An image of Canadian reporter Sam Cooper’s November 7 article, with a “false” banner added on top.

Written by: Xiaoming Guo & Aidan Jonah

On November 7, 2022, Global News reporter Sam Cooper published a report titled “Canadian intelligence warned PM Trudeau that China covertly funded 2019 election candidates: Sources”. Cooper has a problem though: on November 20, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau admitted that he was never briefed about supposed Chinese-funded election candidates, doesn’t know their names (if they even exist) and only learned of the alleged Chinese election interference from media reports.

This is not the first time Cooper has spuriously attacked China’s government and Chinese-Canadians, by uncritically regurgitating the claims of Canadian intelligence agencies.

Sam Cooper’s habit of attacking China’s government and Chinese-Canadians

Sam Cooper is a journalist who often publishes unfounded articles to smear China and slander the Chinese community. When COVID hit Wuhan in 2020, Chinese demand for masks suddenly soared. Overseas Chinese donated masks and other personal protective items to China out of love. On April 30, 2020, Sam Cooper wrote a speculative report accusing the Chinese United Front groups in Canada of hoarding personal protective equipment for China. The purpose of Sam Cooper’s groundless accusation is to incite anti-China sentiment and describe the shortage of EPP facing Canada because of China’s conspiracy to harm Canada’s interests. This has caused great harm to the Chinese community.

When Wuhan was locked down, only China was on high alert action. No other country showed the willingness and actions to prepare anti-epidemic materials. Chinese-Canadians donated to China to fight the epidemic out of humanitarian love. In previous disasters, such as earthquakes or floods, Chinese Canadians have donated to charity, not only for China but also for major disasters in other countries.

Sam Cooper chose to describe all public-spirited Chinese associations as undercover agents of the Chinese United Front in Canada. If all associations donating to China’s fight against the epidemic are agents of the United Front of the Communist Party of China, then the Chinese are all spies of the Communist Party of China. This article made many Chinese-Canadians in Vancouver feel insecure, especially the Chinese Chamber of Commerce. They are the main activists and organizers of charitable donations in the community. Cooper made them out to be Chinese government spies. Articles like Cooper’s incited anti-China sentiments, leading to a surge in violent crimes against Chinese Canadians during the epidemic. In particular, Vancouver Chinatown has become the hardest-hit area for violent racist hate crimes.

After Cooper’s April article, two real estate agents and a People’s Party candidate registered a “Maple Leaf Anti-Racism Action Association”. They first asked Global News to apologize to the Chinese community. Global News refused to apologize. Later, they planned to raise funds to sue Sam Cooper. A fundraising notice was sent to the WeChat group of the Liberal Party’s minster of digital government, which stirred up a political quarrel in Canadian parliament??.

In May 2021, Sam Cooper’s book was released, titled “Wilful Blindness”, which described Vancouver’s drug smuggling rings and Chinese businessmen as Chinese government infiltration, saying that Vancouver has become the headquarters of China’s industrial espionage against Canada. After Deng Xiaoping and Margaret Thatcher finalized the return of Hong Kong to China in 1982, Hong Kong capital fled, and Vancouver was one of the largest destinations for Hong Kong's capital flight. This is the reason why Chinese businessmen gather in Vancouver.

In Sam Cooper’s writing, both smuggling rings and Chinese businessmen are tools of supposed CPC infiltration. When Lai Changxing was wanted for corruption and smuggling cases, Canada gave asylum to Changxing in Vancouver for 12 years. Lai Changxing had huge black money from his smuggling and corruption and he had to lauder his black money during those years. Because of the precedent of Lai’s asylum, some Chinese businessmen who had some money in China and felt insecure chose to immigrate to Canada, with their business still operating? in China. As a result, Vancouver resides many Chinese businessmen. For a period of time, the housing market in Vancouver was highly correlated with the housing market in Shanghai. However, in Sam Cooper’s book, these drug smuggling rings and Chinese businessmen from Hong Kong and the mainland are all described as the CPC’s conspiracy to corrupt Canadian society. Cooper also attacked Senator Yuen Pau Woo and the author Ding Guo in his book launch, making false accusations against them.

A Steve Lalla article for The Canada Files notes that:

“Instead of providing a critique of capitalism, the economic system that encourages corruption, Cooper points the finger at Chinese criminals, supposedly in the service of China’s Communist Party, who have allegedly bought up Canadian housing units to infiltrate the nation’s superstructure with drugs and spies and destroy Canada from within. …

Ironically, Cooper openly admits that his sources come almost exclusively from the DEA, RCMP, CSIS, and ‘the US national security community.’”

Lalla continued:

“CSIS only exists because the RCMP engaged in so much criminality that it lost a major part of its mandate, and CSIS has simply continued the RCMP’s terrible record. Meanwhile, when the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is expelled from Latin American nations, drug trafficking levels actually drop drastically—illustrated most recently by the example of Bolivia. It is impossible to estimate how many war crimes the US national security community has been incriminated in for the last 80 years or so, yet Cooper blindly accepts its accusations. According to Cooper, his sources in the RCMP, CSIS, and DEA told him that, just like the debunked narrative pushed against Lebanese political party Hezbollah, China’s “objective with fentanyl” is to weaponize the drug, flood enemy cities with it to increase addiction and healthcare costs, and use the profits for guns and bombs.”

When you think of Cooper’s book, remember that this is where he got his information from, and that he did not critically question claims made by Canadian and US intelligence community members. His book was practically a dream book for Canadian and US intelligence agencies, as he dutifully lapped up their claims. Cooper isn’t alone in doing this however, as two prominent Globe & Mail reporters, Robert Fife and Steven Chase, were caught uncritically requesting and then promoting CSIS’ narrative of attempted Chinese, Russian and Iranian influence in Canadian politics.

Cooper’s reproducing of CSIS allegations without tangible evidence provided

Sam Cooper’s November 7, 2022 article accusing China of meddling in the 2019 election begins with an anonymous source claiming that Canadian intelligence agencies have warned Prime Minister Trudeau that China funded a clandestine network including at least 11 candidates for Canada’s 2019 federal election.

Another anonymous source said the intelligence community has informed the Prime Minister and cabinet members of numerous allegations against China since January, specifically of subverting Canadian democracy and advancing Chinese influence. This is just an allegation, an allegation that has not yet been supported by any evidence. According to the information of the intelligence agencies, these allegations included that China funded pro-China candidates through intermediaries and placed Chinese agents in the offices of these candidates.

What does it mean? This is to say that there is no evidence that the Chinese government funded election candidates, but that the businessmen who donate politically are suspected of being agents of the Chinese government. How can Chinese-Canadians participate in politics in the future? Chinese participation in politics is suspected of acting as an agent of the Chinese government. How do the Chinese make political donations? Chinese-Canadian political donations are suspected of bribing and corrupting Canadian officials by the Chinese government. It was this article that was quickly cited in Western mainstream media as a report on identified China’s interference in the Canadian election. The information in Cooper’s article comes from unrevealed “sources” that do not say who made the accusation, only that it was alleged. News reports need people, places, times, and events. Cooper’s report did not report who accused China of interfering in the Canadian election. According to Cooper's report, the allegations are not from the intelligence. The intelligence only briefed Trudeau about the allegations from an unknown source.

The foreign power with the greatest influence on the Canadian government is the US government, not the Chinese government. There are 338 parliamentary seats in Canada. If there are only three candidates in each constituency, there will be at least a thousand candidates in the general election. If there are 11 pro-China candidates out of thousands, that is one per cent. Yet Canadian intelligence agencies can’t tolerate one per cent of candidates having different opinions about Canadian foreign policy towards China. Another anonymous source said that Canadian intelligence agency has confirmed that China has interfered in Canada, and this interference can include funding. Why does the article say “can include ”, versus “ includes ”? What is this confirmation? This is a confirmation without confidence. That is to say, there is no evidence for the intelligence claim at all.

The intelligence briefing did not identify the 11 candidates who were bribed by the Chinese government. It said that the candidates bribed by China included the candidates of the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party. This is what Cooper said about China’s interference in the Canadian election, that is, helping the Liberal Party campaign and helping the Conservative Party campaign. Can this affect the outcome of the Canadian election?

The intelligence report said that the candidates allegedly bribed by China included Liberal Party and Conservative Party candidates. This is what Cooper said about China’s supposed interference in the Canadian election, that is, helping the Liberal Party campaign and helping the Conservative Party campaign.

The anonymous sources of Cooper’s November 7 article could not determine when the intelligence service briefed Prime Minister Trudeau, and could not determine which members of the cabinet were briefed. They also accused the Chinese Consulate in Toronto of secretly funding 11 candidates and sending agents to their campaign offices to aid them. This is an allegation, an allegation that has not been investigated and has no evidence. It is not an established fact, just a claim, that China’s government was sending people to the campaign offices of these candidates. The article accused, yet again without evidence, that the Chinese Consulate in Toronto of transferred funds through a provincial MPP and a staff member, while funding election campaigns through agents and intermediaries with 250,000 yuan.

For all the bold claims made by the anonymous source, CSIS can’t confirm that China successfully influenced the 2019 Canadian federal election. If Canada’s Federal Court issues a warrant, Cooper’s article noted that Canadian intelligence agencies can find out the phone calls and electronic communications between the Chinese Consulate in Toronto and those candidates’ campaign offices. Yet, three years have passed, and the court has not issued a search warrant while CSIS has not applied for one, so Canadian intelligence agencies have no evidence of China’s interference in the Canadian election.

Since January 2022, intelligence agencies have briefed Prime Minister Trudeau and certain privileged cabinet members many times without evidence, but have not filed a case for investigation. Therefore, the “allegations” that Cooper used all throughout the article are not allegations that initiate legal proceedings but merely unproven claims. These allegations were reported to the intelligence agencies, who briefed the prime minister and the cabinet many times, but they were not well-founded enough to file a case for investigation. The end of Cooper’s article claims that in order to protect the safety of these whistleblowers, their names cannot be released. Three years already, the intelligence agencies did nothing but spread rumours and not actually seek to seriously investigative these reports, indicating a lack of evidence to back whistleblower claims.

Canadian intelligence agencies and the military-industrial complex

On July 22, 1940, the British War Department decided to establish the Special Operations Executive (SOE), and UK Prime Minister Churchill immediately set about building a spy network. Churchill first established the British Security Communications Department (BSC), headquartered in Rockefeller Center, New York, USA, and then recruited spies. For safety reasons, most of the spies were recruited from Toronto, Canada.

The BSC was also responsible for the wartime propaganda work of the Propaganda Department. The Propaganda Department was called Station M in Canada and located in downtown Toronto. The British Spy Command and the U.S. Office of Strategic Services jointly established a spy training camp called Camp X on the shore of Lake Ontario, tens of kilometers east of Toronto. In 1969, the Canadian Ministry of National Defence razed the camp and turned it into industrial land, but kept a small piece as a memorial.

If you go out of Toronto and drive for a few hours, you will arrive at Intrepid Park. This is the site of the former Camp X, where the backbone of the CIA, the FBI, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and the Communications Security Establishment (Canada’s representative in the Five Eyes Alliance intelligence group) were trained. Canadian intelligence agency, as one of the Five Eyes countries, had the function of deceiving public opinion from the very beginning.

This public opinion propaganda function later evolved into NATO’s Psychological Operations (PsyOps). NATO’s PsyOps policy notes that:

1) The role of Psychological Operations (PSYOPS) is to induce or reinforce the perceptions. attitudes and behaviour of North Atlantic Council (NAC) approved audiences in support of Alliance political and military objectives. Additionally, PSYOPS can mitigate the effective use of hostile propaganda against friendly forces, local civilian audiences and other audiences of importance to NATO.

2)The pervasive and ubiquitous nature of today’s global Information Environment (IE). including the importance of virtual and physical social networks and new media has increased the demand and importance of effective PSYOPS. This has been exacerbated by NATO’s involvement in Non-Article 5 Crisis Response Operations and information attacks against NATO and its member nations. In today’s IE, NATO can expect to operate for an extended period of time with limited resources in areas where sophisticated indigenous media, traditional communication and information from external sources compete to influence the perceptions of local audiences. The organisation, state, or entity more able to effectively and rapidly influence the understanding of a crisis or conflict, especially inducing or reinforcing the perceptions of particular influential audiences, will likely be the most successful..

Canadian intelligence has had a long-standing obsession with China. Canadian intelligence scrutiny of Chinese-Canadians and Chinese institutions is a recurring theme dating back to the 1990’s, when a joint CSIS/RCMP counter-espionage report claimed that Chinese-Canadians are being used by the Chinese government to influence Canadian politics.

As China’s global profile rose over the ensuing decades, CSIS’ interest in Chinese-related activities in Canada only grew.

TCF Advisory Board member William Ging Wee Dere noted that “In electoral politics, Richard Fadden, in 2010, as then head of CSIS, in a drive-by shooting style of innuendos claimed that Chinese Canadian politicians including cabinet ministers and elected municipal officials in BC are under the influence a “foreign government”, i.e. China. No evidence against the unnamed politicians was ever produced but the damage was done.”

A 2013 CSIS ‘intelligence report’ claimed that Confucius Institutes were “spreading propaganda”, and were uniquely dangerous in comparison to other foreign language and cultural institutions such as the British Council and Germany’s Goethe Institute. CI’s are a cultural exchange program which allows students to learn about Chinese culture, and offers training for Mandarin.

CSIS claimed that it was problematic for a Chinese government funded institution to prevent anyone with a record of participation in the Falun Gong cult (which was banned in China in 1999, after hundreds of practioners died after following their anti-medical teachings). Falun Gong’s leader and his followers spread to the US, and this same cult has a right-wing newspaper, The Epoch Times, which spreads anti-China smears and conspiracies about COVID.

That same year, Qing Quentin Huang, a former naval engineer and subcontractor to the Canadian frigate program, was charged by CSIS in 2013 for stealing trade secrets for China. When CSIS refused to disclose evidence against him, the case was stayed and then finally, the criminal charges were dropped in December, 2021.

Starting in May 2022, CSIS began briefing local British Columbia (a Canadian province) politicians to push a narrative of Chinese, Russian and Iranian ‘interference’ in Canada, following in their campaigning directed towards Canadian Members of Parliament.

The so-called China threat serves to distract from Canadian subservience to US domination

The so-called China threat to Canadian democracy is completely a public perception manufactured by Canadian media and intelligence agencies. The media and intelligence agencies work hand in hand and completely dominate Canada’s foreign policy towards China. This security state is the biggest threat to Canadian democracy.

There are many events that have seriously damaged Canada’s national interests. For example, the United States imposed a 300% tariff on Bombardier jets in 2017 which was eventually overturned by a US trade panel in 2018. However, Bombardier jets lost significant their market share in that time. The CIA, through the National Endowment for Democracy, funds multiple groups in Canada, one of which (Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project) has a heavy influence on Canada’s parliament and drove the passing of the farcical Xinjiang ‘genocide’ vote in February 2021.

Faced with these real issues that concern Canada’s national interests, the Canadian political circles and the press has ignored them. In addition, more than 66 per cent of the shares of the Postmedia Network are American-owned, controlling half of the English-language media in Canada. It is an American-run entity, but it pretends to be a Canadian newspaper and influences public opinion in Canada. Postmedia has had a profound impact on Canadian politics, and it is a real foreign interference in Canadian democracy. The Canadian media and government have kept silent about this foreign interference.

Canada’s aggressive and disrespectful behavior is no longer being quietly tolerated by China, as only days ago, Xi Jinping, called PM Trudeau out for leaking and falsifying accounts of a conversation they had at the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Indonesia. Peoples in Canada should resolutely oppose Cooper’s evidence-free articles filled with anonymous sources who can’t back up their claims. This propaganda that sacrifices Canada’s national interests and binds Canada to the US drive for war against China. Genuine democracy in Canada can only be sought on the basis of facts and truth, not on the basis of sensationalism with lies.

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. The Canada Files has just begun a fundraising campaign!

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Xiaoming Guo has a Ph.D. from McGill University and an MBA from Queen’s University. A Canadian believes that a good relationship with China serves our best national interest.

Aidan Jonah is the Editor-in-Chief of The Canada Files, a socialist, anti-imperialist news outlet founded in 2019. Jonah has broken numerous stories, including how the Canadian Armed Forces trained neo-Nazi "journalist" Roman Protasevich while he was with the Azov Battalion, and how a CIA front group (the NED) funded the group (URAP) which drove the "Uyghur genocide" vote in parliament to pass this February. Jonah recently wrote a report for the 48th session of the UN Human Rights Council, held in September 2021.

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