The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - Beijing’s Interference in Canada

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprints. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm

00:00:15.180 your host, Jamie Schmael, member of Parliament for Halliburton Corps, the likes Brock, with

00:00:18.540 new content for you every single Tuesday, 1.30pm Eastern Time. Don't forget to like,

00:00:23.840 comment, subscribe and share this program. There are ears that need to hear this message,

00:00:29.140 eyes that need to see it as well. Of course, you can download on platforms like CastBox,

00:00:33.060 iTunes, Google Play and Spotify, you name it. It is out there on today's show. Budget was tabled

00:00:38.640 last week and what a disaster that was. Also, some pretty serious developments in the foreign

00:00:43.620 interference file to talk about this and much, much more. We are bringing on Michael Cooper,

00:00:48.460 the member of Parliament for St. Albert Edmonton. Thank you very much for coming on the show once

00:00:52.360 again. Good to be here, Jamie. We'll do a quick dive in about the budget quickly and then we'll

00:00:57.680 go even deeper next week. But I just wanted to kind of get this on the table before we get into

00:01:03.100 probably the most serious part of what is going on underneath the surface, but the media seems to

00:01:08.820 be taking a yawn, is the foreign interference. But the budget itself, we have higher spending,

00:01:14.760 we have higher deficits, and there'll be more misery for Canadians very shortly.

00:01:19.380 Well, that's right. A $40 billion deficit. Another massive liberal deficit. And just to give you an

00:01:27.660 idea of the mountain of debt that has accumulated under Justin Trudeau, now in terms of all the

00:01:34.160 revenue the federal government gathers from the GST, that covers merely debt servicing costs.

00:01:42.640 That's not even paying it off. That's just paying the interest.

00:01:44.480 That's just paying the interest. That is an incredible stat when you just try to put a picture

00:01:51.580 in your mind. Yeah. And you know, Justin Trudeau talks about how concerned he is about health care,

00:01:57.520 and yet we pay more on interest under Justin Trudeau than the federal government pays to the

00:02:03.960 provinces by way of the Canada Health Transfer. So the bottom line is it's more spending, more debt,

00:02:11.260 and that means higher interest rates, and even worse inflation, exacerbating the cost of living

00:02:17.740 crisis that everyday Canadians are facing. And you know, what's truly staggering is that when you

00:02:22.720 watch Chrystia Freeland table the budget, she talks about all of these problems, as if they've 0.97

00:02:31.040 inherited them. They've been in power for nine years. These are problems that Justin Trudeau

00:02:38.460 created. That's right. The cost of living crisis, the fact that housing costs have doubled, rent has

00:02:44.000 doubled, food has never been more expensive, and Justin Trudeau is making it worse, of course,

00:02:50.140 with another carbon tax hike last month, a reservation. Yeah, it seems like the government

00:02:56.700 doesn't know what to do, right? I think they're just in panic mode right now, and they've been that

00:03:00.380 way for a while after Justin Trudeau's losing traction amongst Canadians of all demographics

00:03:07.660 and age levels. They're just in panic mode, but they don't necessarily believe what the liberals of

00:03:14.080 Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien did, more, you know, free market principles, allowing, you know,

00:03:19.960 free enterprise to create economic conditions. They are almost to the point where they're starting to

00:03:25.440 punish success now. Well, and a big theme of the budget was growing government, growing government

00:03:31.720 to take control away from everyday Canadians and putting it in the hands of the government.

00:03:39.360 After nine years of failure, what this budget was, was Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland doubling down

00:03:47.100 on nine years of failed policies. Higher taxes, more spending, more debt, and more government.

00:03:53.480 Seems that they only have two speeds, big government and bigger government. Exactly. And they're just

00:03:58.160 squeezing out, and of course, unfortunately, it's the middle class, or the shrinking middle class that 0.53

00:04:03.560 has to pay these bills. We'll get into a deeper dive next week about that, but I wanted to get your

00:04:08.560 initial thoughts. It is pretty incredible, this budget, and unfortunately, Canadians are going to have to

00:04:14.180 pay the price on this one. Something that happened over the last few weeks is the public inquiry

00:04:20.480 and foreign interference, but it was kind of a day's story. But I can tell you, if Stephen Harper had been in

00:04:27.480 charge, and that the revelations in this inquiry came out under Harper's watch, the media would be in full

00:04:33.720 down, meltdown mode, and barely getting a coverage. Why don't you give us a bit of an update on what's going on?

00:04:40.880 We do have a clip play as well. Maybe just outline what has happened in the last little bit.

00:04:46.960 Well, what is coming out of the inquiry is confirmation that the Prime Minister was repeatedly

00:04:53.720 briefed about Beijing's interference, including Beijing's interference in the 2019 and 21 elections,

00:05:01.120 and the fact that Trudeau did nothing. He hid that, his knowledge of Beijing's interference from

00:05:08.920 Canadians, and he essentially denied that he had been briefed when it was alleged that he had been

00:05:16.360 last year, which led to this inquiry being launched. And we now know that the Prime Minister

00:05:21.800 Trudeau was not truthful. Yeah, Katie Telford said in the first round, Prime Minister Trudeau reads

00:05:29.200 everything. And now, as she just pointed out, it's kind of, well, no, I didn't read it. It's a bit of

00:05:34.980 an issue. Well, Telford, when she appeared before the Procedure and House Affairs Committee, was

00:05:41.260 unequivocal. She said that the Prime Minister reads everything. When something is put on the Prime

00:05:46.520 Minister's desk, he reads it. I think we knew that wasn't true, but anyway. Yes, and now the Prime

00:05:51.600 Minister of the Inquiry admitted, or at least in an interview before the Inquiry, with counsel for

00:06:00.420 the Inquiry, he said, well, in fact, he doesn't read really anything. But sometimes he reads things,

00:06:06.440 sometimes he doesn't. So, clearly inconsistent with what Katie Telford said. Frankly, Katie Telford

00:06:13.520 lied. Yes. And the Prime Minister has lied, because he essentially denied that he was aware

00:06:20.760 of Beijing's interference, that he hadn't really been briefed about these particulars around some

00:06:29.340 of the activities of Beijing in 2019 and 21. We now know that that simply isn't true. The director

00:06:35.640 of CSIS had briefed the Prime Minister repeatedly about these matters. And Justin Trudeau's chief of

00:06:44.640 staff, Telford, Jeremy Broadhurst, his deputy chief of staff, when they appeared before the committee,

00:06:49.960 they said, well, they didn't see, they were not briefed. And the director of CSIS didn't brief them

00:06:57.180 using some of the language that they said was a surprise to them. And the director of CSIS was called

00:07:04.520 back and he confirmed that he had repeatedly briefed Prime Minister about particulars concerning Beijing's

00:07:12.380 interference. And so, again, this is a Prime Minister who covered up Beijing's interference. He was essentially

00:07:20.660 prepared to go along with it so long as it benefited the Liberal Party. That's right. When he got caught in terms of

00:07:28.640 covering, he tried to then cover it up. And so, the Prime Minister has not been fruitful about his

00:07:40.560 knowledge and his acquiescence in essence to Beijing's interference. But nothing is Justin Trudeau's

00:07:46.340 fault. That's just the theme. No matter what goes wrong, not Trudeau's fault. It's really quite

00:07:51.260 amazing. But at the same time, we have foreign actors influencing our elections. And this should

00:08:00.040 be concerning to everyone, no matter what side of the fence you're on. Absolutely. And just to also

00:08:08.820 further illustrate the culture of this government, when there was interference and misinformation by

00:08:16.840 Beijing in 2019 in terms of a Facebook post, the PCO told Facebook to take it down. The Prime 0.62

00:08:26.740 Minister's personal department told Facebook to take that misinformation or disinformation down

00:08:32.840 because it was negative towards the Prime Minister. Meanwhile, when the PCO, the Prime Minister's

00:08:41.560 department, when the Prime Minister's election panel that he appointed, supposedly to guard against

00:08:48.080 foreign interference, were informed that Beijing was spreading disinformation about the Conservative

00:08:52.900 Party, about Erin O'Toole, about sitting members of Parliament like Kenny Chu, who ultimately lost a seat,

00:09:00.480 no doubt, in part because of Beijing's disinformation, if not entirely because of that,

00:09:05.940 they were kept in the dark. Yeah. And so it shows that when it negatively impacts the Prime Minister,

00:09:15.000 they're all over it. When it is targeting and hurting the Conservative Party, and otherwise advancing

00:09:22.620 the influence of the Liberal Party, they're all okay with it. Yeah. It just goes to show you even the

00:09:28.560 double standard too, right? Like the, again, the media would be in full-blown meltdown mode had Stephen

00:09:35.600 Harper participated in what Justin Trudeau was doing. It would, the, the, the, that's why we say

00:09:41.600 this, this type of thing should, should be relevant to anyone, any Canadian, regardless of what side

00:09:48.400 you're on, because it shouldn't be used that way. The government should be clear with everyone,

00:09:52.940 treating everyone the same. But if, if, as you said, if it's benefiting the Liberal government,

00:09:57.660 they, they will allow it to continue. If it's hurting, they will try to shut you down. We can also

00:10:02.240 talk about the censorship legislation, but we don't want to go down that, that hole. But let's keep the

00:10:07.380 interference part. Right. And it's as bad as it is, but Justin Trudeau turned a blind, turned a blind eye

00:10:16.320 to Beijing's interference because it benefited the Liberal Party. It gets worse because there is new

00:10:23.580 explosive allegations that Justin Trudeau's inner circle, someone in Justin Trudeau's inner circle

00:10:32.220 leaked classified information to tip off Han Dong, who was the Liberal member of Parliament for Don

00:10:41.580 Valley, nor if he still is a member of Parliament, not a, not a Liberal caucus, that Dong was being

00:10:48.980 monitored by CSIS. So he got the heads up in advance. So what happened was, at the public

00:10:55.120 inquiry, it was confirmed that top Liberal officials were briefed in September of 2019

00:11:03.340 that Beijing had interfered in the Don Valley North Liberal nomination to assist Han Dong. More

00:11:12.120 specifically, students, Chinese students, were threatened by and coerced by Beijing that they

00:11:20.660 might lose their student visas and that there could be repercussions for them or and their families

00:11:28.300 if they didn't support Han Dong by showing up at the nomination. So Beijing interfered in that

00:11:35.880 nomination. The Prime Minister's top Liberal officials, three of them, were briefed by CSIS,

00:11:42.940 another advisor to the Prime Minister who also had a security clearance was subsequently informed by

00:11:49.780 one of the three Liberals who were briefed and then the Prime Minister was briefed. Now in with that

00:11:54.880 knowledge, the Prime Minister did nothing. He allowed Han Dong to remain as a Liberal candidate and he

00:12:03.700 welcomed him in to the Liberal caucus and he was not long ago talking about how proud he was to have

00:12:09.220 had Han Dong as part of the Liberal team. He doesn't like to talk too much about Han Dong now. But with

00:12:17.000 regards to this leak, one of those officials leaked that classified information that in turn led to Han Dong

00:12:28.000 being tipped off. Now this is a very, very serious matter. It's a criminal matter. It is a

00:12:35.780 con prevention of the Security of Information Act, more specifically Section 4 of that Act. It is an indictable

00:12:45.880 offence, punishable by up to 14 years behind bars. So whichever Liberal, whichever, and it was a small

00:12:54.660 number of people, we're talking about four people plus the Prime Minister who were either directly briefed by

00:13:01.820 by CSIS or who were briefed on the contents of that briefing. Who among them leaked that information because

00:13:11.600 whoever did committed a crime and if they were prosecuted and convicted, they could find themselves

00:13:18.200 sitting in a federal penitentiary for a good decade.

00:13:21.600 Have the police opened up the investigation yet?

00:13:24.740 I have written to the RCMP bringing to their attention the allegations that were made about this leak,

00:13:35.220 allegations that were made by a top national security official. And I just want to underscore

00:13:42.760 the seriousness of this. This is someone in Justin Trudeau's inner circle who in leaking classified

00:13:49.900 information undermined the work of an active CSIS intelligence operation. They compromised CSIS' sources

00:14:00.380 and methods and potentially compromised someone working or multiple persons who were working for CSIS.

00:14:09.820 They could have put people's lives at risk. And they put the interest, once again, of the Liberal

00:14:19.660 Party ahead of the national interest and ahead of national security.

00:14:24.060 Yeah, it seems the Liberal Party does that quite often, or at least this Prime Minister doesn't.

00:14:27.980 Let's queue up cut one. We have a quick clip to play. It just basically summarizes

00:14:31.900 everything we've talked about, then we can expand a bit more on it. So let's play cut one.

00:14:36.540 A declassified summary of CSIS intelligence was entered into evidence late Thursday,

00:14:41.740 in which CSIS reported that in 2021, some individual People's Republic of China officials in Canada

00:14:49.020 made comments expressing a preference for a Liberal Party minority government.

00:14:53.820 As soon as they heard my Chinese name.

00:14:56.700 Two days ago, a 2021 Conservative candidate, Kenny Chu, testified.

00:15:01.340 Chu lost his re-election bid after a barrage of disinformation was aimed at him.

00:15:07.020 Disinformation that security officials believe may have been coordinated by China.

00:15:12.060 Yeah. And there you go.

00:15:13.820 There you go. And CSIS informed Justin Trudeau's election panel, and they sat on it.

00:15:23.420 Kenny Chu was kept in the dark. And the Prime Minister had been later briefed about Beijing's interference

00:15:32.780 in the 21 election, including, specifically, in Kenny Chu's writing. Now, members of Justin Trudeau's election panel,

00:15:43.980 that again was appointed supposedly, supposedly to guard against foreign interference, claimed that

00:15:50.540 the threshold under the critical election incident protocol had not been met. The threshold had not been met.

00:16:03.740 Well, that simply isn't true. If one actually reads the protocol, when candidates are being targeted by

00:16:11.100 foreign interference, the protocol provides that they should be informed. Why was Kenny Chu not informed?

00:16:18.460 Mm-hmm.

00:16:20.060 And when you're talking about interference, targeting multiple candidates, conservative candidates,

00:16:27.740 and actually more broadly, the conservative party, because Erin O'Toole was a target,

00:16:34.140 the protocol provides that when it impacts a national election, that the public should be informed. Why wasn't the public informed?

00:16:44.060 Justin Trudeau's election panel failed.

00:16:47.660 They failed miserably. And as a result, Beijing was able to get away with sowing disinformation.

00:16:57.900 Yeah. They politicized something that's supposed to be not political.

00:17:01.260 Amongst the Chinese diaspora that had a material impact in multiple ridings across Canada. So, it's very concerning.

00:17:11.100 Absolutely. And incredibly, these members of parliament and others had won. Kenny Chu won in 2019, when the polls are riding

00:17:21.340 high. And the polls were even higher nationally in these conditions in 2021. But somehow, these individuals

00:17:28.140 started to lose these seats when the vote share was going up. So, it really didn't make any sense that

00:17:34.700 that this would happen, leading to these revelations that there was something more at play than just an unfortunate couple of turnouts in these ridings.

00:17:44.940 Well, that's right. And these were ridings that, in many cases, had been won by relatively comfortable margins,

00:17:55.180 as recently as 2019. And then suddenly, these incumbents lost. That's right.

00:18:01.420 When, as you note, the overall conservative vote

00:18:05.420 share was going up, not down, including in ridings that were neighboring. That's right.

00:18:10.700 Uh, ridings. And, and so, um, what happened was that Beijing spread, uh, disinformation in a fairly

00:18:19.180 sophisticated way. And there was a fairly sophisticated effort to suppress the vote amongst Chinese Canadians,

00:18:25.020 and to sow fear within the, uh, Chinese Canadian diaspora communities.

00:18:30.860 Yeah, absolutely. Well, we're pretty much out of time. As you know,

00:18:33.820 the guests get the last word, so the floor is yours. Well, we're going to work hard to continue to

00:18:39.820 demand answers, uh, that Canadians deserve, uh, about what did the Prime Minister know,

00:18:45.900 and what did he know about it, and what did he do or fail to do about Beijing's interference. And what it

00:18:50.140 appears, based on what we're hearing, uh, at the inquiry, uh, is that, uh, he covered it up, uh, and was

00:18:58.300 happy to go along with it. And we need to get answers, uh, surrounding this leak. Uh, you know,

00:19:07.100 who leaked this? Absolutely. Who, who leaked it? Who tipped off Handong? When did the Prime Minister

00:19:15.900 learn about this criminal leak? And did he refer it to the RCMP, or did he cover it up? So lots of questions.

00:19:22.300 Michael Cooper, please keep up the good work. We appreciate your time. You're doing a fantastic job

00:19:26.700 on this file. It's unfortunate that the Liberals are keeping you so busy, but we, we do appreciate

00:19:31.900 your time. Keeping all of us busy with all of the scandals. It's tough to keep on top of.

00:19:35.500 Yeah, it's absolutely incredible. It's time for this government to go. Uh, St. Albert Edmonton is

00:19:38.940 the riding. Michael Cooper is his name. Thank you very much. Thank you for your time as well. Uh,

00:19:43.340 as I mentioned off the top, a very important topic. Not exactly getting the coverage, I think, and,

00:19:48.140 and Michael thinks that it should. So we ask you to help us out. Please like, comment, subscribe,

00:19:52.700 and share this program. Tell your friends. They can download it on platforms like CastBox,

00:19:56.860 iTunes, Google Play, and Spotify. You name it, it is out there. New content every single Tuesday,

00:20:01.660 1.30 p.m. Eastern time. Until next week, remember, low taxes, less government, more freedom. That's the blueprint.

The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - April 23, 2024

Beijing’s Interference in Canada

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