for them to receive the proceeds of assets their persecutors have hidden away in Canada.

We support the Atlantic Council Strategic Litigation Project’s proposal for Canada to create a fund for Canadian-Iranian victims, which would facilitate community involvement from coast to coast in the decision-making process. With a broad and inclusive board of directors cutting across the Iranian diaspora in Canada, the fund would ensure transparency and grassroots engagement in the distribution of seized assets for medical, material and psychosocial support to victims.

This fund will also draw out all those Iranian-Canadians with credible evidence of crimes perpetrated against them or their loved ones. This would allow Canada to document and build cases toward prospective prosecutions. In the same way Ukrainian refugees are being interviewed by the RCMP regarding Russian crimes, and Iraqis and Syrians about the Islamic State, Canada should be gathering evidence from Iranian victims in the country.

Sanctions and asset seizures are powerful forms of accountability and restitution, but prosecution should not be forgotten. Those Iranian rights abusers enjoying the freedoms in Canada that they deprive their compatriots of at home should be the ones sitting in prison. Even if they are not in Canada, or a perpetrator cannot be identified, the evidence gathered from victims could be used in other trials that might take place around the world.

Canada played a crucial role in setting up the continuing United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran, which would benefit from the support of evidence gathered by Canadian investigators. Canada also leads the annual UN General Assembly resolution on Iran, which receives overwhelming support from around the world every year in calling out the crimes of the regime in Iran and expressing solidarity with its victims. When the General Assembly meets next week, Canada can use this global diplomatic platform to strengthen sanctions co-ordination and implementation, and build further global support for strengthening investigations of perpetrators.

For all the innocent women whose lives and liberties they have taken away, Canada can secure justice and send a global message that its borders, banks and businesses are closed to Iran regime criminals. We must honour Mahsa Amini’s memory, and the courage of Iranian women, in sanctioning or jailing their abusers. This important moment of commemorating her murder must not only be an act of remembrance, but a reminder that we must act.

Ratna Omidvar is an independent senator from Ontario who first proposed Canada’s asset repurposing laws in Parliament. Bill Browder is the head of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign. Brandon Silver is an international human rights lawyer and director of policy and projects at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.

Source: Canada should honour Mahsa Amini’s memory by sanctioning her killers

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Australia’s multicultural framework can no longer be separate from … – Pearls and Irritations

2023/09/09 Leave a comment

While errs on the side of discounting the risks of foreign influence and interference, fundamental point that foreign and multiculturalism policies should be more coherent, to which I would add a caution of not being overly influenced by diaspora politics and issues (all too often the case):

A new multicultural framework needs to recognise that the well-being of Australia’s multicultural communities is closely related to, and inevitably affected by, geopolitics, and by Australia’s foreign policy towards migrants’ countries of origin. It is no longer viable to conceptualise foreign policy and multicultural affairs as two separate entities.

The Australian government is currently conducting a Multicultural Framework Review, and I have made a submission.

My submission is focused on the need for Australia’s multiculturalism to be reconceptualised and redesigned by taking into account the opportunities and challenges posed by current geopolitics, and by the growing complexity of the myriad Chinese-Australian communities.

This focus on the Australian-Chinese communities is in response to a number of unique factors: (a) a higher percentage of arrivals from the PRC than in previous periods; (b) a fast-changing geopolitical dynamics featuring growing tension and hostility between the US and China; and (c) Australia’s foreign-policy positioning vis-à-vis the US and China, and the Australian government’s national security and defence strategy, which increasingly imagines China as the nation’s greatest military threat.

In my submission, I have made a few recommendations

  • At the conceptual level, a new multicultural framework needs to recognise that the well-being of Australia’s multicultural communities is closely related to, and inevitably affected by, geopolitics, and by Australia’s foreign policy towards migrants’ countries of origin. It is no longer viable to conceptualise foreign policy and multicultural affairs as two separate entities. This new reality may have serious implications for the current bureaucratic structure of various departments in the federal government, and the relationships between them.
  • In terms of the well-being of various Chinese-Australian communities, the government should recognise that the ‘China threat’ discourse has caused serious concern among the Chinese-Australian communities, many of whom feel that, caught in the hostility between their motherland and their new country of residence, they have been subject to undue suspicion and distrust. My recent research shows a worryingly low level of acceptance of the Chinese-Australian communities by the Australian public, and a low level of trust between English-language media and Chinese-Australian communities, especially Mandarin-speaking first-generation Australians and permanent residents. These tendencies alert us to serious problems in the nation’s bid for multicultural harmony and social inclusiveness.
  • Future multicultural policy needs to put the principle of human rights back into its framework, especially in the context of countering foreign interference. The Chinese-Australian communities are complex and diverse in terms of political views, social values, and cultural practices. In light of this diversity or sometimes even conflict, the overall principle of respecting individuals’ right to freedom of expression is paramount. For this reason, just as individuals speaking out against the Chinese government should be safe from harassment and abuse, those who wish to speak in support of the Chinese government should not automatically be seen as brainwashed by China’s propaganda, or – even worse – suspected or accused of operating as agents and spies of the Chinese state.
  • Similarly, free access to all social media platforms including WeChat needs to be respected. Naturally, WeChat should comply with all relevant Australian regulations. However, because WeChat is by far the most useful platform for PRC migrants, it is important that the government respect this community’s right to stay connected with their families, friends and networks in China. It is crucial that the issue of WeChat should not be weaponised by politicians who single-mindedly push for a ban or partial ban in the name of security interests.
  • In line with the goal of developing adequate communication platforms to reach out to non-English speaking populations, the government should continue to use Chinese social media such as WeChat and Xiaohongshu to facilitate political engagement, better delivery of social services in aged care, health care and disability care, as well as to promote social inclusion and belonging.
  • More than ever before, there is a serious need to support ongoing research in order to identify feasible strategies, methods and pathways of ensuring inclusion and acceptance of Chinese-Australians, especially first-generation PRC migrants. The government should actively harness the hitherto largely untapped resource of the Chinese-Australian communities as assets in defending Australia’s national security and national interest, rather than regarding them as primarily a liability. Identifying effective strategies to promote their social, cultural and political integration should be considered as an urgent matter of national interest and national security.

Chinese-Australians, social inclusion and the national interest

In recent years, and especially since COVID-19 and during the last period of government by the Coalition, we have witnessed growing anti-Chinese racism, the demonisation of Chinese-Australians, suspicion of Chinese-Australians’ political loyalties, and a lack of civic and citizenship education for new migrants.

Social cohesiveness has been identified as a key element of Australia’s national interest, underpinning Australia’s prosperity and security. Indeed, security commentators make the case that ‘building trusted and apolitical engagement with all parts of the community, and notably Australians of Chinese origin’ is an important component of formulating an overarching national interest strategy. Facilitating the integration of minority groups, particularly those as sizeable as the Chinese-Australian communities, is not only consistent with a liberal perspective of justice and equality, but it is also a matter of pragmatic importance, especially if Australia is intent on growing its own political influence and increasing its national power in strategic competition with foreign coercive influence.

For the same reason, Osmond Chiu cautions that pursuing our foreign policy through a defence and security lens needs to stop fuelling ‘the perception that Chinese-Australians would be acceptable collateral damage in a conflict’.

This view – that Chinese-Australians would be acceptable collateral damage in a conflict – seems to have been implicitly adopted by many commentators in our media, as well as by some think-tanks and politicians. This has been extremely damaging to the legitimacy and validity of the ethos and philosophy of multiculturalism.

A new multicultural framework needs to reflect the fact that the well-being of Chinese-Australians is closely related to, and inevitably affected by, current geopolitics, by Australia’s foreign policy towards China, and by Australia’s national security policy favouring a close alliance with the US. It is increasingly difficult to conceptualise the two as separate entities.

Given this, the challenge to facilitate the social integration of this particular cohort is enormous. Recently, Andrew Jakubowicz commented on what he has called ‘Sinophobia in times of COVID-19’. He writes:

Identity within and attachment to Australia for ethnic immigrants depend on how well the system they enter protects their human rights from the omnipresent threats from racists and xenophobes. They will not release their grip on the old if the new emerges as threatening and potentially dangerous.

Lack of Information and Communication Platforms for Practical Needs
While many people in these communities feel marginalised and excluded in political and social terms, in practical terms there is also a gap in the government’s efforts to deliver a wide range of services, including aged care, health care, legal aid, and myriad other social initiatives, such as GambleAware and information about domestic violence.

Academics who conduct research on various aspects of the Chinese-Australian communities have demonstrated the importance of Chinese social media platforms in the everyday lives of people in these communities. For instance, Bingqin Li (UNSW) has been studying how community organisations such as the Chinese Australian Services Society (CASS) use WeChat to recruit volunteers in aged care and self-help groups. WeChat is particularly useful for community-based service providers to contact hard-to-reach older people. Li reports that some of these older people have been quietly contributing to the shortage of aged care labour in Australia for many years. But now, with the help of WeChat, CASS has recruited many more volunteers, including many new migrants from mainland China.

For older Chinese Australians, WeChat is essentially a lifeline for overcoming social isolation and learning about Australian culture, regulations, social services, events and networks. If it were banned or its use restricted, many of these elders would return to a state of effectively being ‘blind, deaf and mute’.

Similarly, Tina Du, (currently at University of South Australia) has studied the information behaviour of Chinese migrants over the age of 67, and found that WeChat plays a significant and essential role in enabling these senior citizens to live in Australia and remain connected with China. This is especially relevant, given the challenges identified in the Australian Government’s recent 2023 Intergenerational Report.

Some researchers are also urging health professionals to use WeChat to assist their patients. Dr Ling Zhang (Sydney University) is a nurse practitioner and research fellow specialising in the care of patients with cardiovascular disease. Based on her finding of low levels of eHealth literacy among migrant communities, Zhang argues that WeChat should be used as a platform for GPs and cardiologists to disseminate health information by health care providers, given its wide reach.

This growing body of evidence-based research is pointing to the crucial role that WeChat is playing in the lives of many Chinese-Australian migrants, and so far, no concrete evidence has been identified that shows that WeChat is a threat of any kind to Australia’s national security.

Senator James Paterson, who chaired the Senate Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media, believes that ‘We must also harden the resilience of our diaspora communities targeted by transnational repression to protect their right to free speech’.

To echo Senator Paterson’s call to protect our diaspora communities’ right to free speech, it is important to point out that the right to freedom of expression and free access to all social media platforms, including WeChat, indeed needs to be respected. While WeChat should be expected to comply with all relevant Australian regulations, it is also important that the government recognise and accept that WeChat is the most widely used social media platform for PRC migrants, and has become essential for them in staying connected with their families, friends and networks in China. Whatever policies emerge in this space must respect this community’s right to use the platform for such purposes. Moreover, these policies must encourage the government to harness the platform as a way of improving PRC migrants’ capacity to access information about social services and other vital government functions. It is crucial that the issue of WeChat should not be weaponised by politicians who single-mindedly push for a ban or a partial ban in the name of security interests.

The government should not only continue its nascent use of WeChat to facilitate political engagement, to deliver social services in aged care, health care, disability care, and to encourage and promote inclusion and belonging; it should also fund further research to identify ways of doing more with the platform in these spheres, and to do it better.

Summary

The question of how to address the issue of Australian-Chinese communities is an integral component of the multicultural framework review. A number of factors – a large number of recent arrivals from the PRC, a fast-changing geopolitical dynamics featuring growing tension and hostility between the US and China, and Australia’s increasing tendency in its foreign policy to imagine China as our biggest military threat – come to bear on the current review of the multicultural framework. Much work – overall reconceptualisation, governing structure, a rethinking of policy, and the design of practical strategies – remains to be done. The government will benefit enormously by actively seeking the views of scholars, multicultural agencies and community stakeholders in updating its framework.

Wanning Sun is a professor of media and cultural studies at the University of Technology, Sydney. She also serves as the deputy director of the UTS Australia-China Relations Institute.

Source: Australia’s multicultural framework can no longer be separate from … – Pearls and Irritations

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Cohen: American Jews are loudly protesting Israel’s anti-judiciary law. In Canada — not so much, Juneau: Canada must rethink its friendship with Israel

2023/07/29 Leave a comment

Significant contrast:

On the day Israel’s Knesset passed the Reasonableness Standard Law — a frontal assault on the independence of its judiciary — something strange and wondrous happened among America’s fractious Jews: they agreed, broadly speaking, that the law is a mistake and said so.

The chorus of disapproval came not just from progressive Jews but organizations representing mainstream Jews, and some conservative ones, too. The American Jewish Committee issued a statement expressing “profound disappointment” and lamenting that the new law was “pushed through unilaterally by the governing coalition,” causing “discord” in Israel and “straining the vital relationship” with the diaspora.

The committee argued that “dramatic changes” to the judicial system should come from “a deliberative and inclusive process” respecting checks and balances, minority rights and judicial independence. Other mainstream U.S. organizations echoed the criticism. The Anti–Defamation League said the law “could weaken Israeli democracy and harm Israel’s founding principles.” The Jewish Federations of North America was “extremely disappointed” the law had been passed “without a process of consensus,” despite “serious disagreement across Israeli society” amid strenuous efforts to forge “a compromise.”

Pointedly, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, among the most stalwart pro-Israeli organizations, did not comment. But Democratic Majority for Israel, a pro-Israel committee within the Democratic Party, said it was “a serious mistake” for Israel to ignore the protests of “the majority of its citizens …”

This displeasure of the Jewish establishment, though not as strong as in other quarters, shows an evolution among American Jews. Criticizing Israel was once heretical among these groups. No longer.

None of these organizations is as angry as many among this country’s 5.8 million Jews, who are increasingly skeptical of Israel. A growing number think it’s time that President Joe Biden lean heavily on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his old, unreconstructed adversary. “Bibi” has fallen in with the hard right on judicial reform, from settlers who want to annex the West Bank to orthodox Jews who want to enshrine exemption from military service.

Biden has issued appeals but no threats. He never raises, for example, the $3.8 billion U.S. in assistance Israel receives annually from the United States. Interestingly, Israel, a wealthy country more secure than ever, no longer needs the money. Still, it is seen as untouchable.

While Jews in Britain, Australia and other countries have joined those here in opposition, it’s entirely different in Canada, an unserious country, where only progressives see the danger.

“This is a dark day,” declared Joe Roberts, chair of JSpaceCanada. “I cannot begin to explain how gutted I am.” He and others worry about an emasculated court that can no longer protect the rights of Palestinians, migrant workers, women and the LGBTQ+ community in Israel against an oppressive government.

The New Israel Fund of Canada has issued an urgent appeal. “Today we need you more than ever,” said executive director Ben Murane. “We will never back down.”

Astoundingly, though, from the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), the “advocacy agent” that “represents the diverse perspectives and concerns of more than 150,000 Jewish Canadians,” there was not a peep of protest. Maybe it missed the news.

Then again, the director of CIJA’s office in Jerusalem is David Weinberg, who supported the judicial reforms in a published commentary. These are his personal views, CIJA insists. But it’s likely they are equally those of CIJA’s unelected and unaccountable executive, especially CEO Shimon Fogel. He knows that these are not those of Canadian Jews but hasn’t the courage to say so.

It raises the question: Why doesn’t CIJA stop hiding and come out and support the reforms? At least that would be honourable. For its part, the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto issued yet another purée of platitudes. It is concerned that Israelis are divided and hopes for “compromise.” What we need is more dialogue, it urges, finding solace in earnestness and ambiguity.

Oh. Lord. As Israel’s Supreme Court prepares to hear petitions on the new law — which may well spark an unprecedented constitutional crisis there this autumn — behold, once again, the sad silence of Canada’s Jewish establishment.

Source: Cohen: American Jews are loudly protesting Israel’s anti-judiciary law. In Canada — not so much

Thomas Juneau asking a needed question:

This week, the Israeli parliament approved a controversial law that constrains the Supreme Court’s ability to provide judicial oversight of government actions. According to many critics, this is only the first step in a plan by the coalition government led by Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu to concentrate power in the executive branch. The Netanyahu government, which includes Jewish supremacists and is the most extreme in the country’s history, has also taken steps, and will likely take additional ones, toward Israel’s further annexation of the West Bank.

This raises difficult questions for Canada: should we stand by as the assault on democratic norms and Palestinian rights continues? The easy answer would be to muddle along, perhaps offering timid condemnation. The status quo, however, is increasingly unsustainable.

Like its allies, Canada’s position is to support the two-state solution, according to which Israel and an eventual Palestinian state would co-exist. Yet it is now difficult to see how this outcome can be achieved. On the Israeli side, intransigent governments have expanded settlements in the West Bank, largely closing the door on a viable Palestinian state. The road has been further blocked by the fragmentation of the Palestinian leadership, with the incompetent Palestinian Authority barely governing in the West Bank and the extremist Hamas ruling the Gaza Strip with an iron fist. In the meantime, the status quo is deeply unfair to Palestinians and destabilizing for the region.

The case can certainly be made that maintaining the fiction of the two-state solution is the least bad approach given the absence of viable alternatives. It is one thing to recognize that the two-state solution is dead; it is another to come up with a better, realistic alternative. Moreover, proponents of the status quo argue that Israel is and should remain a close friend. This is partly valid: There is no serious proposal to jettison the partnership, which indeed is beneficial for Canada. To their discredit, some supporters of the status quo far too easily launch accusations of antisemitism in response to criticism of Israeli policies. This is dishonest and stifles constructive and necessary debate. The question here is not to reject Israel’s right to exist, but to criticize some of its policies and ask whether Canada’s current approach is optimal.

The broader objectives of Canada’s foreign policy matter. It is inevitable that Canada’s focus on the Middle East will diminish. Ottawa simply has other priorities: The most important one, and one which could come under severe strain in the near future, remains the management of its relations with the United States. In addition, Canada needs to boost its presence in Asia, while the war in Ukraine shows the necessity of continuing its contributions to transatlantic security. The remaining bandwidth, for the Middle East and other areas, will shrink.

In this context, Canada should publicly state that it refuses to deal with the more extremist ministers in the Netanyahu government. It should vocally express its opposition to the proposed reforms and freeze or reduce co-operation with Israel on some issues. Ottawa should also boost its support for Palestinian civil society and increase pressure on the Palestinian Authority to reform itself and organize fresh elections. More concretely, Canada should evaluate whether its longstanding mission to train Palestinian security forces should continue since doing so entrenches the status quo by allowing Israel to delegate to the Palestinian Authority the day-to-day administration of the occupation in the West Bank. Ottawa should also suspend its policy of almost systematically voting with Israel at the United Nations General Assembly on resolutions dealing with the conflict.

Given its marginal influence when it acts alone, Canada should also engage in serious conversations with like-minded allies and partners, including through the Group of Seven, about options to change the status quo in relations with Israel and the Palestinians. Canada’s partnership with Israel has been premised on shared values, and with Israel’s government now dominated by extremist elements who are undermining the two-state solution, we can’t keep acting like it’s business as usual.

Source: Canada must rethink its friendship with Israel

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GOLDSTEIN: Ex-spy chief warned of China’s interference in 2010 — he was almost fired

2023/06/19 Leave a comment

Remember the controversy well during my time at the multiculturalism program and agree with Goldstein that his warning was prescient:

Thirteen years ago, the then newly-appointed director of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service warned Canadians about the growing threat of interference by China.

It almost ended Richard Fadden’s career. It’s also why he would be an excellent choice to head a public inquiry into foreign interference today.

In 2010, he warned us that politicians and public servants were under the influence of Beijing, that China was exerting influence on Canadians of Chinese origin and that academic relationships between Canadian universities and China were another source of interference.

Based on what we now know, what Fadden said was mild. He focused mainly on attempts by China to interfere through gestures of so-called friendship, rather than threats.

But back then, few wanted to listen.

Not the majority of MPs or in the media, who condemned Fadden for everything from raising the issue without clearing it with the government, to fomenting hatred against Canadians of Chinese origin.

Today, it is the Chinese diaspora community in Canada who are at the forefront of calls for a public inquiry because they have been the primary targets and victims of Beijing’s interference.

Fadden initially commented publicly about foreign interference in response to a question after a speech he gave in March 2010 at Toronto’s Royal Canadian Military Institute to police, military and intelligence and security officials.

“There are several municipal politicians in British Columbia and in at least two provinces there are ministers of the Crown whom we think are under at least the general influence of a foreign government,” Fadden said. “They have no idea. It’s just a long-standing relationship. “You develop friendships, it’s what I do, in reverse and they’re very good at it.”

Very few people would ever have heard Fadden’s comment if CSIS hadn’t filmed his entire speech and given it to the CBC for an upcoming feature on CSIS’ 25th anniversary.

When that documentary aired three months later in June, the CBC’s Brian Stewart asked Fadden to elaborate on foreign interference.

Fadden expanded his prior comments to include attempts by some countries to establish influence programs with universities and social clubs by donating money to them, pressuring members of their diaspora communities using everything from friendly gestures to threats to toe the government line abroad, to warnings of deportation of visiting university students if they publicly criticized their homelands.

The CBC did a follow-up interview with Fadden the next day, where he confirmed to an incredulous Peter Mansbridge that he was mainly talking about China and that its attempted influence was municipal and provincial at that point, not federal.

After that, all hell broke loose with a Commons committee controlled by the opposition parties in the then minority Conservative government, demanding PM Stephen Harper, who appointed Fadden, condemn his remarks and fire him for, among other things, not pre-clearing his comments with the government.

Fadden survived and went on to become Harper’s national security advisor before retiring after the Liberals won the 2015 election.

But what had happened set back any serious public conversation about combatting foreign interference in the Harper and Trudeau governments until Sam Cooper, formerly of Global News, now with thebureau.news, and Robert Fife and Steven Chase of the Globe and Mail began breaking stories beginning in November 2022, based on sources, that the federal government was downplaying warnings about interference

We should have listened to Fadden 13 years ago. Today, he supports a public inquiry.

Source: GOLDSTEIN: Ex-spy chief warned of China’s interference in 2010 — he was almost fired

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If you are in trouble abroad, will Canada come get you?

2023/05/09 Leave a comment

Good realistic explainer featuring the former ambassador to Lebanon:

It was Louis de Lorimier’s first posting as an ambassador for Canada when he arrived in Lebanon in September 2005, after almost a quarter-century in the foreign service.

His appointment came just a few months after then Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri was assassinated in a truck bombing, and the relationship between Israel, the militant group Hezbollah and neighbouring Syria was tense.

Political and military skirmishes between the various forces in the region were not uncommon, but de Lorimier didn’t foresee he would be caught at the centre of Operation LION, Canada’s largest international evacuation effort of its citizens to date.

“You did have violence to a certain extent on the border but nothing could suggest that it would go so far,” recalls the retired career diplomat, now a fellow at the Montreal Institute of International Studies.

“Lebanon was a turning point. I think they really got the (evacuation) system much better organized after that.”

In July 2006, after Israel’s military attacked Hezbollah forces in Lebanon to retaliate for the killing and kidnapping of its soldiers, Ottawa came under heavy fire for what some criticized as chaotic and slow response to bring home its citizens stranded in the war zone. By the end of that August, 14,000 Canadians had been evacuated.

Nearly 17 years later, after a civil war erupted in Sudan between the ruling government and a paramilitary group, the Canadian government’s evacuation effort has once again raised the questions of its responsibilities to its citizens abroad and its readiness to save its people from harm’s way.

Last Saturday, Canada ended its evacuation flights to bring Canadians home from Sudan amid escalating violence and deteriorating safety conditions. Over two weeks, of the 1,728 Canadians in Sudan who had registered with the government, more than 400 had been evacuated, with hundreds of others still looking for assistance.

“Canada continues to monitor the situation actively and will continue to provide assistance to Canadians and permanent residents wishing to depart Sudan,” Global Affairs Canada said in a statement on Friday.

“Our officials will keep in contact with those who call on us for help. We will keep in touch using whatever is the most effective way to help them stay safe, be it phone, e-mail or text message.”

De Lorimier said taking care of Canadians abroad has always been a top priority for consular staff, who constantly monitor conditions on the ground and report them to Ottawa.

“One of our responsibilities is to have a plan in place to deal with social unrests and major events of that nature, or it could be earthquakes or natural disasters, and it goes as far as war,” said de Lorimier, who headed the Lebanese mission until 2008 and then served as ambassador to Belgium and Mali before he retired in 2015.

“But what is obvious is that Canada doesn’t have the assets in the region to deal as quickly as we have to deal with a huge crisis.”

There are many variables in an evacuation effort and officials have to constantly negotiate with the local security authorities to seek safe pathways for both Canada’s personnel and citizens alike.

“I think most people do have unreasonable expectations. Sure, your government is there to protect you in every way possible. Obviously, it’s what we try to do. But the government also tells people, ‘Well, you’re responsible for your own safety first and foremost,’” said de Lorimier.

“If you go to a place where there’s social unrest, or even war, well, there could be consequences. There’s only so much we can do. That’s why we have these warnings that in certain countries, you’d better be careful. It’s not that the government doesn’t want to take care of people. But sometimes you have situations where you just can’t.”

The operation in Lebanon was certainly unprecedented in terms of the scale. At the onset of the war, only 1,000 Canadians registered with the embassy, which quickly ballooned to 30,000 a week into the conflict.

Although Lebanon was under complete blockade by the Israelis who bombed the main runway at the airport and blew up its fuel depots, Canada’s strong diplomatic relationships with both countries assured safe pathways to bus its citizens to an evacuation spot and then repatriate them via Cyprus.

In Sudan, however, de Lorimier said Canadian officials are dealing with two warring parties declaring ceasefires that never hold, and there’s a complete breakdown in the rule of law. The only blessing is the main airport in the capital Khartoum seems to be working of late, letting Canada shift its emergency evacuation efforts toward assisted departures through commercial transportation to exit the country.

Still, de Lorimier said there still could be a lot of uncertainty.

For example, on the first day of the Lebanese evacuation, the Canadian government had initially secured six ships to each carry 250 people out of the Lebanon’s main port. However, at the last minute, the Turkish company that loaned the boats was not satisfied with the security assurances and decided to send just one ship.

“We had prepared more than 1,000 people to evacuate. That’s when the press reported in Canada that the operation was a mess. We got really bad press. Some people were complaining that we left them out in the sun and they didn’t have water and they didn’t have food. It was quite something,” recalled de Lorimier, who didn’t sleep for weeks then and was running on his adrenalin.

“We almost had a catastrophe because we had this 1,000 people that were waiting in a room. We weren’t expecting to give them room and board for a night. So you can imagine kids running around and older people, and we didn’t even have enough restrooms.”

Canada recognizes dual citizenships and dual citizens are treated equally as their Canadian-born peers, but the Lebanese evacuation led to a public debate about whether these individuals’ birth country or adopted country is actually responsible for them.

“If there’s a problem, is it not logical that he be supported by his birth country before being supported by the consular service of Canada, his country of adoption?” asked de Lorimier. Yet in the end, “anyone that had Canadian papers was evacuated.”

The evacuation effort would end up costing Canada $94 million, which also prompted prime minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government in 2009 to restrict the passage of Canadian citizenship by descent to the first generation of Canadians born overseas.

In its post-mortem of the Lebanese operation, the Canadian Senate, made many recommendations, including urging Foreign Affairs officials to review and ensure adequate resources to missions in countries where the size of the Canadian population and regional risks are high.

In hindsight, de Lorimier said he felt the Lebanese operation was provided with proper resources, with 200 Foreign Affairs staffers redeployed from outside Lebanon to assist with the evacuation, along with additional immigration and military personnel.

“People will always say there’s not enough resources. That’s a tricky question. We evacuated 15,000 people and everybody made it … no casualties,” he noted.

“The first responsibility lies with you. You have to know what you’re getting into and where you’re going in terms of security, military and war and even tsunamis or earthquakes. There’s so many risks that you have to figure out and decide if you want to take the risk.”

Source: If you are in trouble abroad, will Canada come get you?

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Ottawa can’t keep up with the fallout from explosion of international sanctions

2023/04/07 Leave a comment

Always about delivery and implementation…

They never thought that a dental chair would constitute military hardware.

But Canadian manufacturers of medical supplies have found themselves fighting to win exemptions from a federal sanction that bans selling Russia anything used in the “manufacture of weapons.”

The measure covers not just tank parts and drones but an array of health-care products, veterinary equipment and even barber chairs — items “not traditionally referred to as weapons,” notes William Pellerin, the lawyer representing the companies.

His clients’ appeal is just one battle being waged behind the scenes of the sweeping set of sanctions Canada has imposed on Russia and Belarus over Moscow’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine a year ago.

Complaints have come from Canadians whose money transfers from Russia have been frozen, oligarchs insisting they were listed by mistake, companies unsure if they should deal with a Russia-linked partner and humanitarian groups barred from entering occupied Ukrainian territory.

The sanctions were imposed in response to a Russian military campaign that has laid waste to countless Ukrainian towns and cities, killed thousands of civilians and led to war-crimes charges against President Vladimir Putin himself.

But as the number of sanctions imposed by this country grows “exponentially,” lawyers say the government is ill-prepared to handle the complex fall-out, leading to a backlog at Global Affairs Canada of hundreds of official requests for exemptions and de-listing.

Unlike other countries, the government provides little direction on how to comply with the sanctions and has issued few general exclusions for those who might be needlessly caught in the cross-fire, they say.

“There is a very strong interest on the part of government to be moving quickly,” says Ottawa lawyer John Boscariol. “(But) when there’s not a lot of thought or consultation put into these measures, inevitably you’re going to side-swipe parties that should not really be targets … We haven’t been properly managing the collateral damage.”

The problems extend beyond the impact on those affected by sanctions, some critics charge.

Even as Canada wins kudos as a world leader in wielding the weapon, there’s no requirement to gauge how well sanctions work in changing behaviour, argues an academic expert in the area.

“At no time does Global Affairs have to go through and say ‘Hmm, these names have been on the book for a year, maybe we should look and see if they should still be there, if they’re having an effect,’ ” says Andrea Charron, a University of Manitoba international relations professor. “It’s fire and forget … We don’t measure effectiveness.”

But Global Affairs spokesman Grantly Franklin defended the sanctions regime as “hard-hitting,” yet judicious.

He said the government is already addressing the mounting workload, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announcing last October an extra $76 million to bolster the sanctions infrastructure. Part of that money will be used to expand the department’s team dealing with the issue, said Franklin.

He declined to answer questions about how many applications Global Affairs has received for exemption permits or for the de-listing of certain sanctions, but stressed the goal of the measures is to put pressure on foreign actors, not Canadians.

“Canadians or individuals in Canada whose money has been frozen … may apply for a permit,” said Franklin by email. “We have a rigorous due diligence process in place to evaluate permit applications, and each application is assessed on a case-by-case basis.”

Sanctions have always been a periodic weapon of Canada’s foreign policy, though often in conjunction with other members of the United Nations. But use of the tool began to proliferate under the previous Conservative government, when former prime minister Stephen Harper targeted Iran and North Korea, then Russia after its initial move into eastern Ukraine and occupation of Crimea.

The trend has picked up pace since then, with Russia the main focus but Canadian sanctions have also been placed on people or entities in China, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Syria, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Libya, South Sudan, Haiti and Saudi Arabia.

“I’ve been practising in this area since I became a lawyer in the 1990s and … it’s just been growing exponentially,” says Boscariol.

“The use of sanctions by the government of Canada has exploded since the further invasion of Ukraine by Russia,” echoed Pellerin, a partner in the McMillan law firm.

Both lawyers said their clients challenging application of the sanctions declined to be interviewed or named for this story.

As the number of sanctions has grown, so too has their complexity. Many of those aimed at Moscow don’t single out specific companies or individuals, for instance, but bar Canadians — even those living abroad — from providing supplies and services to particular industries, such as the oil and gas and technology sectors.

And though the sanctions may sound straightforward when announced, implementing them in the real world can be messy, the lawyers say.

Part of their work involves applying for those “permits” that exempt individuals or companies from one of the measures. Many of the applications are from Canadian residents who were expecting money to be transferred from relatives or others in Russia, only for the funds to be frozen because the originating bank was sanctioned.

There are Canadians who worked for multinational companies and were laid off because Ottawa’s sanctions won’t let them service Russian clients, and Canadian corporations struggling to figure out whether to do business with a certain firm, the lawyers say.

“A big part of the problem is that there are Russian oligarchs hiding under every rock,” said Pellerin. “It’s rare that a week goes by that we don’t encounter a Russian oligarch behind a company (clients) we’re dealing with.”

The challenge is determining if the sanctioned person’s stake in a particular firm that is based, say, in Dubai, makes that firm a no-go zone, he said.

Other countries have concrete guidelines, with the U.S. specifying that the sanctioned individual must own at least 50 per cent of an asset for the sanctions to apply to it. Canada has no such definition, leaving it up to companies to decide or apply for a permit, said Pellerin.

The U.S. actually has a Treasury Department unit — the Office of Financial Asset Control — that proactively embeds itself in banks and other firms to coach them on how to identify links they might have with sanctioned entities, says Charron. The U.K. and the European Union provide detailed instruction on how the measures apply. Not so Canada, she said, either under Harper or the current Liberal government..

“It’s not Global Affairs that enforces sanctions,” said Charron. “It’s basically you and I and real estate agents and banks. And they get no guidance.”

There are challenges, too, for humanitarian organizations. Those without a formal link to the Red Cross/Red Crescent, the U.N. or the federal government are barred by sanctions from working in places like Russian-occupied Ukraine or Syria. The U.S. and other nations, by comparison, have issued “general licences” to such groups to let them provide aid in those areas, said Boscariol, of the firm McCarthy Tétrault.

Perhaps more contentious are those individuals and entities who claim they have been sanctioned wrongly, based on faulty information or even a misspelled name. Boscariol said he’s been successful in the past getting clients de-listed.

Most of the Russians sanctioned by Canada probably don’t have assets here, but what Ottawa does still matters to them, he said. Different countries sometimes replicate Canada’s measures, while some international banks will not deal with potential clients that have been listed here, even if no other country sanctioned them, said Boscariol.

Pellerin said his firm has decided not to work for sanctioned Russian people or Russian companies, choosing to take a “public stance” against the Putin regime. Even so, he said he frequently is approached by oligarchs seeking his services.

The lawyers helping clients navigate the sanctions acknowledge that it made sense for Canada to act swiftly to impose penalties on Russia. But they say Global Affairs has invested far too few resources into managing the measures, even as its lack of guidance leads to more applications for exemptions and de-listing.

The new funding announced last fall has yet to have any apparent impact, they say.

Pellerin said he’s applied for an exemption permit for his medical-supplies clients, but has yet to receive a decision. (He acknowledges that the sanction may be aimed at goods that could be used by Russian armed forces, not just to make weapons.) The lawyer said he’s had answers quickly in some cases, and waited a year in others.

“The sanctions team at Global Affairs Canada work incredibly hard … in a very stressful and demanding environment,” said Pellerin. But “they’ve not been able to keep up with the large demands that have resulted from the government’s decision to massively increase the use of sanctions.”

Source: Ottawa can’t keep up with the fallout from explosion of international sanctions

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Mulroney: There is nothing racist about creating a foreign-agent registry in Canada

2023/03/15 Leave a comment

Of note, agree not racist as these actions pertain to the Chinese regime:

Amid reports of Chinese foreign interference in Canadian elections, federal ministers Marco Mendicino and Mary Ng have voiced concerns that setting up a registry of foreign agents could unfairly target Canadians of Chinese origin and even prove racist.

But this argument doesn’t just prejudice people before any consultations even begin – it is also based on false assumptions about foreign agents and their victims.

Far from being racist, requiring transparency of those who speak, lobby, or disburse money for China or any other foreign state protects vulnerable members of diaspora communities, who are often the first targets of foreign interference. Indeed, the Chinese Communist Party has long prioritized the infiltration, coercion and harassment of diaspora communities worldwide as a means of advancing its power and influence. This has accelerated under Xi Jinping, whose vision of “the Great Chinese nation” uses patriotism as a cover for the extension of China’s extraterritorial reach. The party and its proxies routinely infiltrate student groups, cultural and community associations and Chinese-language media in foreign countries. In Canada, this has been enabled by the shameful failure of our own officials to protect diaspora members from the long arm of the Chinese state.

The most odious example of Beijing’s extraterritorial reach is the establishment of what have been referred to as overseas “police stations.” Human rights groups have said that Chinese officials use these places to interrogate and intimidate people of Han Chinese, Tibetan and Uyghur origin, hoping to compel their return to China to face prosecution. The RCMP is now reportedly investigating sites in British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec. As welcome as these efforts are, it’s hard to understand why it has taken so long. It is reasonable to worry that, until recently, at least some Canadian police may have simply assumed that whatever went on in Chinese diaspora communities was China’s business.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the only indication that Canadian officials may be facilitating the steady accumulation of extraterritorial power by Chinese diplomats.

Show up at a Lunar New Year’s gala anywhere in the country and you’ll find Canadian politicians at all levels and from all parties falling over themselves to pay lavish tribute to China’s flag, anthem and diplomats. This joyous family celebration, which China’s communist rulers banned for many years, has been cynically co-opted by Beijing’s diplomats, who turn the event into a victory lap and a high-profile demonstration of their local authority. Instead of voicing a challenge at these events, Canadian politicians seem more intent on squeezing into the group photo with the presiding Chinese functionary.

Interference by the Chinese state is by no means limited to diaspora communities, something a registry of foreign agents would make clear. There is mounting evidence that China’s efforts are ambitious, sophisticated, and national in scope. Yet oddly enough, the fact that not all foreign agents are of Chinese ethnicity seems not to have occurred to Mr. Mendicino and Ms. Ng.

I have for some time advocated for an Australian-style foreign agent registry in Canada, one designed to include the names of everyone who is delivering Beijing’s talking points, disbursing its payoffs, and lobbying on its behalf. Such a list would almost certainly include more than a few residents of Canada’s capital, where many former ministers and mandarins remain after retirement to run associations, represent major firms, opine on nightly news panels, rub shoulders with serving officials and, in some cases, advance agendas on behalf of foreign paymasters. Canadians need greater transparency from this privileged and, it needs to be said, ethnically diverse community, which exercises considerable influence behind the scenes.

Former politicians and public servants should be required to report any arrangements in which they market to foreign states the knowledge, experience and contacts they gained while serving Canada, or that require them to perform any functions in Canada for such states. This would include disclosure of board memberships, consulting contracts, subsidized travel, appointments to political bodies, and other perks provided to themselves or family members, directly or indirectly by foreign states.

In addition, I’ve also recommended that work as a foreign agent render individuals ineligible for appointment to federal boards and agencies, and for membership in the Order of Canada or elevation to the Privy Council. How can we extend our continuing trust to individuals who have decided to serve a foreign state, especially one that is hostile to Canada? There is nothing “Honourable” or, indeed, “Right Honourable” about being on Beijing’s payroll.

Setting up a registry of foreign agents is in no way racist. But assuming it would contain only Chinese names is.

David Mulroney served as Canada’s ambassador to the People’s Republic of China from 2009 to 2012.

Source: There is nothing racist about creating a foreign-agent registry in Canada

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To really tackle Beijing’s interference, Canada must engage with the Chinese diaspora

2023/03/15 Leave a comment

Good commentary:

What needs to happen before Canada takes action on foreign interference? Apparently something as drastic as leaks of top-secret intelligence documents to the media.

Last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded to recent reports of Chinese foreign interference and disinformation campaigns in Canadian federal elections by announcing that his government would appoint an independent special rapporteur to investigate, provide recommendations and decide if a public inquiry is necessary. Further steps include reviews by intelligence bodies on such foreign-interference issues and new funding for civil-society organizations to combat disinformation.

Mr. Trudeau also announced consultations on a foreign-agent registry and the appointment of a new foreign-interference co-ordinator at Public Safety Canada. (Consultations on a foreign-agent registry – a policy previously pursued by Kenny Chiu, the former Conservative member of Parliament who was reportedly targeted by a Beijing-led online disinformation campaign – were actually announced back in December.)

This is all welcome news, and it signals that Ottawa may finally be taking foreign interference seriously. But the government continues to rely on top-down methods to address the issue, despite the fact that it alone cannot adequately take on the problem – and nor should it be the sole institution to take on the challenge. While funding is coming for non-governmental organizations to tackle disinformation, what is needed is a whole-of-society approach.

This includes engagement with a broader range of traditional and non-traditional stakeholders, such as academia, the private sector, media and local communities. Crucially, it prioritizes engagement with these stakeholders and with NGOs, aims to facilitate active participation in the decision-making process and strives to rebuild trust in our public institutions. In the specific case of foreign interference, it would allow the challenge to be tackled in ways that do not demonize equity-deserving groups.

In contrast, the current and proposed actions by the Canadian government overlook the targeted individuals and affected communities at the heart of China’s foreign-interference efforts. Canada’s response continues to miss opportunities to engage with the Chinese diaspora and dissident communities who have long been sounding the alarm on the Chinese Communist Party’s meddling in our democracy.

The issue of foreign interference, after all, goes beyond electoral meddling. It also involves the covert amplification of pro-Beijing narratives and the suppression of anti-Beijing ones. This has ramifications for the Chinese diaspora, which has found itself caught in the crossfire between two worlds and the geopolitical tension between them.

The status quo represents a silencing on two fronts. While the Chinese diaspora faces increasing anti-Asian sentiment and marginalization in Canada, the baggage of another home has followed them across oceans. Those who dare to speak out against the CCP, even on Canadian soil, endanger not only themselves but their friends and loved ones back in China or other PRC-controlled territories.

This is why the whole-of-society approach should centre on the Chinese diaspora – particularly the vulnerable communities within it, such as Hong Kongers, Uyghurs and Tibetans. While the diaspora and dissident communities bear the brunt of foreign interference by the CCP, these groups are often ignored when they could be helping to combat it. Many Hong Kongers, for instance, are well versed in tactics used by the CCP to target voters, having seen them in action firsthand in their own elections.

Canada must also engage with stakeholders who can communicate in the languages spoken in the community, who understand how cultural norms intersect with broader Canadian society, and who can meet members of the community where they are at. To increase civic engagement we must be able to communicate and educate in ways that are both respectful of one’s self-determination and understanding of the geopolitical tensions vulnerable groups must contend with.

National security concerns such as foreign transnational repression must be considered, too, to ensure that targeted communities can safely and freely engage in democracy without ramifications.

Foreign interference is a challenge that is here to stay. While the federal government is taking encouraging first steps, these can only be the beginning. A whole-of-society approach is required not only to address this issue, but to give a voice to those who have been silenced for so long.

Ai-Men Lau is a research analyst at Doublethink Lab and adviser to Alliance Canada Hong Kong. She is a contributor to Alliance Canada Hong Kong’s 2021 Report “In Plain Sight: Beijing’s unrestricted network of foreign influence in Canada.”

Source: To really tackle Beijing’s interference, Canada must engage with the Chinese diaspora

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Diaspora groups tell Ottawa to start a foreign influence registry — and do it fast

2023/03/10 Leave a comment

Agree. Long overdue:

Canada needs to establish a foreign influence registry before the next federal election, say associations representing diaspora communities across the country.

The Canadian Coalition for a Foreign Influence Registry (CCFIR), a consortium of more than 30 community groups, held a video news conference Wednesday pushing for the federal government to establish such a registry by this summer.

“It needs to be in place before the next federal election,” Gloria Fung of CCFIR said. “If the government considers consultation necessary, we would be happy to co-operate fully, however, the consultation should be conducted in a timely manner.”

The CCFIR consists of grassroots organizations representing Chinese, Vietnamese, Uyghur, European and other communities across Canada. Members include Canada-Hong Kong Link, the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project and the Central and Eastern European Council in Canada.

The timing of the election is uncertain, depending on the Liberal minority government maintaining enough support to govern.

The demand for a foreign influence registry comes as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faces new questions on Parliament Hill following a news report alleging he was briefed about the Chinese Communist Party’s attempts to influence Canadian elections with funding.

The report from Global News said two weeks before the 2019 election was called, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians told Trudeau that Chinese officials were secretly bankrolling candidates in the election.

It was the latest blow to Trudeau over a growing scandal about China’s alleged interference in elections stemming from leaks from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). Calls for a foreign influence registry have grown along with the scandal.

A foreign influence registry would require those working on behalf of foreign governments to log their activities, with legal consequences for failing to do so. The federal government has already said it will launch consultations into such a registry but the timeline needs to be shorter, the CCFIR said.

Such a registry would shed light on who is doing what for foreign interests, the CCFIR said, preventing their activities from remaining covert.

“This is essential to protect Canadian democracy, national security and our own communities from foreign interference,” Fung said.

A bill for a registry is currently before the Senate, but has received little attention. Before the most recent election, Conservative MP Kenny Chiu also tried to establish such a registry in a bid that did not make it past Parliament.

Chiu lost his seat in the next election and he and others have partially blamed a disinformation campaign, potentially orchestrated by Beijing’s supporters. The campaign spread false information suggesting Chiu’s registry would require all Chinese people in Canada to sign up.

Trudeau recently said he would appoint a “special rapporteur” to investigate allegations of election tampering, but others have demanded a full public inquiry. The prime minister also suggested the concern over what role Beijing may have played in the 2019 and 2021 elections stemmed from racism.

Chinese community leaders rejected that characterization to the Star and complained they have been ignored by Ottawa when raising similar concerns in the past.

On Wednesday, the CCFIR aimed to cut off any accusations a foreign influence registry would be racist.

Kayum Masimov, of the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project, said it would instead enhance the ability of bureaucrats, politicians and others to understand who they are dealing with when a registered person approaches them and help counter covert influence campaigns.

“Left unaddressed these malign activities aggravate social polarization and erode public trust in our democratic institutions,” Masimov said. A registry “will increase transparency by exposing those who seek to influence our policies, public debate and decision making on behalf of foreign regimes.”

During the news conference concerns were specifically mentioned about attempts at foreign influence in Canada from Russia, China and Iran.

The United States and Australia already have registries. Fung said that while the registry would help in stemming foreign influence in Canada, it would need to be bolstered by additional federal efforts.

“We still have to continue to work with the government to urge them to come up with other necessary measures, bills or even regulations to detect foreign interference in different sectors.”

Source: Diaspora groups tell Ottawa to start a foreign influence registry — and do it fast

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CSIS documents reveal Chinese strategy to influence 2021 election

2023/02/21 Leave a comment

Not a good take on the government’s (lack of) response and the naiveté of some:

China employed a sophisticated strategy to disrupt Canada’s democracy in the 2021 federal election campaign as Chinese diplomats and their proxies backed the re-election of Justin Trudeau’s Liberals – but only to another minority government – and worked to defeat Conservative politicians considered to be unfriendly to Beijing.

The full extent of the Chinese interference operation is laid bare in both secret and top-secret Canadian Security Intelligence Service documents viewed by The Globe and Mail that cover the period before and after the September, 2021, election that returned the Liberals to office.

The CSIS reports were shared among senior government officials and Canada’s Five Eyes intelligence allies of the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. Some of this intelligence was also shared with French and German spy services.

Over the past decade, China, under President Xi Jinping, has adopted a more aggressive foreign policy as it seeks to expand its political, economic and military influence around the world.

MPs on the Commons Procedure and House Affairs committee are already looking into allegations that China interfered in the 2019 election campaign to support 11 candidates, most of them Liberal, in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).

Drawn from a series of CSIS intelligence-gathering operations, the documents illustrate how an orchestrated machine was operating in Canada with two primary aims: to ensure that a minority Liberal government was returned in 2021, and that certain Conservative candidates identified by China were defeated.

The documents say the Chinese Communist Party leadership in Beijing was “pressuring its consulates to create strategies to leverage politically [active] Chinese community members and associations within Canadian society.” Beijing uses Canadian organizations to advocate on their behalf “while obfuscating links to the People’s Republic of China.”

The classified reports viewed by The Globe reveal that China’s former consul-general in Vancouver, Tong Xiaoling, boasted in 2021 about how she helped defeat two Conservative MPs.

But despite being seen by China as the best leader for Canada, Beijing also wanted to keep Mr. Trudeau’s power in check – with a second Liberal minority in Parliament as the ideal outcome.

In early July, 2021 – eight weeks before election day – one consular official at an unnamed Chinese diplomatic mission in Canada said Beijing “likes it when the parties in Parliament are fighting with each other, whereas if there is a majority, the party in power can easily implement policies that do not favour the PRC.”

While the Chinese diplomat expressed unhappiness that the Liberals had recently become critical of China, the official added that the party is better than the alternatives. Canada-China relations hit their lowest point since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre after December, 2018, when Beijing locked up two Canadians in apparent retaliation for Ottawa’s arrest of a Chinese Huawei executive on an extradition request from the United States.

Most important, the intelligence reports show that Beijing was determined that the Conservatives did not win. China employed disinformation campaigns and proxies connected to Chinese-Canadian organizations in Vancouver and the GTA, which have large mainland Chinese immigrant communities, to voice opposition to the Conservatives and favour the Trudeau Liberals.

The CSIS documents reveal that Chinese diplomats and their proxies, including some members of the Chinese-language media, were instructed to press home that the Conservative Party was too critical of China and that, if elected, it would follow the lead of former U.S. president Donald Trump and ban Chinese students from certain universities or education programs.

“This will threaten the future of the voters’ children, as it will limit their education opportunities,” the CSIS report quoted the Chinese consulate official as saying. The official added: “The Liberal Party of Canada is becoming the only party that the PRC can support.”

CSIS also explained how Chinese diplomats conduct foreign interference operations in support of political candidates and elected officials. Tactics include undeclared cash donations to political campaigns or having business owners hire international Chinese students and “assign them to volunteer in electoral campaigns on a full-time basis.”

Sympathetic donors are also encouraged to provide campaign contributions to candidates favoured by China – donations for which they receive a tax credit from the federal government. Then, the CSIS report from Dec. 20, 2021 says, political campaigns quietly, and illegally, return part of the contribution – “the difference between the original donation and the government’s refund” – back to the donors.

A key part of their interference operation is to influence vulnerable Chinese immigrants in Canada. The intelligence reports quote an unnamed Chinese consulate official as saying it’s “easy to influence Chinese immigrants to agree with the PRC’s stance.”

China wants to build acceptance abroad for its claims on Taiwan, a self-ruled island that it considers a breakaway province and still reserves the right to annex by force. And it seeks to play down its conduct in Xinjiang, where the office of former UN Human Rights commissioner Michelle Bachelet last year said China has committed “serious human-rights violations” in the region, which may amount to crimes against humanity.

Similarly it wants to generate support for a draconian 2020 national-security law to silence opposition and dissent in Hong Kong, a former British colony that Beijing had once promised would be allowed to retain Western-style civil liberties for 50 years.

Beijing also seeks to quell foreign support for Tibet, a region China invaded and annexed more than 70 years ago, and to discourage opposition to Beijing’s militarization of the South China Sea and sweeping maritime claims in the region.

A month after the September, 2021, vote, CSIS reported that it was “well-known within the Chinese-Canadian community of British Columbia” that Ms. Tong, then the Vancouver consul-general, “wanted the Liberal Party to win the 2021 election,” one of the reports said.

CSIS noted that Ms. Tong, who returned to China in July, 2022, and former consul Wang Jin made “discreet and subtle efforts” to encourage members of Chinese-Canadian organizations to rally votes for the Liberals and defeat Conservative candidates.

CSIS said Mr. Wang has direct ties to the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department (UFWD), a vast organization that uses mostly covert and often manipulative operations to influence overseas ethnic Chinese communities and foreign governments. CSIS said Mr. Wang served as an intermediary between the UFWD and Chinese-Canadian community leaders in British Columbia.

In early November, 2021, CSIS reported, Ms. Tong discussed the defeat of a Vancouver-area Conservative, whom she described as a “vocal distractor” of the Chinese government. A national-security source said the MP was Kenny Chiu. The Globe and Mail is not identifying the source, who risks prosecution under the Security of Information Act.

The source said Mr. Chiu was targeted in retaliation for his criticism of China’s crackdown in Hong Kong and his 2021 private member’s bill aiming to establish a registry of foreign agents, an effort inspired by similar Australian legislation to combat foreign interference. The United States has a long-standing registry; Canada is still studying the matter.

Mr. Chiu, who was elected to represent Steveston–Richmond East in 2019, lost the 2021 federal election to Liberal candidate Parm Bains and is widely believed to be a victim of a Beijing-led online disinformation campaign.

According to CSIS, Ms. Tong talked about China’s efforts to influence mainland Chinese-Canadian voters against the Conservative Party. She said Mr. Chiu’s loss proved “their strategy and tactics were good, and contributed to achieving their goals while still adhering to the local political customs in a clever way.”

In mid-November, CSIS reported that an unnamed Chinese consular official said the loss of Mr. Chiu and fellow Conservative MP Alice Wong substantiated the growing electoral influence of mainland Chinese-Canadians.

Former federal Conservative leader Erin O’Toole has alleged that foreign interference by China in the 2021 election campaign, using disinformation, cost the party eight or nine seats. The Liberals won 160 seats compared with 119 for the Conservatives, 32 for the Bloc Québécois and 25 for the NDP, while the Greens picked up two seats.

While the Conservative Party’s overall share of the popular vote increased slightly in the election, the party lost a number of ridings with significant Chinese-Canadian populations. These included the defeat of incumbents such as Mr. Chiu, Richmond Centre MP Ms. Wong and Markham–Unionville’s Bob Saroya.

However, the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force set up by the Trudeau government to monitor threats to federal elections never issued any public warning about foreign interference during the 2019 or 2021 campaigns.

Mr. Trudeau has said it found no meddling, telling the Commons in November of last year that the task force “determined that the integrity of our elections was not compromised in 2019 or 2021.” He also told reporters that “Canadians can be reassured that our election integrity held” in the two elections.

The Globe has reported that the Prime Minister received a national-security briefing last fall in which he was told China’s consulate in Toronto had targeted 11 candidates in the 2019 federal election. CSIS Director David Vigneault told Mr. Trudeau that there was no indication that China’s interference efforts had helped elect any of them, despite the consulate’s attempts to promote the campaigns on social media and in Chinese-language media outlets.

Nine Liberal and two Conservative candidates were favoured by Beijing, according to the national-security source. The source said the two Conservative candidates were viewed as friends of China.

Source: CSIS documents reveal Chinese strategy to influence 2021 election

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