Today we talk to our friend Andy Lee, one of the few investigative journalists going deep on the Chinese interference scandal at Parliament. She s going to tell us who s who in the zoo, and who are the Chinese spies?
00:05:56.460I'm very worried that the mainstream in Canada, including a lot of my friends and political leaders and
00:06:04.960business leaders and media leaders, are falling into a very dangerous trap where they are using what I call a
00:06:14.980litmus test to demonstrate the loyalty of Chinese Canadians in this country.
00:06:21.340We can identify, for example, your views of Hong Kong, your views of Tibet, your views of Peter's, your views of
00:06:30.900South China Sea, whether you belong to an organization that is officially part of the
00:06:36.180Korean Transition United Front. You know, many organizations are listed as part of a
00:06:43.420an electronic list of organizations, and the fact that you are simply associated with one is out in use as a litmus test, and this is not a good development.
00:06:52.980Mr. Burton, the sinologist and Mandarin language expert, reviewed the full tape recording and told me, quote,
00:07:03.540Senator Wu's briefing to Canada Committee 100 Society effectively enables the legitimacy of agencies of the Chinese Communist Party in our country.
00:07:13.420This does call into question Senator Wu's intervener status in the inquiry.
00:07:18.980Senator Wu didn't comment to me about his remarks, but said I should question the Hogue Commission, who also didn't comment.
00:07:26.980Ding Guo has said there is nothing inappropriate with Canada Committee 100 Society activities.
00:07:33.980Therefore, in Willful Blindness 3rd Edition update, I write,
00:07:40.540In a way, Senator Wu's intervention in the Hogue Commission seemed to fulfill his taped pledge to the United Front.
00:07:46.820He repeatedly filed submissions undermining Canadian intelligence and using Chinese intelligence talking points.
00:07:53.480Confidential Source 2 also repeatedly stressed that Conservative Senator Victor Oh, an advisor to the Canada Committee 100 Society,
00:08:18.000was a significant target in CSIS's investigation into federal election interference.
00:08:24.560In Willful Blindness, I write about investigations that began in early 2019.
00:08:31.820According to three national security sources, Liberal Cabinet Minister Mary Ng was identified in CSIS investigations as one of 11 Toronto-area candidates
00:08:43.080clandestinely supported by Chinese Consulate and United Front influence networks in the 2019 election.
00:08:50.040CSIS assessed that Mary Ng was unwittingly implicated in this interference network.
00:08:56.480Despite my requests, Mary Ng and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's office never responded for comment.
00:09:03.240As I write in Willful Blindness, Mary Ng was one of the key Ontario Liberal Government staffers who moved to Ottawa with Trudeau,
00:09:13.420alongside more high-profile advisors like Katie Telford and Gerald Butts.
00:09:20.480Two national security sources indicated that a specific CSIS concern was Ng's staff allegedly meeting privately
00:09:29.040with a Toronto Consulate diplomat to consult on China-related issues.
00:09:34.040CSIS identified this diplomat, Zhou Wei, as a confirmed intelligence actor.
00:11:35.840So he wrote about how to turn Richmond into a Chinese city using the nonprofit Canada Committee 100 Society.
00:11:44.940And I think that was back around 2018, that they were promoting this book about how they could use this society to turn Richmond into a Chinese city.
00:11:59.460Ding Guo's a journalist, and he works for a media outlet called Rise Media.
00:12:04.940And Rise Media, you know, sort of came into the spotlight because Ding Guo prominently featured Parm Baines in the last election.
00:12:15.760And Parm Baines was seen speaking out very publicly against Kenny Chu's proposed private members bill, which would have introduced foreign agent registration legislation.
00:12:26.880So all of it always, these activities always seem to be geared towards stifling this sort of registry being put into place.
00:12:35.580So Rise Media was one of those media outlets that was maybe linked to Beijing that, you know, publicized Parm Baines and platformed him and maybe contributed to Kenny Chu ultimately losing his seat and killing that legislation.
00:12:50.660And so that was noted by the commission.
00:13:12.980Who made this media platform that we've got Ding Guo using to sort of rally and, you know, put out pro-Beijing talking points and especially try to stifle any sort of foreign agent legislation.
00:13:26.660So it's a bit unclear as to what Lahu is.
00:13:30.120It claims to be based in Burnaby, British Columbia.
00:13:34.360But I found a interview with a managing editor and her name is Shui Mingming.
00:13:42.780And Shui Mingming very clearly starts off her interview.
00:13:45.820And this is, you know, again, open source information.
00:13:49.380And she says it's a media company based in China.
00:14:17.320But I did find out a couple of other things.
00:14:19.920Somebody that manages both Lahu.ca and Rise Media is a gentleman called Tatu Shing.
00:14:27.900Now, he also used to work at the Global Times.
00:14:33.500And we know that Global Times is a subsidiary of the People's Daily Press, also both implicated in foreign interference operations and election interference.
00:14:45.100They were flagged during the recent attacks against another outspoken MP and China critic, Michael Chong.
00:15:38.260Well, I mean, that's certainly what it seems to look like.
00:15:41.120And I do agree with Sam when he says, you know, journalists should be looking at the open source information a lot closer and asking questions as to where these lobbies, right?
00:15:50.860And people who pair at these kind of talking points that seem to be, you know, just CCP mouthpieces.
00:17:17.340So they're basically instructing, they're instructing Canadian politicians on what to do.
00:17:21.160It seems like Ding Guo somewhat set the stage using his media platform to set up people and say, please sign this petition that's coming out.
00:17:30.380So the petition dropped a few days after that article came out.
00:17:34.980And, you know, they had been urging people to sign it.
00:17:38.460And we know that the petition against the foreign agent registry that Senator Wu launched was highly suspect in and of itself.
00:17:47.600This was a petition against the foreign agent registry?
00:17:52.460So, you know, he launched this petition, you know, saying we have to stand against all modern day forms of exclusion and things like that.
00:18:00.800And what they're really talking about is a foreign agent registry.
00:18:03.040And that's what was on that recording when he was saying, we're going to try to fight back against this, right?
00:18:07.800We don't want you guys to have to register.
00:18:09.600And there's probably good reason for that is because all of these people who are fighting back against it might be, you know, subjected to, you know, the specifications within such an act.
00:18:21.200But we know that that petition wasn't authored by Senator Wu at all.
00:18:25.460It was put forward by somebody called Ali Wang.
00:18:28.540Now, Ali Wang is somebody who has also bombed the Foreign Interference Commission.
00:18:32.000She runs something called the Canadian Go-To Vote Association, which is another third party that came out and fought to unseat Kenny Chu and rallied against and rallied for, sorry, Parm Baines.
00:18:47.740And just to clarify for our viewers, Kenny Chu is a Chinese-Canadian who was against Beijing's control.
00:18:54.300So the fact that he was ethnically Chinese-Canadian didn't save him because Communist China found him to be an impediment to their aims.
00:19:05.040I believe that Kenny Chu had to go and that his, they were trying to kill his legislation.
00:19:11.420And so they threw their weight behind it using, you know, maybe foreign-funded or foreign-affiliated media outlets, platforms where a lot of people don't go.
00:19:21.600We know that British Columbia has a very large Chinese population.
00:19:25.460And for some of them, English isn't their first language.
00:19:28.360So what they do is they turn to foreign media.
00:19:30.280And so what do you see on foreign media is maybe you see somebody who's saying this bill is going to be racist.
00:19:36.620We're going to, you know, make all Chinese citizens register and things like that.
00:19:41.640And, you know, that puts fear into these citizens and gets them to vote against the person who's putting the legislation forward.
00:19:49.500You know, and they use the nonprofits and NGOs and there's so much of this.
00:21:06.220I mean, well, this is the problem with WeChat.
00:21:08.180And again, it's, you know, it's a resource that a lot of Chinese Canadians use, but it's also very susceptible to influence.
00:21:14.900And it's been one of the main vehicles where we've seen people who might be backed by the Chinese Communist Party or affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party or affiliated with the United Front Work Department push out pro-Beijing, you know, messaging that is geared towards manipulating.
00:21:32.040And this is the really insidious part, is that if maybe English isn't your first language and you're looking here, you're being subtly manipulated in your own country by a foreign government.
00:21:45.820It's very, very disturbing when you see politicians back this, as David Eby has done, using Deng Guo as an advisor, because, you know, it's not really a fair playing field.
00:21:57.580You know, it's not just that you're subject to persuasion.
00:22:06.200Like all the data that these apps collect on you, it's typically done for commercial purposes on Facebook, on TikTok.
00:22:14.340If you say something near your phone, you know how you see an ad about that subject later.
00:22:19.460You think, oh, boy, they're trying to sell me.
00:22:21.260Well, with WeChat, when the Chinese government is the one collecting everything you say, do, buy, read, click, it's a little more nefarious.
00:22:31.940I think it's clear it's spyware, not just propagandaware.
00:22:42.520I mean, we know that it collects a tremendous amount of material on its users.
00:22:46.600You know, I use it anonymously, but I have no doubt that they probably know who I am and have all of my information.
00:22:56.700So, yeah, but it's just kind of, you know, it's so unfortunate because it is, you know, it's a great resource and a lot of Chinese Canadians use it.
00:23:02.940So, it's really unfortunate to see politicians align themselves with people who may be lobbying for Beijing's best interests and feeding this messaging to Chinese Canadians.
00:23:16.720And I find it a very, very deplorable tactic and very, very insidious in the way that they're subtly manipulating this population and creating fear and trying to get them to vote for their preferred politician.
00:23:30.440That, of course, they benefit from if they win, right?
00:24:55.620Yeah, well, I mean, you know, it's the look of squirrel of politics.
00:24:59.520He was set to testify, you know, at the Foreign Interference Commission.
00:25:04.280So he had to give something to sort of distract from that and, you know, try to take away from the seriousness of what transpired under his governments.
00:25:15.900Which, I mean, you know, we've had some national security advisors say it's close to treason.
00:25:22.960You know, we've got some people saying silence is complicity at this point.
00:25:27.480So I do, and I don't want to underplay any, you know, anything that India's government might have done on Canadian soil.
00:25:34.020And I don't advocate for that, you know, if that's what transpired.
00:25:38.700And, of course, we saw that leaking intelligence is fine if you're doing it to a United States media outlet like the Washington Post.
00:25:46.460Apparently then intelligence can be declassified in a heartbeat and leaked out to try to detract from what's going on in your own country.
00:25:54.860So, you know, I think that that was the political stint that, you know, he wanted it to be.
00:26:03.320And it did take a little bit of heat off him and, you know, gave them time to ramp up this security clearance thing about Pierre.
00:26:13.520He's able to declassify that intelligence and share it with us.
00:26:16.920And CSIS, that's written into the CSIS Act, that threat reduction measures can be performed under Section 12.1.
00:26:24.640Anybody can be briefed if CSIS determines that that needs to be done using that provision in the Act.
00:26:32.040So, yeah, I mean, you know, as for Ebi and this, so, I mean, we know that Rise Media used their platform and, you know, the official agent of the NDP authorized advertisements and attack ads against the BC conservatives on Rise Media.
00:26:50.520You know, so, again, a huge conflict of interest there if he's got Ding Guo sitting on his board of advisors, even more unsavory given the background into Rise Media.
00:27:01.500Some of the interference activities that they've performed in the past, which may have resulted, may have resulted in conservative Kenny Chu losing his seat because of his private members legislation.
00:27:13.180But, you know, they've got a good game and nobody's going to stop them until people call them out on it.
00:27:19.860Ding Guo put out a very clear, and I can send you this, an article as to how they can target six or seven key districts and use those Chinese voters to swing the election.