Two scientists fired from Canada’s National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg in 2019 had an “extensive relationship” with China that they did not properly disclose to Canadian health officials, according to documents that were finally released over four years later.
Health Minister Mark Holland announced the tabling of the documents in Parliament on Wednesday, after a special ad-hoc committee formed to review the documents recommended they be released unredacted.
Why did the government call an election in August, 2021, in the middle of a pandemic, just as Afghanistan was falling, and with more than two years left in its mandate? A good argument could be made that it was to shut down a Commons committee looking into the mysterious dismissal of two Chinese nationals from a top-secret Winnipeg research laboratory.
At the urging of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the two scientists – Dr. Xiangguo Qiu, head of vaccine development at the National Microbiology Laboratory, and her husband Keding Cheng – had their security clearance revoked and were escorted out of the facility by RCMP officers in July, 2019. They were fired in January, 2021.
A special committee of MPs tasked with evaluating censored records on the firing of two scientists from Canada’s top infectious disease laboratory – researchers who worked with China – says most of the information redacted from Public Health Agency of Canada documents appears to have been withheld to shield the organization from embarrassment rather than to protect national security.
The committee is recommending the majority of the documents be made public, according to a Feb. 19 letter, obtained by The Globe and Mail, that was sent to House leaders of the Liberals, Conservatives, NDP and Bloc Québécois.
The human-rights group Canadian Friends of Hong Kong says it won’t participate in Canada’s public inquiry into foreign interference, citing what it calls grave concerns about the standing granted to three politicians with alleged ties to the Chinese government.
In January, an organization representing Uyghur Canadians announced it was withdrawing from the public inquiry over the same matter. The refusals to participate threaten to undermine the commission’s ability to hear from all vulnerable communities facing persecution from China.
A former Chinese official who worked for a notorious religious persecution agency controlled by the Chinese communist regime resided in Vancouver at the time of his death, according to an official obituary. The agency, known as the “610 Office,” has been a key part of the persecution campaign against Falun Gong practitioners in China since 1999.
Zhang Guoqiang, originally from Zhejiang Province, had served in various Chinese military and government roles, including as the director of the provincial 610 Office, according to the obituary published on local online news outlet Zhejiang Daily. He died at the age of 70 in Vancouver on Nov. 15, 2021, reportedly succumbing to an illness after unsuccessful medical treatments.
Looks like Justin will have another guest in parliament
The whistleblower, a Canadian business school graduate, was staggered by the suspicious home loans he discovered in 2022 when he joined a mortgage approval team in a small HSBC branch on the outskirts of Toronto.
He knew of suspicions surrounding Chinese capital in British Columbia real estate, but had never witnessed shady lending while working at an HSBC branch in Campbell River, a bucolic town on the coast of Vancouver Island.
Last February, while Justin Trudeau pushed back against media investigations into Chinese election interference, citing anti-Asian racism, a brief for Trudeau’s Cabinet confirmed China’s clandestine influence in the 2019 and 2021 federal contests, and that current Members of Parliament were targeted in hostile state activity, and China leverages a “vast range of tools” to undermine “Canadian values, electoral processes, and Charter Rights.”
This definitive confirmation of Ottawa’s awareness of China’s deep attacks in recent Canadian elections comes from a newly released “Canadian Eyes Only” CSIS document called “Briefing to the Minister of Democratic Institutions on Foreign Interference.”
A series of national security leaks in the press led to the current public inquiry on foreign interference, but the leak of one CSIS report indicating Beijing was targeting MPs—a report ignored by the government—had a major role in forcing Ottawa to hold an inquiry.
That Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) assessment has now been partially disclosed by the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference.
Canada knows China tried to influence the last two federal elections, according to a top secret briefing report obtained by Global News that said the government “must do more” to fight foreign interference.
“We know that the PRC sought to clandestinely and deceptively influence the 2019 and 2021 federal elections,” according to the briefing released by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
An organization representing Uyghur Canadians is withdrawing from the public inquiry into foreign interference, a development that threatens to undermine Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue’s ability to hear testimony from all vulnerable diaspora communities facing persecution from China.
The Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project wrote to Justice Hogue Wednesday to serve notice it is formally withdrawing because she granted party standing to former Ontario Liberal cabinet minister Michael Chan, now deputy mayor of Markham, Ont., and independent MP Han Dong. This type of standing means they can cross-examine witnesses and gain access to all evidence collected, including that presented to the inquiry outside of hearings.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2017 ignored multiple warnings and committed Canada to membership in Xi Jinping’s pet project—an infrastructure bank that finances Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative and furthers China’s bid to become an imperial power.
The bank, known as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), pretends to be benign—just another multilateral development bank, such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank—but its corporate structure belies such “business-as-usual” claims.
Canadian authorities have issued a deportation order against a Chinese woman on the grounds she was part of Beijing’s foreign interference program.
The Immigration and Refugee Board ruled that Jing Zhang had worked for the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office (OCAO), which it said conducts espionage in Canada.
While immigration officials did not argue that Zhang committed espionage, the Refugee Board found that as an 11-year OCAO employee, she had contributed to its efforts to pressure the Chinese diaspora.
The allegations kept mounting in Canada: Election-meddling by China, an Indian-backed assassination on home soil, and a campaign to harass Iranian dissidents. Is Canada especially vulnerable to foreign interference?
Michael Chong said it did not take long for him to become a target of Beijing.
In testimony before US lawmakers on Capitol Hill last year, the Canadian Conservative politician described how an alleged intimidation campaign against him was born after he spoke out against China’s human rights record in parliament.
Before Canada’s recent designation of 85 Chinese academic institutions as potential threats to national security, several Canadian universities had engaged in extensive interactions with some of those institutions.
The list of Named Research Organizations released Jan. 16 is part of Ottawa’s Policy on Sensitive Technology Research and Affiliations of Concern, introduced to bolster Canadian universities’ research security.
Canada unveiled a list of foreign universities and research institutions linked to military, national defence, and state security entities. Predominantly composed of entities based in China, these organizations are identified as presenting the highest risk to Canadian national security.
