HALIFAX—According to Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Radio One’s The House, Canada is now in the second stage of a supposed “foreign interference” war with China.
In April 2017, Conservative Canadian Senator Victor Oh (who retired in June 2024) took a free trip to China courtesy of the Chinese government, which is now being framed as “political interference” in Canadian elections and political affairs.
A 2017 investigation of Oh’s China trip revealed that he had inveigled two other Tory senators, Don Plett and Leo Housakos, to go on the free junket with him. In 2020, the Senate’s ethics watchdog found Oh did indeed break the Senate’s Conflict of Interest and Ethics code by accepting an all-expenses paid trip to China for himself. But the watchdog decided neither Plett nor Housakos had broken the rules because Oh told them he would “take care” of the trip.
But if Conflict of Interest rules dictate that Senators and also members of the House of Commons are not supposed to take presents such as free trips to a foreign country—how can it be that more than 800 MPs and Senators have taken free trips to Israel in the last 50 years?
Is foreign interference in Canadian elections solely a Chinese affair? What about Israel? Canadian governments—Liberal and Tory—now and in decades gone by have all kowtowed to what the Israeli government wants and tend to follow the lead of the U.S., which always expresses ironclad support for Tel Aviv.
Chinese Interference?
The latest development in the supposed “second stage” of Chinese interference in Canada is the news that Chinese-born Liberal Party MP Han Dong (Don Valley North) encouraged Chinese international students in his Toronto riding, or electoral district, to vote at his 2019 and 2021 nomination meetings.
These were Liberal Party events, not elections, and there was nothing illegal about the students’ attendance nor was it against any rules. Temporary and permanent residents are allowed to join political parties and vote for candidates, but only Canadian citizens can vote in a Canadian election.
After the nomination meeting, the Federal Security Service urged the Liberals to reverse the selection. “CSIS was concerned that Han Dong was connected to the People’s Republic of China’s foreign interference network in Canada,” Global News reported, citing an unnamed source.
Rather than an attempt to protect elections, the move was in effect part of the anti-Chinese racism which has mushroomed in Canada and dates back to the earlier days of Justin Trudeau’s regime.
When we add the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, the fallout from China’s imprisonment of two Canadians as spies, and then the years of COVID-19 and the suggestion that the disease was intentionally created in China—it becomes obvious that the Chinese “interference” issue has generated anti-Chinese backlash and racism against Chinese Canadians.
Background
In December 2018, telecom giant Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Vancouver. American authorities had charged her with corporate fraud and demanded she be extradited to the U.S. Once again, Canada did the U.S.’ bidding.
Canada arrested her, and 10 days later, China arrested and imprisoned two Canadian businessmen whom officials there said were spies. The two men—Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, christened “the Two Michaels” by the media—were imprisoned in China for nearly three years until the U.S. dropped its case against Wanzhou and British Columbia dropped its extradition request.
In 2021, the Two Michaels were sent back to Canada, and Meng Wanzhou returned to China. This event was the signal that relations between Canada and China were taking a downturn, of course with the U.S. lurking in the background.
What exactly China’s political interference in Canadian elections was or is, and how serious, remains to be seen. Former Governor General David Johnston, who was appointed to look into the interference, said in a May 2023 report there were “serious shortcomings” in the way intelligence is discussed and dealt with by security agencies and the government.
However, Johnston did not find examples of ministers, the prime minister, or their offices knowingly or negligently failing to act on intelligence, advice, or recommendations.
After the opposition parties’ rejection of the first report, the federal government struck a commission of inquiry on foreign (read Chinese) interference, headed by Marie-Josée Hogue. In an interim report in May 2024, Commissioner Hogue said though it was possible that outcomes in a small number of ridings were affected by meddling, this cannot be said with any certainty.
Her main conclusion: Foreign interference by China did not affect the overall results of the 2019 and 2021 general elections won by Justin Trudeau’s Liberals.
What about political interference by Israel?
One thing is for sure, however. When it comes to potential political interference, the elephant in the room is Israel. More than 73 sitting MPs (22%) and more than 800 MPs and senators since 1973 have taken free junkets to Israel courtesy of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA). In fact, in July 2023, Kody Blois, MP for Kings-Hants in Nova Scotia, accompanied by his wife, went on a free trip to Israel—the value of which was $24,000 according to The Maple.
Then there are the actions of the pro-Israel lobby. The “Troika”—CIJA, Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, and B’nai Brith—have ongoing relationships with MPs and are influential with both the Liberals and the Tories. For example, between Oct. 7, 2023, and April 2024, CIJA conducted 107 separate lobbying sessions, 82 of which included discussion of “international relations.”
Israel had killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, mainly civilians, in its nearly year-long war of terror on Gaza. At the same time, Israel’s war on the West Bank, where Israel has murdered more than 600, and its latest war on Lebanon are massacres that the Canadian government is supporting—covertly but mainly overtly.
As recently as Sept. 18, Canada joined 42 other U.N. member states to abstain from a non-binding motion demanding Israel end its “unlawful presence” in Gaza and the West Bank within a year. At the U.N., 124 countries supported the motion, while the U.S., Argentina, Israel, and the Marshall Islands were among the 14 nations to vote against it.
In a move that likely meant to placate pro-Palestinian activists calling for an arms embargo, though, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly announced in mid-September that Canada suspended 30 permits to export military supplies to Israel.
Of course, there are more than “200 valid permits to ship to Israel right now, so 30 suspensions fall well short of the total arms embargo activist organizations—not to mention 22 Liberal MPs—have demanded,” according to CBC journalist Janyce McGregor.
She also notes an Aug. 13 news release in which the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency said the “General Dynamics facility in Quebec [is] the ‘principal contractor’ on an Israeli government request for mortar cartridges.”
Doesn’t that undermine Canada’s pledge not to equip Israel in any new way as the war on Gaza, the genocide against Palestinians, continues apace?
As for the political interference by actors linked to Israeli government interests, don’t expect an investigation any time soon.
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