Defence Minister Bill Blair says he cannot explain why his office waited nearly two months to approve a security warrant placing Liberal Party organizers under surveillance over suspicious contacts with members of the Chinese Communist Party. “I agree I was at all times responsible,” Blair testified at the Commission on Foreign Interference: “Was this a politically sensitive warrant?”
Oh look! Over there!!!
And an official statement from the Honourable Member For Air India.
Sam Cooper comments on why Canada was excluded from AUKUS: a new security alliance between the US, UK and Australia.
Who would officially ignore interference in our elections?
Sam Cooper- Canada’s CRTC Lags Behind UK, U.S. in Addressing Chinese Media Influence, Hogue Commission Testimony Reveals
In Hogue Commission testimony, Canada’s media regulator, the CRTC, confirmed it has never considered taking action against Chinese-owned broadcasters accused of engaging in election interference and disinformation at the direction of Chinese officials, as outlined by recent intelligence reports and a just-concluded Elections Canada investigation.
Blacklock’s- Resigned To Foreign Donors
Voters are resigned to illegal foreign money influencing federal elections, says in-house research by Elections Canada.
Perrault acknowledged illegal foreign financing was possible. The Commission has evidence Chinese Communist Party agents funnelled $250,000 in illegal cash contributions to 11 “pro-China” politicians in 2019. The candidates were not named.
also…
Blacklock’s- Surveillance Of Ex-Legislator
“A former parliamentarian is suspected of having worked to influence parliamentary business on behalf of a foreign government,” said a July 8 security memo by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
The other cases in the list of six were: “Pakistan officials attempted to clandestinely influence Canadian federal politics,” “India is suspected of leveraging proxy agents to clandestinely provide financial support to specific candidates from three political parties,” “a foreign government official is suspected of foreign interference that resulted in a briefing to a secretly-cleared representative of the Liberal Party shortly before the 2021 election,” “a foreign government undertook several actions including interference to reduce the likelihood of a specific Liberal candidate being elected” and “a foreign government activity supported an individual’s 2019 federal nomination race in Don Valley North through the use of a proxy agent.”
In an examination of officials from Canada’s two major political parties today, the Hogue Commission is probing the alarming weaknesses in Canada’s election system, where non-citizens living in Canada but working for hostile states are exploiting loopholes in political party nomination processes and even leadership contests, and where parties apparently give no guidance to their MPs on hiring staff or interacting with foreign diplomats, according to intelligence reports and testimony.
China’s election interference networks, led by Beijing’s United Front and intelligence agents, establish collusion between Chinese Consulate officials, political candidates and their staff, and community leaders to clandestinely support politicians sympathetic to the Chinese Communist Party. Previous intelligence reporting obtained by The Bureau from confidential sources identified these activities and revealed a broader manipulation of Canada’s political party nomination processes.
The Bureau’s exclusive reporting was confirmed by documents tabled Friday, which underscore a critical vulnerability: Canada’s political party nomination processes are not regulated by federal or provincial election laws. As a result, foreign agents are able to manipulate these processes with relative ease. Unlike formal elections, where some rules and oversight exist, party nomination processes rely on internal regulations that can be exploited by hostile states and their proxies.
CPC’s Michael Chong tells the Foreign Interfernce Commission about being approached by someone who was terminated by the government as threat to national security and an agent for China. Justin Trudeau’s national security advisor [Jody Thomas] told him all files on this person were destroyed.
At the request of a Liberal appointed senator: Staff at the Ottawa weekly Hill Times revised an August 21 op-ed by Conservative Senator Donald Plett, Opposition Leader in the Senate. It highlighted overspending by the Upper Chamber.
The Chinese government tried to influence Chinese Canadian voters in the last election but its actions didn’t violate elections law, the office charged with policing Canada’s elections has concluded.
In a report dated Aug. 19 and made public Tuesday by the inquiry into foreign interference in Canadian politics, investigators for the Commissioner of Canada Elections concluded that the Chinese government tried to get Chinese Canadian voters to vote against the Conservative Party (CPC) and then-Conservative MP Kenny Chiu in the 2021 election.
Show me the man, I’ll hide you the crime;
As hearings resumed Monday in Ottawa, Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue confirmed that Canadian MPs and Senators suspected of colluding with China, according to the bombshell “NSICOP 2024” report released in June, will not be publicly named during Canada’s inquiry into foreign interference in federal elections.
Hogue agreed to review NSICOP’s report amid a wave of public outrage following its release this summer.
The report’s most critical findings suggested that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has failed to act on repeated intelligence warnings about specific threats from states, including China and India, that would likely lead to criminal charges in other nations. These warnings included cases of Canadian politicians knowingly accepting funds from foreign diplomats in transfers consistent with money laundering. It also highlighted the “egregious” actions of a People’s Republic proxy, causing a “high-risk, high-harm threat to some Canadians.”
Oh look, Freeland is finally getting ahead of a story; Ottawa ties Wealth One founders to possible Chinese interference (paywalled)
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has alleged, in documents filed in federal court, that three principal shareholders in Wealth One Bank of Canada were vulnerable to coercion by China’s ruling Communist Party and may have engaged in money laundering as part of Beijing’s foreign-interference operations in this country.
Lawyers for three of the bank’s founders went to court last year to seek a judicial review of Ms. Freeland’s April, 2023, decision to order them to divest their shares in Wealth One, a Schedule 1 bank established in 2016 that caters to Chinese-Canadian clients. A Schedule 1 bank in Canada is considered a domestic institution, not a subsidiary of a foreign bank, and is authorized to accept deposits and provide mortgages.
The businessmen had requested that the case be subject to a sealed confidentiality order and that the proceedings be held in camera, but earlier this summer, they withdrew their motion and the confidentiality order was recently lifted.
The trio’s team of lawyers had originally argued that publication of their appeal could ruin the bank and jeopardize their clients’ investment in it. Collectively they own 73.4 per cent of the bank’s common shares, according to a May, 2023, filing, where they also placed the estimated value of this stake at $94-million.
In letters to the key shareholders beginning in December of 2022, obtained from the proceedings in federal court, Ms. Freeland raised concerns that the “Chinese Communist Party and the government of the PRC may use Wealth One Bank to further objectives that are detrimental to Canada’s national security.”
She noted that China’s consul-general in Toronto had advised Chinese Canadians to bank with Wealth One, “a statement likely intended to be interpreted as a Beijing command among Canadians of Chinese descent.” Moreover, Ms. Freeland said there are grounds to suspect that the three men were allegedly involved in money laundering.
Because the trio controlled nearly 75 per cent of the bank’s common shares and are suspected of money laundering, Ms. Freeland raised concerns that they could serve as proxies to funnel money through Wealth One on behalf of the Chinese government.
The three individuals in their court filings denied the allegations made by Ms. Freeland, arguing that they were unfairly targeted “due to the rise in geopolitical tensions with China” that, they say, led to “an unwarranted challenge to their loyalties to Canada.”
@Panopticonomy – Well, my bet is that @cafreeland gave old Liberal MP Sousa @SousaCharles quick call too. You know, since he worked at Wealth One in a very senior leadership position before grabbing that MP job.
Grab a beverage. Read the whole thing.
In almost all the investigations as far as money laundering, we’d seize their phones, and see Canada light up like a Christmas tree”: State Department official on US banking investigations.
The indications I’m getting from Washington is political arguments are being made on targeting Canada in sanction like actions that would take actual property, because of Ottawa’s inaction on PRC national security issues. Not sure how it develops but this discussion explains
Podcast here (51 min): … whether Foreign Minister Melanie Joly’s visit to Beijing was representative of Canadian voters, or more likely to benefit influential industrialists in Quebec that have backed Liberal prime ministers from Pierre and Justin Trudeau to Jean Chretien.
Blacklocks: Chinese Communist Party agents allegedly acted as Elections Canada poll workers in the 2021 campaign…
Knuckles rapped: Joly was warned by the CCP in her trip to China that Canada’s probe into “overseas police stations” has harmed China’s CORE INTERESTS, and is seen as damaging to improving bilateral relations. They believe there’s still room for negotiation on the issue.
Beijing is targeting Canada’s First Nations leaders with intelligence operations based on tourism that are aimed at securing Aboriginal-controlled natural resources, a Top Secret report from Ottawa’s intelligence-review watchdog NSICOP says.
Additionally, Beijing funded a British Columbia provincial candidate and its Consul General in Vancouver took actions to cover up the candidate’s “possible Chinese Communist Party membership,” NSICOP’s June 2019 draft report alleges.
The Bureau exclusively obtained NSICOP’s unredacted, 2019 report on foreign interference, which details China’s pervasive operations to bribe, coerce and co-opt Canadian leaders at all levels of government.[…]
“Many of the same tactics used to target elected officials at the federal level are replicated with provincial, municipal, and indigenous officials,” the June 2019 NSICOP report obtained by The Bureau says.
Canada’s Aboriginal leaders — and the tension between federal and First Nations jurisdictions over natural resources in northern Canada — are an unexplored aspect of the Chinese interference story.
But the 2019 NSICOP report demonstrates crucial national security issues at stake.
It suggests Beijing is seeking clandestine relationships with First Nations leaders under false pretences in order to control Canada’s strategic resources in areas of increasing geopolitical importance.
“In late 2011, China invited a national-level group of Aboriginal leaders to travel to China. A CSIS assessment noted that the invitation was advertised as an opportunity to develop tourism for First Nations,” NSICOP’s report says.
“According to a Minister Counsellor at the PRC Embassy, the tourism opportunity was merely “beipian” (Mandarin for ‘to be fooled’) and that the true intention of the invitation was to pursue Aboriginal-controlled natural resources.”
Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly’s visit to Beijing last week was built around an understanding of China that’s at least a decade out of date.
The minister and more than a few media analysts lauded the opportunity (the first by a Canadian foreign minister in almost seven years) for “dialogue” with China’s leadership. But dialogue involves a conversation, a shared approach to illuminate or resolve an issue. It’s what happens when senior officials from normal countries meet. But China hasn’t been a normal country since Xi Jinping ascended to paramount leadership in 2013. Xi’s China doesn’t do dialogue. […]
China almost certainly saw the visit in historical terms, as the deference shown to the ruler in Beijing by the emissary of a smaller state. And in this particular case such deference will be understood, unhelpfully, as Canada being invited to apologise face-to-face for daring to complain about China’s behaviour.
And more from Sam Cooper: The Power behind Mélanie Joly’s bow to Beijing
Nice of her to clear that up: “It’s not the government. It’s more Canadians perceptions toward China, which are negative right now.”
Justin Trudeau’s ongoing refusal to list the Iranian-regime-controlled Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp as a terrorist organization looks more and more sinister by the day, especially as anti-Semitic, anti-Canadian, anti-Western propaganda is being spread within our nation and our own Citizens are being threatened by the Iranian regime:
Because we want rid of him, Blackface Boy-man will burn everything you’ve worked for to the ground.
Home prices are unsustainable and have normalized a “massive increase in value” for retirees, says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He made the remarks at a private seminar with Canada’s leading advocates of a home equity tax: ‘It’s not like your grandparents saying, ‘Ah, bread used to cost me a nickel.’
Related: The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board put more than $600 million in China’s electric vehicle sector accused by cabinet of unfair trade practices. Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland blamed Chinese industry for job-killing schemes, telling Canadian workers: “We are going to protect you.”
Be a shame if something were to happen to it.
Blacklocks- CPP Invests In Chinese Ev’s
Other Pension Plan holdings include automakers BYD Co. ($116 million), Li Auto Inc. ($69 million) Chongqing Changan Automobile Co. ($26 million) and Nio Inc. ($19 million). Millions more were invested in battery manufacturers and suppliers including Tianqi Lithium Corp. ($13 million), Eve Energy Co. ($7 million) and Ganfeng Lithium Group ($6 million).
Minister Freeland on June 24 named the Chinese sector as predatory and announced a 30-day Customs Tariff review of trade practices in the electric auto market. “Workers and the auto sector currently face unfair competition from China,” said Freeland.