The Blueprint： The Communist Party of China and Trudeau Liberals explained with MP Chong
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
162.49384
Summary
In this episode, Conservative MP Michael Chong joins us to talk about China's alleged interference in our elections, and why the Prime Minister knew about it, when did he do nothing, and what was he supposed to do about it?
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprints. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your
00:00:07.120
host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton, Kawartha-Lex Brock, with new content
00:00:10.760
for you every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time. We ask that you like, comment, subscribe,
00:00:15.820
share this program. Together we can push back against that moving Liberal agenda and make
00:00:21.220
Pierre Polyev the next Prime Minister of Canada. But we need your help because not only can you
00:00:25.360
watch and listen to the program right now on platforms like Facebook or YouTube. You can
00:00:30.180
download it, listen to it on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play and Spotify. You name it, it is
00:00:34.360
out there. Got a great show lined up for you today. We're going to talk about foreign interference in
00:00:38.840
our elections. We're bringing on Michael Chong, a good friend of the show, Member of Parliament for
00:00:42.660
Wellington, Halton Hills, also the critic for Foreign Affairs. Thank you so much for joining us.
00:00:46.900
Great to be here. We have an important vote this afternoon. We thought it was going to be a
00:00:50.120
confidence vote, possibly triggering an election. Turns out, not the case. Prime Minister has come
00:00:56.320
out earlier today and told us otherwise. That's right. He backed off his threat of making this a
00:01:02.500
confidence vote. Clearly there was a backroom deal between the Liberals and New Democrats on this.
00:01:09.720
So what's going to happen is the Liberals and the New Democrats are going to vote against our motion.
00:01:14.480
And instead, the bone that the Prime Minister threw to the NDP was to agree to having Katie Telford
00:01:24.300
appear in front of the Proceduring House Affairs Committee to testify about Beijing's foreign
00:01:29.120
interference in our democracy. Yeah, so I think this is a big step. I think the NDP was feeling the
00:01:34.760
heat, I think, from their own members, from people in their riding saying, I think this is a bit too far
00:01:40.480
if you back the government on this. But the question is also, we'll get into what is foreign
00:01:46.620
interference, but I guess we can talk about, we need to know, I think, right away what the government
00:01:53.020
knew, when it knew, did it take any steps, like what did they do? And I think Katie Telford, being the
00:01:59.000
chief of staff, being involved in the campaigns, would have access to some of the information and
00:02:03.540
some of the answers we're looking for. Well, that's exactly it. What's clear is that
00:02:08.520
Beijing has been meddling in our democracy. And we know that because public servants have leaked
00:02:15.000
this information to investigative journalists who have reported on it. We didn't find this out from
00:02:21.060
the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister, frankly, has been trying to bury this story and avoid answering
00:02:27.740
any questions about what happened. Clearly, something happened. So we need to know, what did the Prime
00:02:32.720
Minister know? When did he know it? And what did he do about it? Those are really the questions
00:02:38.500
at the heart of the matter. And I know you've asked this a few times in question period.
00:02:43.280
Who did it benefit, right? It turns out, at least from the information coming out right now,
00:02:49.680
that it seemed to benefit the Liberals in some way. Obviously, it wouldn't have changed the results
00:02:55.580
of the election. It still would be a Liberal minority if he base it on the seats that may or may not have
00:03:00.460
been won if the interference had happened or not. But at the same time, if the Prime Minister took that
00:03:07.800
information, did nothing about it because he potentially knew it would benefit him, that's
00:03:12.840
pretty serious. I think Canadians should have an answer to that.
00:03:15.680
Yeah. Clearly, Beijing's meddling in the 2019 and 2021 elections was for the benefit of the Liberal
00:03:22.100
Party. That's clear. Reports in the Globe and Mail and Global News have highlighted that the Consul
00:03:28.140
General in Vancouver actually said that explicitly.
00:03:32.140
Boasted about it. Boasted about it. The question is whether or not the Prime Minister turned a blind
00:03:36.800
eye to this foreign interference to benefit his own party, or if there was another reason why he
00:03:43.820
didn't make public this foreign interference, why he didn't take other measures on this foreign
00:03:48.240
interference. We don't know because they're not answering questions, which just leads to further
00:03:52.420
suspicion about the Prime Minister's motives with respect to this foreign interference.
00:03:56.940
So we keep talking about foreign interference. What is it in this case? What are we talking about?
00:04:00.260
So foreign interference is defined under law as malevolent activities by a foreign state or its
00:04:09.320
proxies to meddle in Canadian society. Things like interfering in our elections, threatening and
00:04:18.740
intimidating Canadian citizens on Canadian soil, interfering in our research and development
00:04:26.640
activities. All those are defined as foreign interference. Foreign interference in the 2019 and 2021 campaigns
00:04:35.060
came in the form of Beijing allegedly funneling money into candidates and parties during those
00:04:44.840
campaigns. It came in the form of Beijing allegedly ordering its international students at universities like
00:04:53.700
the University of Toronto to hijack a nomination meeting and vote for a particular candidate that they
00:05:00.480
thought was in favor of Beijing. It came in the form of disinformation campaigns that Beijing spread on social
00:05:09.600
media, particularly Chinese language social media during the 2021 campaign. So all those things,
00:05:15.920
interfering in nominations, illegally and covertly funneling money into the political process,
00:05:21.500
and spreading disinformation are all examples of foreign interference. Foreign interference is separate and
00:05:27.020
distinct from espionage. Espionage is primarily targeted at theft. It's the stealing of intellectual
00:05:35.600
property, the stealing of information for the benefit of another country. Foreign interference is
00:05:44.600
different than that. It takes the form of various activities I've just outlined.
00:05:48.080
And we talked about the last time you're on the show about the Beijing's police departments in
00:05:54.180
Canada. Another example of foreign interference, right? So Safeguard Defenders, which is a Spanish-based
00:05:59.220
non-governmental human rights organization, has highlighted that there are over a hundred police
00:06:07.400
stations, most all of them illegal police stations, that have been established in dozens of countries around
00:06:14.000
the world. Five of them have been established here in Canada illegally. And those were reported by
00:06:20.800
Safeguard Defenders, this NGO, several months ago. Three of them were in the GTA, one of them in the
00:06:27.120
Vancouver Lower Mainland, and one in Montreal. And so yet that's another example of Beijing's intimidation,
00:06:35.140
harassment of Canadian citizens here, the establishment of these illegal police stations.
00:06:40.120
I remember shortly after the 2021 election, and Kenny Chu, or I guess the Member of Parliament from
00:06:47.080
2019 to 21, he had rang the bell almost immediately as to what was going on in this suburban, or I guess
00:06:54.960
Richmond, Stevenson area of British Columbia, right near Vancouver. He was ringing the bell early on,
00:07:01.200
like he could feel it on the ground that something wasn't right.
00:07:03.960
Yeah, he was ringing the alarm bells about this during the 2020 election. He publicly indicated he
00:07:10.420
was overwhelmed by disinformation about his private members bill that was to establish a foreign agent
00:07:17.660
registry. He wasn't quite sure where the disinformation was coming from. But the Government of Canada knew,
00:07:24.060
and it failed to make the public aware of this disinformation. The Government of Canada has within
00:07:29.820
its bureaucracy, a unit called the G7 Rapid Response, Rapid Monitoring Mechanism, or Rapid Response
00:07:38.700
Mechanism. I can't remember exactly what the title of it is. But the G7, this G7 group within Global
00:07:46.420
Affairs Canada, which is our Foreign Affairs Department, was established under a G7 agreement amongst our G7
00:07:52.220
allies to counter Russian and Chinese disinformation during and between elections. And this group was
00:08:03.060
monitoring the disinformation that was targeting Kenny Chu, disinformation that was coming from the Chinese
00:08:10.820
Communist Party in Beijing. And they failed to go public with it. And I think that was a big failure on
00:08:18.600
part of this task force, this monitoring mechanism that was established, and a big failure of the Trudeau
00:08:25.080
government. And again, questions are being asked, why wasn't this information made public, so that the
00:08:30.540
voters of Richmond, Steveston, East could make an informed decision when they went to the ballot box.
00:08:35.900
So our motion being voted on later today, in an hour or so, hour and a half, is talking about having Katie
00:08:43.300
Delford, the Chiefs of Staff, appear at the Ethics Committee. Of course, the Ethics Committee is chaired by a
00:08:47.380
Conservative. The deal, it looks like being struck, she's going to appear at the PROC Committee, Procedure and
00:08:53.220
House Affairs Committee, chaired by a Liberal. But I think the point, all of this, and whether it's David
00:08:58.280
Johnston getting involved, it's about getting, we can't wait any longer. Because as you said, just a few
00:09:04.980
minutes off air, if we go to an election, which could have happened in about an hour, potentially, we
00:09:10.920
need to have these answers before we start knocking on doors, before we start accepting donations or
00:09:14.660
seeing volunteers put up their hand that want to get involved. We need to know what's going on.
00:09:19.180
We absolutely need to know what's going on now. Not a year from now, not two years from now, we need to
00:09:25.460
know now. We can't wait for the results of a public inquiry that could take a year or more to come to
00:09:31.060
its conclusions. We need to know now. And the reason is simple. We could be in a federal election as soon
00:09:36.020
as, at any time, more likely six to 12 months from now. So we need to know before that federal
00:09:42.180
election exactly what is going on with Beijing's meddling in our nomination races, in our local
00:09:49.460
election campaigns, in campaign financing, so that we can take measures to protect ourselves.
00:09:54.740
CESIS has said clearly in its written evidence, as well as otherwise, that Beijing's foreign
00:10:03.940
interference is a serious national threat to Canada. They've said it's a serious threat to our economy,
00:10:11.860
to social cohesion, to long-term prosperity, and to Canadians' fundamental rights and freedoms.
00:10:18.020
They don't use these words lightly. And they've also said that Beijing is the primary actor behind
00:10:24.500
this threat. But the government hasn't been forthcoming about what is going on. And CESIS has
00:10:30.580
said that it's often difficult to translate this intelligence about Beijing's meddling into evidence
00:10:36.740
for prosecution that leads to arrests and a trial and a conviction of those involved. Because often it
00:10:43.620
relies on tradecraft that they don't want to make public. Often the evidence, the intelligence evidence,
00:10:49.460
doesn't rise to the bar of a criminal prosecution. And so they've advised the government that the
00:10:55.620
other tool the government can use when they can't use a prosecution is sunlight and transparency. To
00:11:02.580
go public with the details of foreign interference threat activities, such as meddling in nominations
00:11:09.620
or in campaign financing, so that the public is informed about these threat activities. And so that
00:11:16.820
Canadians and parties and candidates can make an informed decision about how to protect themselves.
00:11:21.540
But the government has been an information desert. They're refusing to release any information.
00:11:27.700
They're refusing even to let people testify until we put immense pressure on them, such as Katie
00:11:32.820
Telford. That's got to end. We're a first world democracy. And if we're going to protect our democracy,
00:11:37.700
we have the government has to release a lot more information and trust of the public can make an
00:11:42.180
informed decision. Well, we still don't know about those two scientists that were escorted out of the
00:11:45.540
Winnipeg lab. We still have no idea, despite Parliament saying, yes, we'd like to know.
00:11:49.460
Exactly. It's been over two years now since we demanded documents relating to national security
00:11:56.420
breaches at the government's top level four lab in Winnipeg. A lab that had admitted PLA,
00:12:03.620
People's Liberation Army scientists, into the lab against the rules. A lab that had undertaken public
00:12:12.340
research whose patents were then registered in the People's Republic of China. A lab that had so many
00:12:20.100
other national security breaches that it warranted further investigation and accountability. But again,
00:12:26.740
the government refused to release information pertaining to this. And so here we are two years
00:12:31.860
later without any answers. And they are doing with Beijing's meddling in our democracy exactly what
00:12:38.340
they did with the Winnipeg lab documents. That's actually right. Yes, bang on. They are burying the
00:12:43.860
truth in process. So two years ago with the Winnipeg lab documents, they violated four orders of the House
00:12:50.340
of Commons and its committee to produce the documents for Parliament. And they instead hid behind process.
00:12:55.940
They said, oh, it should go to ENSECOP, which is this government security committee. Then they said
00:13:03.940
that it should go to a special committee made up of MPs that's under the control of the government. And so
00:13:13.460
that process has led to no answers two years later. They're proposing the same hide behind process
00:13:19.700
approach today with Beijing's meddling in our democracy. You know, they first said it should be,
00:13:24.820
they referred it to two government committees. One is ENSECOP and the other is ENSECOP,
00:13:28.900
and they've announced the appointment of a special rapporteur that is going to
00:13:32.340
at some point recommend or not recommend a public inquiry. So again, they're hiding behind process,
00:13:37.540
and I'm not confident that that's going to lead to any answers. Like I said, we need answers now.
00:13:42.180
I need to prepare for the next election campaign. Absolutely. I need to know which donors,
00:13:46.660
which individuals are involved with these clandestine and illegal funding operations so I can make sure that we
00:13:53.700
ban them, put them on the ban donor list. I need to know what individuals are
00:13:57.620
working on behalf of the United Front Work Department of the Communist Party in Beijing.
00:14:01.460
So I can say to my campaign manager, these individuals are not allowed on our campaign.
00:14:06.180
They're not going to have anything to do with our campaign. I need to protect myself.
00:14:09.940
But if I don't know who's involved, I can't protect myself.
00:14:15.540
I know we're going to really set you up with this question here.
00:14:17.700
But the obvious question is, the Prime Minister in 2015, sunlight's the best disinfected, blah, blah, blah.
00:14:26.660
Nothing says, I have nothing to hide, like blocking Parliament from doing its job. So what could they
00:14:34.100
possibly have to hide? Could it be they've known about something going on for so long that they've just
00:14:40.180
dragged their feet on this? It must be bad. Just looking in, it must be bad.
00:14:48.100
Why else would they, why would they keep stonewalling over and over again?
00:14:52.500
Well, that's a good question. And the more they stall, the more it raises suspicions that they've
00:14:58.100
got something to hide. And look, revealing foreign interference threat activities is a best practice
00:15:06.340
of our closest allies. I'll give you one example. A year ago in the United Kingdom, MI5,
00:15:13.060
their national security agency went public about a PRC agent that was operating in the United Kingdom
00:15:21.060
Parliament. Her name was Christine Lee. So MI5 went to the Speaker of the House of Commons and said to
00:15:28.660
the Speaker that this individual was a national security threat, that she was involved in foreign
00:15:34.340
interference operations, that she was representing, that she was acting as an agent of Beijing in the UK
00:15:39.780
Parliament, gathering information and trying to influence UK politics. The Speaker subsequently sent
00:15:46.740
an email to all some 630 MPs of the House of Commons, identifying this individual as a national security threat,
00:15:55.540
as MI5 had advised. MPs took action. They cut off contact with her. They put her on the banned donor
00:16:04.260
lists. They didn't allow her any more access to their offices. And as a result, the integrity of the UK
00:16:12.100
Parliament was protected. That's an example of how sunlight and transparency is a way to counter
00:16:18.340
Beijing's meddling in our democracy. In this particular instance, MI5 concluded that they didn't
00:16:24.740
have evidence that rose to the level of a criminal prosecution in order to arrest and prosecute her.
00:16:31.940
And so that's why they use sunlight and transparency to protect the UK democracy. We need to do the same
00:16:37.860
kinds of things here. But this government, despite its professed belief in sunlight and transparency,
00:16:44.180
despite coming to office saying that it was going to rely on experts' evidence, has done neither.
00:16:50.260
They're not releasing any information and they're not relying on the advice of their security agencies
00:16:55.620
to release information about foreign interference threat activities to protect the integrity of our
00:17:01.620
democracy. Another example we talked about too, and something you've been calling for in the House,
00:17:05.780
you and others, is something like Australia did. They kind of noticed there was some interference or
00:17:14.100
some influence, I guess, from Beijing. And they took steps to quickly try to put a stop to it as best
00:17:19.940
they could. And so what else can we do? What can Canada do? What would you, if you were a minister
00:17:26.100
in a Poliev government, what would we be doing right now?
00:17:29.940
Well, that's a great question. And I think it highlights a fundamental point, which is that
00:17:34.420
there isn't any one tool the government should be using to counter
00:17:39.220
foreign interference threat activities coming from authoritarian governments like those, like that of Beijing.
00:17:45.620
The government has to employ a suite of tools. So one tool is to go public with
00:17:52.180
foreign interference threat activities so that the public is informed of what is exactly going on.
00:17:56.260
So parties and candidates can make informed decisions about how to protect themselves.
00:17:59.780
The other thing the government should be doing is introducing and implementing a foreign agent registry
00:18:05.860
so that those individuals who are working for authoritarian governments, like the People's Republic of
00:18:12.500
China, have their contracts made public. And so that people are aware of
00:18:17.860
who Beijing is paying and how much and who's involved. The other thing the government should
00:18:25.460
be doing is countering disinformation and making the public aware of disinformation as it takes place,
00:18:30.820
particularly during election campaigns when it was taking place targeting candidates like Kenny
00:18:36.500
Chu in the last election. The government should also be putting in place other measures,
00:18:42.180
measures that other countries have already implemented, such as protecting
00:18:48.420
sensitive research and development at our top level universities. CSIS, for example, has identified
00:18:55.620
five areas of sensitive areas of research that the PRC is trying to steal and is threatening international
00:19:06.420
security. The five areas are 5G telecommunications, clean tech, biopharma, artificial intelligence,
00:19:12.500
and quantum computing. These are areas where the government of Canada should ban any research
00:19:18.820
funding in partnership with entities in the PRC. And it's something that hasn't done. There's so many
00:19:26.260
other things the government should be doing. It should be putting more resources into law enforcement,
00:19:30.660
to prosecute espionage, to prosecute porn interference. So all of those things need to be done.
00:19:36.900
Unfortunately, the current government is frankly asleep at the switch on all of these things,
00:19:41.940
which is why it's become such a serious threat and concern to the country.
00:19:49.140
Well, look how long it took the government to say no to Huawei and to our telecommunications
00:19:53.940
system. How many years did we as the opposition raise that in question period over and over and over
00:19:59.620
again? Despite countries like the UK and many others of our Five Eyes partners saying no to Huawei?
00:20:05.220
Absolutely. Frankly, they're asleep at the switch. And I now think that the chickens are coming home to
00:20:11.380
roost. And I think Canadians are becoming increasingly concerned. I think it's the reason why, frankly,
00:20:19.620
public servants have leaked top secret documents to investigative journalists to be published in
00:20:27.300
reputable publications like the Global Mail and Global News. Because I think the experts are so
00:20:33.700
concerned about the threat to this country's security, about the threat to this country's safety, that they
00:20:41.540
thought they had no other option because the government was simply ignoring their advice.
00:20:45.860
Michael, we've gone way over time. I know you have questions today in question period. But as you know,
00:20:50.100
I always give the guests the last word. So the floor is the rest.
00:20:52.580
Well, I'll go back to what the experts in the Canadian Security Intelligence Service have told us,
00:21:01.380
that Beijing's meddling in our democracy is a serious national threat. It threatens our economy,
00:21:07.780
social cohesion, long-term prosperity, and Canadians' fundamental rights and freedoms. And that the
00:21:15.540
tool, the government of Canada, that the Prime Minister should be using to counter this foreign
00:21:20.100
interference is sunlight and transparency by going public with the details of Beijing's meddling in
00:21:26.740
our nominations, in campaign financing, in our elections, in order to equip Canadians and political
00:21:32.900
parties and candidates with the information they need to make informed decisions about how to protect
00:21:37.780
themselves. Something the government has not done and something that we are going to continue to
00:21:42.740
hound the government on until they come forward with answers. Absolutely. You're doing a great job.
00:21:47.140
Michael Chong, Member of Parliament for Wellington Halton Hills, also the critic for foreign affairs. We
00:21:52.340
appreciate his time. We appreciate your time as well. This is great information. Please like, comment,
00:21:56.660
subscribe, share this program. This word needs to get out. This information needs to get to eyeballs and
00:22:02.420
ears. Please do that if you can't listen or watch it right now. Download it on platforms like CastBox,
00:22:08.020
iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, you name it. It is out there. As I mentioned, new content for you every
00:22:12.340
single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time. Until then, remember low taxes, less governments, more freedom.