“Canada’s China Class”

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino concedes there may be new so-called “Chinese police stations” in Canada after saying last month they’d all been shut down, but he insists the RCMP will close any new sites if they do exist.

The Spanish human rights organization Safeguard Defenders said last fall it had identified more than 100 of these alleged Chinese overseas police stations, including several in Canada. The groups says these stations serve to spy on Chinese dissidents in Canada and abroad and collect information about opponents to the regime in Beijing, under the guise of providing resources to Chinese people living abroad.

Could be? That’s the answer you’d expect from a CCP compromised government.

On Monday, Foreign Affairs Minister Melania Joly announced the expulsion of Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei, the official from China’s Toronto consulate believed to be responsible for threats against a Canadian MP’s relatives in Hong Kong.

The MP, Conservative Michael Chong, is one of Parliament’s most outspoken critics of the Communist regime’s human rights record. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) two years ago told senior members of the Trudeau government that Zhao was allegedly coordinating intimidation tactics against Chong’s relatives in China in an effort to get Chong to clam up.

The federal government will move forward with the creation of a registry of foreign agents to help prevent China and other countries from meddling in Canada’s affairs, Radio-Canada has confirmed.

As first reported in La Presse, Canada will table a bill either this summer, or if the Justice Department is not able to draft the legislation in time, in the fall, according to a government source.

The federal government launched public consultations on the concept in March. That outreach effort closed May 9 and a government source said it showed Canadians broadly support the initiative.

A former officer with Canada’s spy agency says that individuals involved in the political process should have to declare they will not cooperate with a foreign power, adding that they should serve jail time if caught doing so.

“Because we’re close to treason here, literally,” said Michel Juneau-Katsuya, former chief of the Asia-Pacific Unit within the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

More often than not, when China is involved in a confrontation – whether it be a military, economic or political row – it is assumed that Beijing has the upper hand, or that the country is in a more advantageous position than its foe.

Indeed, given the expectation that China will surpass the United States as the world’s largest economy in the not-too-distant future, the fact that it boasts the world’s largest military, and its history of rather successfully leveraging global dependencies on crucial goods to navigate disputes, it makes sense why China’s ability to out-escalate and prevail in adversarial situations is presented as a sort of fait accompli. However, this thinking is flawed and it certainly does not apply to Beijing’s continuing row with Canada.

Interesting as the impression to date is that Canada would be mauled by ChiCom retaliation and therefore we should meekly kowtow to Xi. Was that just the China Class crying wolf to protect their financial interests?

The government’s story about who knew that Chinese diplomats were targeting a Canadian MP has gone back and forth. Each time, the upshot is the same: It fell through the cracks.

After The Globe and Mail reported last week that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service had learned in 2021 that a Chinese diplomat was involved in efforts to target Conservative MP Michael Chong’s relatives in China because of his criticism of Beijing, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said CSIS had not reported that information to him, or to higher-ups outside the spy service.

Given that the Trudeau government ignored years of warnings that Beijing’s dictators were increasingly threatening Canadians of Chinese origin who were speaking out in Canada about China’s human rights abuses, it would be naive to think they’re going to stop now.

OTTAWA – The House of Commons has unanimously agreed that a committee should strike a study into the “intimidation campaign” allegedly orchestrated by a now-expelled Chinese diplomat against Conservative MP Michael Chong and his family.

Debate on the motion to see the Procedure and House Affairs Committee (PROC) take on this probe took priority in the House over the last few days, after House Speaker Anthony Rota found that Chong’s parliamentary privileges were breached as a result of the alleged targeting. The vote was held after question period on Wednesday, and passed with all-party support.