An Ontario legislator says he has served Global News with a notice of libel over allegations of election interference by China.
Vincent Ke argues the Global News article by reporter Sam Cooper falsely accuses him of being deliberately harmful to Canadian democracy.
The article alleged Ke served as a financial intermediary in a Chinese Communist Party election interference scheme.
OTTAWA – The Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff Katie Telford finally appeared before a parliamentary committee examining foreign interference in Canada’s electoral system on Tuesday, but despite testifying for over two-and-half hours, ultimately said very little that shed any light on the matter.
The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation has asked the Auditor-General to investigate a controversial donation from two wealthy Chinese businessmen, who were acting at the behest of the government of China.
A foundation official said the chair of the foundation, Ted Johnson, wrote to Auditor-General Karen Hogan on Friday to request a formal audit of the non-profit organization, which was set up with a $125-million endowment from the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien in 2002. The Globe and Mail is not naming the official, because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Katie Telford wanted to be very clear, she could neither confirm nor deny any allegations about China’s election interference.
Telford, chief of staff to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau since he was first elected in 2015, was testifying before a Commons committee on Friday.
Closing the Canada-U.S. border to asylum seekers is projected to cost Canadian taxpayers at least $60 million over 10 years. But that analysis doesn’t include costs for the Mounties to beef up “challenging” enforcement efforts.
In March, Ottawa and Washington expanded a bilateral agreement to turn back irregular migrants trying to cross into the other country for protection, but a cost-benefit analysis has only been recently published in the Canada Gazette.
When the CEO and the entire board of directors of the Trudeau Foundation resigned en masse this week, they issued a statement blaming the “political climate” surrounding a donation that it now appears was connected to the Chinese government. It was all to do with “the politicization of the foundation,” they said.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau added to that narrative the same day. After making clear he’s had nothing to do for the past 10 years with the foundation created to honour his father, the PM declared “it is a shame to see the level of toxicity and political polarization that is going on in our country these days.”
That, as they say, did not age well …
There were complaints that Mounties were not doing enough at the Canada-U. S. border-crossing in Coutts, Alta., when protests erupted over COVID-19 pandemic policies.
There were others saying the same police force was doing too much and betraying the country.
Katie Telford refuses to answer a question on whether Global News’ reporting on foreign interference is accurate. pic.twitter.com/EXHaaM1sAI
— The Real Andy Lee Show (@RealAndyLeeShow) April 14, 2023
Twitter “Katie Telford”
Canadian MP felt ‘shadow of doubt’ after spy agency warned him about diplomat
A veteran Canadian MP met three times with the ambassador of a country in the crosshairs of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, leading CSIS to warn the parliamentarian away from further interactions, CBC News has learned.
“You just cast a shadow of doubt over everyone,” the MP said, speaking confidentially because he was not authorized to comment publicly on the matter.
“Once you have that doubt placed on you, I don’t know how you recover.”
CBC News is not identifying the country in question in order to protect the MP’s identity.
CBC and the MP seem to suggest CSIS was out of line by doing their job.
The former Liberal cabinet minister who oversaw the creation of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation claims Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is engaging in “ignorant, irresponsible and highly partisan” attacks.
Poilievre called for an investigation into the foundation earlier this week, posting on Twitter about a need to know who “got rich” as a result of donations to the foundation, as well as “who got paid and who got privilege.”
Allan Rock created the corrupt Trudeau Foundation with $125M of our taxdollars. https://t.co/DcELlBzX62
— Dean Skoreyko (@bcbluecon) April 14, 2023
Ahead of Friday testimony from his chief of staff on foreign election interference, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he and Katie Telford have talked about the issue “many” times over the years.
“The conversations I have with my chief of staff, and with my entire government, and with our defence and security experts, are ongoing,” Trudeau told reporters on Thursday. “We have been talking about foreign interference for years.”
A businessman whose reported donations to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation led to the resignation of its CEO is the president of a Chinese cultural organization that says it operates under the authority of the communist government.
Federal Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino says Chinese community members in Vancouver have told him of “intimidation, harassment and abuse” linked to foreign governments or their proxies, confirming the need for a foreign agent registry.
Mendicino said he met Wednesday with a “robust cross-section” of people from the communities.
The results, he said, reinforced the need for a registry of agents who are acting on behalf of foreign governments in Canada.
The LPC should be registered as a foreign agent.
One of Canada’s intelligence agencies says a cyber threat actor “had the potential to cause physical damage” to a piece of critical infrastructure recently.
“I can report there was no physical damage to any Canadian energy infrastructure. But make no mistake — the threat is real,” said Sami Khoury, head of the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security out of the Communications Security Establishment.
They won’t say but they’re talking bout BCF.
Surely, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau now realizes that his self-appointed “special rapporteur” and life-long friend, David Johnston, isn’t going to solve his problems when Johnston advises him by May 23 whether he should hold a public inquiry into alleged interference by Beijing in the last two federal elections.
