Canada

The recent controversy involving Conservative MP Michael Chong and his family being targeted by China is an enormous issue. For those who have repeatedly questioned Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s commitment to ensuring that safety and security are among Canada’s highest priorities, this may be the biggest red flag of them all.

The Globe and Mail’s Robert Fife and Steven Chase recently published contents of a July 20, 2021, Canadian Security Intelligence Service report that examined China’s interest in Canada. The nine-page document suggested the former viewed the latter as a “high-priority target,” had employed “incentives and punishment” to gain an advantage, and the targeting was “expected to continue and increase over time.”

OTTAWA— A friend, a man of honour, a man who “embodies all that is best” about the House of Commons.

That’s how not just party colleagues but even partisan rivals described Conservative MP Michael Chong this week as shock rippled through Parliament with revelations he and his family were targets for Chinese state interference in 2021.

But when Chong himself first heard the news, via a Globe and Mail report last Monday, shock wasn’t what hit him.

In August 2019, two months before the 2019 federal election and two years before the 2021 election, which have both raised major concerns about foreign interference, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau received a report from the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) that he created in 2017 to advise him on security issues.

Government still investigating why threats against Chong not passed up to cabinet

OTTAWA – The government is still investigating why warnings that a Conservative member of Parliament was being threatened by the Chinese government never made it to the desk of any cabinet minister, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said Saturday.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Liberal policy convention in Ottawa, he said the possibility of holding someone accountable for that decision remains “under consideration.”

“It’s important that we unearth their reasons as to why this was not brought directly to the attention of the public safety minister at the time, as well as the prime minister because we take these issues seriously,” he said.

The federal government is under heavy political pressure to expel a foreign diplomat from Canada. Such expulsions are rare — but they do happen.

Earlier this week, the Globe and Mail reported that Zhao Wei, a diplomat at the Chinese consulate in Toronto, was allegedly working on efforts to threaten the family members of Conservative MP Michael Chong.

Junior won’t act without permission from Xi and Canada’s China Class.