Canadian government funds participation of alliances smearing China during Foreign Interference inquiry
Update: The Hill Times has reported that Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project rejoined ‘The Human Rights Coalition’ on August 30, 2024.
Written by: Aidan Jonah
Canadian government grants discovered by The Canada Files reveal that Canada funded two anti-China alliances, to "ensure that the Participants who do not have sufficient financial resources receive necessary funding to access representative services” and participate fully in Canada’s ongoing Foreign Interference Inquiry.
The first grant was directed by the Privy Council Office (PCO) to ‘The Human Rights Coalition’ on November 10, 2023, which contains a bevy of diaspora groups against the Chinese government.
The Human Rights Coalition: Who are they?
The explicitly anti-China groups in ‘The Human Rights Coalition’ will be familiar to The Canada Files’ audience: Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project (URAP), Falun Gong Human Rights Group and Canada-Hong Kong Link. This coalition got $148k CAD, on November 10, 2023, to ensure they could participate in the inquiry.
URAP has a blunt message, funded by the CIA-front National Endowment for Democracy to the point where they can have four staffers, of falsely claiming that China is committing genocide against Uygurs in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. URAP founder Mehmet Tohti had already had connections with this CIA-front as early as 2004, when he was a co-founder of the World Uyghur Congress, who’d serve two terms as Vice-President; WUC is perennially funded by the NED. After being founded in 2020 thanks to NED money, URAP set out to have Canada’s parliament declare that China was committing genocide against Uygurs. URAP succeeded on February 22, 2021, as Canadian parliament voted to claim China was committing genocide on Uygurs. Just eight days before that, URAP was able to exclusively announce the creation of an official Canada-Uyghur Parliamentary Friendship Group to replace the unofficial one, just eight days before. URAP was a member of 'The Human Rights Coalition' until they dropped out this January, but rejoined on August 30, 2024.
Falun Gong is the anti-science cult which fled China, when that nation cracked down upon it, to protect the health of its citizens. The group’s members began fleeing to the West afterwards and began to spread wild claims about China’s government, and push eventually-debunked narratives of ‘organ trafficking’ by the Chinese government. In the meanwhile, Falun Gong also founded the Epoch Times and New Tang Dynasty Television which spread hysterical anti-China narratives, which would become vocally pro-Trump and spread ‘China virus’/’CCP virus’ messaging about the COVID-19 pandemic. This messaging became so noxious that in 2020 a Toronto union local sought to not have to deliver the paper, and in 2021, multiple Canada Post workers refused to deliver the paper to homes. Now, US prosecutors allege that the Epoch Times was involved in a money-laundering scheme for years. But Canada’s government was happy to give money to a coalition that Falun Gong is involved in.
Meanwhile, Canada-Hong Kong Link supported the 2019 ‘protests’ in the Hong Kong SAR. It continues to perpetuate a narrative of ‘evil Chinese communist oppression’ and mobilizes the HongKongers of the Chinese Canadian diaspora in service of seeking ‘freedom’ for ‘HongKongers’. It functions as one of the Canadian imperialism-approved middle-managers of the Chinese Canadian diaspora.
But the support for anti-China actors goes further, because of the coalition also contains these two groups: Human Rights Action Group and Alliance of Genocide Victim Communities (AGCV). HRAG’s chair is David Matas, of claiming China ‘organ harvesting’ program fame, and its CEO is Sarah Teich, a lawyer who serves on URAP’s volunteer legal team and is vocally anti-China. Meanwhile, within the AGCV, there is the Canada-Tibet Committee who, while raging against supposed Chinese interference, took a $38k USD grant from the CIA-front National Endowment for Democracy, for a program focused on influencing Canadians’ views on Tibet separatism.
The coalition sought to influence the inquiry by purging three political figures from the inquiry. They are MP Han Dong, ex-Liberal MPP Michael Chan, and Senator Yuen Pau Woo; Dong and Chan having been granted full Intervenor Standing, while Woo obtained Intervenor Standing. This meant that Chan and Dong were set to have the power to cross-examine witnesses during the inquiry.
On January 28, 2024, Mehmet Tohti, then-coalition spokesperson and URAP Executive Director, “threatened that the coalition would withdraw from the foreign interference inquiry if the Intervenor Standing wasn’t stripped from the three political figures.”
As this author noted:
“The Globe & Mail quoted Tohti as saying these political figures have ‘acted like Chinese officials in Canada’, so he was ‘not ready to make myself available to be cross-examined by them.’”
But despite Tohti’s threats, only URAP withdrew from the inquiry entirely, earlier this year. Tohti would still testify to the inquiry on March 27, 2024. The coalition’s attempts to purge the three political figures failed, but one of their efforts did succeed. While not trumpeted publicly for months, Chan and Dong were suddenly confirmed to be unable to cross-examine witnesses, by the Hill Times, after Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project (URAP) Executive Director Mehmet Tohti's legal counsel engaged in negotiations with the commission. This was a major point of anxiety for Sam Cooper, an anti-China academic and a Chinese Canadian ‘concern group’, which drove the activists, academic and journalist to first try to purge the three political figures from the inquiry.
Quietly, on the Canadian government’s dime, The Human Rights Coalition and a certain Chinese Canadian Concern Group won their battle.
Independent MP Han Dong and former Ontario Liberal MPP Michael Chan did not respond to The Canada Files’ request for comment.
Chinese Canadian ‘Concern Group’ says Senators ‘defend’, ‘stand with’ the PRC
Richmond News describes the Chinese Canadian Concern Group on CCP’s Human Rights Violations as ‘a group made up of immigrants from Hong Kong’. The CBC states:
“The group says it's made up of media, professionals, activist and religious leaders in the Chinese Canadian community concerned about human rights violations by the Chinese Communist Party, with a particular connection to the Vancouver area.”
This concern group received $168k CAD from the Canadian government, on the same day as the coalition. Yet, it felt no need to inform the CBC of this funding.
Back in 2021, after a Senate motion trying to declare a “Uyghur genocide” failed, URAP had a meltdown in the form of a statement, accusing independent Senator Yuen Pau Woo of “acting as a spokesperson for China rather than for Canada”, and promising to retaliate against Pau Woo by campaigning for his expulsion from the Senate.
In June 2024, the ‘concern group’ followed in URAP’s footsteps, by claiming that Pau Woo “has consistently chosen to stand with PRC and its proxies when Canada and the PRC are in conflict”. In the same statement, the ‘concern group’ goes on to state that:
“We must clarify that the Concern Group is not accusing the two senators of breaking any laws or betraying Canada,”
Now-retired Conservative Senator Victor Oh was accused by the ‘concern group’ of appearing “to be similarly dedicated to defending the interests of the PRC in order to enable the party to exert influence in numerous spheres of Canadian politics and society.”
For the ‘concern group’, they insist they’re not claiming that the Senators are “breaking any laws or betraying Canada”. But simultaneously, they claim Pau Woo “has consistently chosen to stand with PRC and its proxies” amidst a Canada-China ‘conflict’ claimed by them, while they claim Oh “appears to be similarly dedicated to defending the interests of the PRC” .
This is the ‘logic’ of a ‘concern group’ getting $168k CAD to participate in, and therefore influence, the foreign interference inquiry.
Independent Senator Yuen Pau Woo, when contacted for comment by The Canada Files, said:
“I do not begrudge the Human Rights Coalition and the Chinese Canadian Concern Group receiving support from the government in order to participate in the Public Inquiry on Foreign Interference. I presume most of that money has been put towards lawyer’s fees. The fact that both groups have used their standing in the inquiry to make unfounded allegations against me and others, however, raises questions about their credibility as reliable witnesses. It is ironic that two groups purporting to defend human rights would undermine the Charter protected rights of freedom of expression and freedom of association, and seek to silence a senator’s participation in a public inquiry simply because they don’t like my views. It is also disappointing that their lawyers, paid by the public purse, would not have known better.”
The Canada Files found that, in both public hearings and submissions to the foreign interference inquiry, the coalition and ‘concern group’ did not acknowledge that they took funding from the Canadian government, to enable them to participate fully in the inquiry.
What have these groups claimed during the foreign interference inquiry hearings?
In short, the coalition and ‘concern group’ have argued that China is seeking to manipulate Canadian politics: intimidate Canadians, control the Chinese Canadian diaspora (who in their eyes would never support China’s government without coercion), and influence the 2019 and 2021 elections to elect preferred politicians and influence the elected federal government to secretly be pro-China. The ‘concern group’ also complains, just like Conservative MP Erin O’Toole and former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu, that WeChat won’t collaborate with the Canadian government to ‘prevent the spread of misinformation online’, and just like NDP MP Jenny Kwan and Chiu, that Chinese Canadians and local Chinese Canadian media dared to engage with these politicians less after they became more vocally anti-China.
And to counter-act this, the ‘concern group’ proposes to - under the guise that groups or prominent Chinese Canadians critical of Canadian policy toward China must be China-funded or ‘Chinese proxies’ - repress these groups, especially those that have ties or engagement with China’s United Front Work Department, to ‘protect’ Canadian ‘democracy’.
Their favourite reporter, Sam Cooper, now infamous for trying to fake an ‘exclusive’ using Chinese movie footage, has a proposal that perfectly reflects their mentality. For, as this author explained, “Chinese Canadian organizations against McCarthyism to be prevented from suing Canada’s Attorney General in regular courts - under the guise that their resistance is ‘CCP lawfare’”, only allowing them to sue in special ‘national security’ courts.
Chinese Canadian groups which the anti-China ‘concern group’ doesn’t like should be repressed for their imaginary ideas of their financial sources and blocked from any Canadian government funding, said the ‘concern group’ on Facebook.
But when a group like URAP takes money from a CIA-front and is initially part of a coalition that takes nearly $150k CAD from Canada’s government, and they get nearly $170k CAD from Canada’s government to participate in the inquiry, the ‘concern group’ is happy. If no China-neutral or pro-China group gets such Canadian government funding in the future, they will surely be pleased.
When The Canada Files reached out to the Chinese Canadian Concern Group for comment, via their counsel for the foreign interference inquiry, Neil Chantler, he responded by sending this outlet the concern group’s full email criticizing the two Chinese Canadian organizations mentioned in the Facebook post. Other elements of this story were not responded to.
‘The Human Rights Coalition’ did not respond to a request for comment, when The Canada Files reached out to their legal counsels for the foreign interference inquiry.
The Canadian government’s Privy Council Office (PCO) did not respond when The Canada Files reached out for comment.
Dimitri Lascaris, prominent Canadian lawyer and journalist says:
“these revelations add to the growing body of evidence that the most aggressive disseminators of disinformation are Western governments. They secretly fund these and other advocacy groups (like the MacDonald Laurier Institute) while complaining incessantly about alleged foreign interference in Western countries. As I’ve said many times, the most aggressive proponents of censorship are worst purveyors of disinformation.”
This paranoia on China, Chinese Canadians, and Canada’s Liberal government, comes despite the Canadian government joining in on the US’ Cold War on China, and parliamentarians claiming genocide and colonialism where there is none, and Canada’s military joining in on spurious ‘Freedom of Navigation’ missions in the South China Sea.
Canada’s government has done everything it can to ensure the foreign interference inquiry comes out heavily against China. No amount of theatrics from an anti-China coalition and ‘concern group’ can disguise this truth.
Aidan Jonah is the Editor-in-Chief of The Canada Files, a socialist, anti-imperialist news outlet founded in 2019. Jonah wrote a report for the 48th session of the UN Human Rights Council, held in September 2021.
Editor’s note: The Canada Files is the country's only news outlet focused on Canadian foreign policy. We've provided critical investigations & hard-hitting analysis on Canadian foreign policy since 2019, and need your support.
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