“A ‘kill chain’ is a systematic process that outlines the steps required to identify, target, disrupt and neutralize an adversary.” - Digital Public Square

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Written by: Aidan Jonah

An ATIP document obtained by The Canada Files reveals that the Canadian government funded a think tank report proposing a ‘kill chain’ framework that would subordinate Canada’s ‘legal framework’ to McCarthyism. At least one element of the ‘kill chain’ has already been implemented.

So much for ‘Canada’s leading independent researchers’, working with Digital Public Square, coming to save Canadians from Chinese ‘transnational repression’. That story, from Sam Cooper, now serves as another dud on his ignominious journalistic record.

What is the kill chain framework and its ramifications?

The ‘kill chain’ framework is explained in Cooper’s 2024 article for The Bureau:

“A comprehensive kill chain framework is proposed to systematically counter PRC operations, enabling government, law enforcement, civil society, and Canada’s democratic allies to both individually and collaboratively address threats at every stage of their development and execution.”

The proposed countermeasures in the ‘kill chain’ are wildly anti-democratic. The mentality of lead researcher’s Sze Fung-Lee makes this obvious; “It is difficult for the community leaders in Canada to protect themselves against China’s hybrid warfare with just the legal framework,” “until Canada prosecutes Beijing proxies”.

Digital Public Square, the Toronto-based think tank which received funding from Canadian Heritage, described a ‘kill chain’ as a “systematic process that outlines the steps required to identify, target, disrupt and neutralize an adversary.”

A Digital Public Square post (WebArchived) on December 11, 2024, confirmed the report proposing a “kill chain” was “Funded by the Government of Canada”.

Desired ‘kill chain’ countermeasures include, to:

“Develop tools for communities to report suspicious activities and potential targeting”
“Identify groups and individuals known to collaborate with the regime, and conduct regular monitoring and analysis”
“Strengthen cooperation and communications between vulnerable communities and law enforcement”
“Community-based interventions”
“Coordinated law enforcement action”
“Public accountability, attribution, and exposure”
“Develop support networks [for the diaspora activists liked by the Canadian government]”

Digital Public Square described a ‘kill chain’ as a “systematic process that outlines the steps required to identify, target, disrupt and neutralize an adversary.”

Caption: ‘PRC Transnational Repression Framework and Kill Chain’. Source: ‘PRC Foreign Interference and Transnational Repression in Canada: Insights from Vulnerable Diaspora Communities’ (PDF), Page 27

What does this ‘kill chain’ indicate in layman’s terms? That a Canadian government funded report is recommending - since Canada’s legal system is failing to prosecute the evil ‘Beijing proxies’ that they can’t find any actual evidence to convict, who are instead targeted with intelligence agency smears that wouldn’t hold up in court – that Chinese Canadians who dissent to Canadian foreign policy be targeted by “government, law enforcement, civil society, and Canada’s democratic allies” without the need for any pesky ‘evidence’, ‘convictions’ or ‘appeals process’.

William Dere, a decades-long Chinese Canadian activist opposed to McCarthyism, said “The ‘kill chain’ is an elaborate plan for infiltration and disruption of the Chinese Canadian community all in the name of fighting foreign interference. Their plan also includes national repression on the part of Canadian authorities on those in the CC community who may be sympathetic to the PRC.”

The contribution agreement stated that DPS’ research findings will be applied to “to inform the development of two digital inoculation tools.”

The tools, according to Canadian Heritage, “will be designed to raise awareness about foreign interference campaigns and increase resilience to their impacts.’ One tool will target the general public and another will specifically target the Chinese Canadian community (Pg. 3, A-2024-00391).

This means that at least one element of the ‘kill chain’ has already been implemented by the Canadian government, before it was even released to the general public.

According to Dere, “This shows the complicity of government surveillance and its collaborators, and the explicit attack on the democratic rights and freedoms of Chinese Canadians to fully participate in Canada's political process.” He criticized Canadian Heritage, stating that “In essence it is a source of division to promote the anti-China agenda and labelling others as ‘proxies’ of China.”

Senator Yuen Pau Woo told The Canada Files:

“I support efforts to counter foreign interference but not at the cost of infringing Canadians' rights to freedom of expression and freedom of association. This includes the right of Canadians to hold views that align with foreign countries and to have relationships with foreign entities that do not break the law in Canada or abroad. Anything less would amount to McCarthyism. I also believe in the principle of consistency, materiality, and proportionality in dealing with foreign interference and am puzzled that Heritage Canada is not supporting projects that focus on interference and disinformation from the United States, which is by far and away the most significant threat to Canadian democracy and sovereignty today. That too is a marker of McCarthyism.”

Cooper’s beloved report: just one part of a bigger project

Cooper’s article on the Digital Public Square (DPS) report lines up perfectly with the requirements laid out in the contribution agreement document – between Canadian Heritage and Digital Public Square - obtained by this author.

Comparison will suffice here:

Contribution Agreement: “Recognizing the complexity and sensitivity of this project context, DPS will partner with subject matter experts to research PRC foreign influence, disinformation, and transnational repression campaigns in Canada.”
- Cooper article: “Lee and disinformation researcher Marcus Kolga worked with Digital Public Square, a Toronto-based non-profit, on a new project revealing the growing reach of Beijing’s agents in diaspora communities.”
Contribution Agreement: “Research activities will have three main inputs: research and analysis into Canadian information environments to improve our understanding of foreign interference campaigns in Canada;”
- Cooper article: “Beyond its survey of diaspora leaders, what distinguishes Lee’s collaboration with Kolga, she noted, is its focus on identifying Chinese proxy networks and predicting tactics used in Canada to surveil Beijing’s targets. These tactics include identification and prioritization of targets, media disinformation attacks, so-called “lawfare” (lawsuits apparently backed by Beijing), and even physical actions to silence critics, Fung said.”
Contribution Agreement: “Research activities will have three main inputs:… consultation sessions with representatives from diaspora communities and other groups that have experienced the impacts of such campaigns;
- Cooper article (bolding added): “Their research sums up the chilling experiences of 25 Canadian community leaders from Chinese, Hong Kong, Taiwanese, Tibetan, Uyghur, and Falun Gong backgrounds.”

But remarkably, the contribution agreement confirms that Cooper’s heralded report is just one of two report DPS was required to produce for Canadian Heritage (Pg. 3, A-2024-00391).

The contribution agreement ties in even tighter to the overall work produced by Digital Public Square, Lee and Kolga for Canadian Heritage.

Contribution Agreement: “Research activities will have three main inputs:… and a national survey to measure Canadians’ awareness of and vulnerability to such campaigns” (Pg. 3, A-2024-00391).

The survey is here. And what did Digital Public Square choose to do? (bolding added)

“Beyond a survey of the general population, we oversampled the Chinese diasporas – the self-identified ethnic Chinese (including those born in Canada, other than those from Hong Kong or Taiwan categorized separately), Hong Kongers, Taiwanese, Tibetans, and Uyghurs, to further examine their attitudes towards and the impact of these issues on them. In particular, we sought to investigate the extent to which they have been subject to harassment and political intimidation from the PRC government.”

While Cooper’s article framed the so-called ‘independent researchers’ as having “the goal of ultimately liaising with Ottawa’s underperforming enforcement and intelligence agencies to offer their expertise”, this was already something guaranteed to occur.

That’s because the contribution agreement confirms that:

“At the conclusion of the project, DPS and partners will hold a roundtable event to share and discuss project findings with Canadian policymakers, civil society, Chinese diaspora communities, and other stakeholders, with a view towards strengthening Canada’s resilience to foreign interference” (Pg. 3, A-2024-00391).

Yet somehow, Canadian Heritage, in responding to two ATIP requests from this author, claimed they had no records of internal email conversations and email conversations with DPS about the progression of their project (between January 1, 2024 to end of January 2025). This author has filed an appeal against this claim to Canada’s Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC).

Another report, produced by Kolga’s DisinfoWatch in cooperation with Digital Public Square, funded “in part by the Government of Canada”, called “Democracy and You: A Handbook for Detecting and Preventing Foreign Interference in Canadian Elections”, was released on April 7, 2025.

Digital Public Square and Canadian Heritage did not respond to The Canada Files’ request for comment.

Obey, Chinese Canadian, says Canada’s government

Canadian Heritage has continued the Canadian government’s pattern of using the anti-government faction of the Chinese Canadian diaspora as a weapon against the Chinese Canadian community, in service of demonizing China. They kept going by allowing DPS to “engage community groups to promote distribution of the Community Tool to Chinese-speaking communities” (Pg. 3, A-2024-00391).

When the researchers prioritized anti-Chinese government groupings of the diaspora in Canada, it becomes obvious which kinds of community groups will be promoting distribution: those who push the ‘Chinese foreign interference’ panic so pervasive in modern Canadian politics.

The majority of the Chinese Canadian community, abandoned and then targeted by the Canadian government, has a chance to push back in an organized fashion. That chance is the planned national Chinese Canadian organization against McCarthyism, to be spearheaded by Senator Yuen Pau Woo.

With a government-funded report calling for a creation of a ‘kill chain’ that targets Chinese Canadian dissent (‘PRC operations’) the legal system has refused to prosecute because of a lack of evidence - by subordinating the legal system to intelligence agency narratives and anti-China political machinations - such a national organization continues to be proven incredibly timely, and much needed.

Update: After this investigation was released, Canadian Heritage provided this response to The Canada Files’ request for comment. We are publishing it in full below.

“Online disinformation is a complex, multi-faceted problem facing our democracy. With ongoing geopolitical and technological shifts threatening the health of Canada’s information ecosystem, conditions are ripe for the rapid spread of misinformation and disinformation. To respond to this threat, the Government of Canada has made it a priority to help equip Canadians with the tools and skills needed to critically assess online information through the Digital Citizen Initiative.

The Digital Citizen Initiative aims to build citizen resilience against online disinformation and create partnerships to support a healthy information ecosystem. This is realized in part through the Digital Citizen Contribution Program, which provides funding through annual calls for proposals to support research and citizen-focused activities that aim to better understand and address online disinformation.

Applications to the Digital Citizen Contribution Program are assessed on a set of published eligibility and evaluation criteria, with a view to clear objectives and measurable results. Funded projects must adhere to the requirements of a contribution agreement but remain independent of the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Efforts of civil society in this space complement and inform the Government’s efforts to protect our democracy and Canadians from foreign interference. The Government has robust measures in place, through the Plan to Protect Democracy.

One of the main measures in place during the election is the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force which provides enhanced monitoring and assessment of foreign interference threats during the general and by-election periods, as well as party leadership campaigns. Comprised of national security and intelligence agencies and departments, the SITE Task Force also provides information about the threat landscape. (Example: Cyber Threats to Canada's Democratic Process: 2025 Update - Canadian Centre for Cyber Security)

During the election period, representatives from the Government of Canada are holding regular media technical briefings with updates on the threat landscape and protection measures for the general election. More information: Technical briefings on Canada’s 45th general election - Protecting Canada’s general elections - Democratic Institutions - Canada.ca.”

Document

A-2024-00391

Aidan Jonah is the Editor-in-Chief of The Canada Files, an independent news outlet covering Canadian foreign policy with a strong focus on Canada-China relations. Jonah wrote a report for the 48th session of the UN Human Rights Council, held in September 2021.

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