The foreign interference behind Canada's foreign interference act
US Ambassador to Canada, David L. Cohen, speaks at a celebration of Washington State’s individual trade history with Canada. Photo credit: @USAmbCanada/’X’
Written by: Yves Engler
The foreign interference panic sweeping Canadian media and politics reflects US power and racism. The frenzy has already led to dangerous new legislation.
The Canadian institutions most strongly connected to the US are leading the China interference scare. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and Communications Security Establishment (CSE) have pushed the fearmongering in the face of discomfort from many among Canada’s corporate elite. Through the US, UK, New Zealand and Australia “Five Eyes” CSE and CSIS are deeply integrated with their US counterparts in an intelligence sharing alliance driving hostility towards China. Months before Canada’s 2018 arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, which spurred a downward slide in relations with China, Five Eyes officials agreed to contain the growth of China’s first global technology powerhouse.
Deeply integrated with their US counterparts, the Canadian military is keen to join the conflict with China. They’ve pushed to send regular naval patrols and set up a base in the region. Last year the chief of the defence staff suggested China saw itself “at war” with Canada and its allies.
Beyond the ‘security’ establishment, Canada’s arms industry has pushed conflict with China. Arms makers and their lobby, the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries, have sponsored a slew of forums critical of China. One reason the US signed the Defence Production Sharing Agreement, which grants Canadian firms unique access to bid on US military contracts, was to turn them into advocates for a pro-US military and foreign policy.
Central figures promoting the China interference scandal are funded by the US. One of the most quoted individuals decrying Chinese interference in Canada, Mehmet Tohti, has worked for various US-sponsored Uygur groups, notably the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project (URAP), which was funded by the US’ National Endowment Fund for Democracy for their “advocacy” in Canada. Tohti’s URAP also played an important role in pushing Parliament to adopt a resolution calling China’s treatment of Uygurs a genocide, which pushed the Trudeau government towards more conflictual relations with Beijing.
Another group hyping foreign interference is also funded by Washington. Led by regular foreign interference commentator Marcus Kolga, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s DisinfoWatch was established with money from the US State Department’s Global Engagement Center and the US Embassy in Ottawa.
An Eastern European “expert”, Kolga highlights the transition from the ‘Russia elected Donald Trump’ interference scare to the China boogeyman. A December 2018 The Walrus cover was headlined “The Russian Threat to Canadian Democracy” while at the time Chrystia Freeland said she was “very concerned that Russia is meddling” in Canada’s election. But when Freeland became foreign minister in 2017, the US embassy in Ottawa sent a memo to the State Department entitled “Canada Adopts ‘America First’ Foreign Policy” pointing out that Trudeau promoted Freeland “in large part because of her strong U.S. contacts” and that her “number one priority” was working closely with Washington. Before the 2019 federal election the government established a special task force largely focused on monitoring purported Russian threats to Canada’s democracy, which included representatives of CSIS, RCMP, CSE and Global Affairs’ intelligence branch.
Despite sizable segments of corporate Canada and some of the political elite opposing conflict with China, Washington wants Canada to better assist its bid to contain that country's rise.
The foreign interference panic is also laced with racism. The initial report of the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions references “diaspora” at least 37 times but fails to mention Canadians of Anglo-Saxon and Western European background. Last month’s report from Justice Marie-Josée Hogue also spared Anglo-Saxon and Western Europeans from association with “foreign”. In “Canada Endorses Chinese-Scapegoating In Latest Inquiry” Ng Weng Hoong writes, “the omission of Canada’s largest ethnic group from the inquiry implies that its members are automatically ‘local’ or ‘real Canadians’, and somehow immunized as a group from being the targets of foreign interference and influence.”
Chinese, Indians, Pakistanis and Iranians (as well Russia) are mentioned in Hogue’s initial report. But, there isn’t a single reference to Ukrainians even though the Ukrainian Canadian Congress has been working with that country’s government to push Ottawa to deliver billions of dollars in weaponry to Ukraine.
Currently it is open season on Chinese Canadian politicians. A recent front-page Globe and Mail article was headlined “Activists urge caution in dealings with two senators with alleged ties to China”. In it one of the accused — Stephen Harper senate appointee Victor Oh — is quoted declaring that he’s always “loyal to Canada."
Another politician put through the ‘loyalty’ grinder is independent MP Han Dong, accused by Global News reporter Sam Cooper of promoting the imprisonment of Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig in China. But a recent revelation came in Dong’s defamation suit, “[Cooper] admitted that none of the documents reviewed named Dong and none ... state that Dong advocated for the detention of the Two Michaels.”
Clearly, the standard for claiming ‘foreign interference’ is based on something other than documented foreign interference.
While Dong was pushed out of the Liberal caucus and remains under a microscope for ties to China, white Liberal MP Anthony Housefather openly works for a foreign state committing genocide. Any discussion of MPs “wittingly or unwittingly” working with a foreign state that doesn’t include Housefather is a farce. Yet, Housefather was made a Parliamentary Secretary and is set for a new antisemitism position that would give him a bigger platform to promote Israel.
For her part, Liberal Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, Ya’ara Saks, is an Israeli citizen.
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) has brought more than 70 current MPs on trips to Israel. CIJA is the “advocacy agent” of Canada’s Jewish federations, which have long been formally tied to the parastatal Jewish Agency for Israel. After restrictions were introduced on registered lobbying groups sponsoring international trips, Toronto’s Jewish federation paid for five MPs to travel to Israel in November.
Canada's federations also host Jewish Agency for Israel emissaries seconded to Jewish schools and community organizations to “provide a living connection to Israel by promoting Israeli experiences.” Hundreds of Israelis are also sent to Canadian summer camps to promote that country.
The Israeli government also funds Canadian schools that send children to pro-genocide demonstrations. Israel’s diaspora ministry has also been spending millions and millions of dollars on online disinformation efforts targeting US and Canadian officials. They were recently caught promoting explicitly Islamophobic positions to deflect criticism of their holocaust in Gaza.
Instead of targeting Israeli interference, the recently adopted “An Act respecting countering foreign interference” will protect it. As Dimitri Lascaris details in “Bill C-70: Trudeau's latest assault on free speech”, the Act’s language on “intimidation” of politicians will likely be used against those campaigning to weaken the power of Zionist lobby which the Canadian state willingly allows to operate with impunity.
A major sop to the intelligence agencies leading Canada’s foreign interference panic, the legislation expands CSIS’ surveillance and information-sharing powers. The bill includes the possibility of life in prison for disrupting critical infrastructure, which has drawn praise from the Business Council of Canada.
C-70 reflects the irrational frenzy around foreign interference. It was rushed through Parliament in six weeks with all MPs agreeing to bypass normal procedure for its adoption.
Apparently, our government can move quickly when the Americans want us to believe the Chinese are coming for us.
Yves Engler is the author of 13 books. His latest book, available now, is "Canada's Long Fight Against Democracy”.
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