Written by: Aidan Jonah

Canadians have recently learned that only one Uygur ‘refugee’ had been brought to Canada out of 10,000 slots, months (at minimum) into a special program from Canada’s government. This program came into being because of the efforts of an Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) member in Canada’s parliament, while the terrorist East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) groups are not on Canada’s terrorist list.

Remarkably, in October, The Canada Files revealed that Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project (a separatist organization), founded with CIA money was then given $982k CAD of funds to manage for Uygur dissident immigrants, by Canada’s immigration department, who hid the grant after the investigation came out. URAP’s Executive Director, Mehmet Tohti, had called for Uygur detainees including a man who “admitted to military training in Afghanistan” with the motivation of fighting the “oppressive Chinese government”, to be admitted to Canada in 2009.

So where has the money gone to exactly?

Special program for Uygur ‘refugees’: How’d we get it

A special program for Uygur ‘refugees’ was launched in the first place because of a non-binding “private member’s motion”, M-62, brought to the parliament by the Liberal MP for Pierrefonds—Dollard, Sameer Zuberi, on June 21, 2022. The motion was based on:

“recognizing that a genocide is currently being carried out by the People's Republic of China against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims”

The motion says Canada should:

“urgently leverage Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s Refugee and Humanitarian Program to expedite the entry of 10,000 Uyghurs … over two years starting in 2024 into Canada.”

MP Zuberi’s motion was passed unanimously on February 2, 2023, with Canadian PM Justin Trudeau voting in favour.

MP Zuberi wasn’t just a banal MP who got roped into touching geopolitics. By 2022, as William Dere noted for The Canada Files, he was then “Chair of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs [SDIR], and Co-Chair of the Canadian-Uyghur Parliamentary Friendship Group.”

During SDIR proceedings between December 2019 and August 2020, MP Zuberi – as a member - was involved in allowing US-funded Uygur separatist groups to drive subcommittee proceedings towards an October 2020 report – while not speaking to The Grayzone journalists who exposed the farce of the genocide narrative – which led to the February 2021 Canadian parliament Xinjiang genocide vote.

However, The Canada Files missed a crucial element back in 2022. By December 2021, MP Zuberi had become a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), an anti-China coalition of parliamentarians founded in May/June 2020 just before China’s government passed the Hong Kong National Security Law (NSL). The scale of IPAC’s influence in Canada-China policy discussions is touched on, in this article (LINK).

IPAC influence in Canadian politics

The anti-China IPAC has a heavy influence in Canada, since it’s founding in May/June 2020. IPAC Canadian MPs are patrons of Hong Kong Watch (Irwin Cotler and Conservative MP Garnett Genuis are Canadian IPAC Co-chairs), the main pusher behind securing a Canadian parliament committee study of diplomatic protections and trade privileges afforded to China’s Hong Kong Special Administrative region, following in successful US efforts to put the protections and privileges in jeopardy.

There are four Canadian IPAC members and one Hong Kong Watch patron on the Special Committee on the Canada–People’s Republic of China Relationship (CACN), which will be conducting the study.

Liberal MP Judy Sgro, Chair of the Standing Committee on International Trade in Canada’s House of Commons, is also a Canadian IPAC member. Sgro and Conservative MP Stephanie Kusie (another Canadian IPAC member) attended the 2024 Canadian parliament delegation to the Taiwan area.

Canadian IPAC members were also central around the Xinjiang genocide vote farce, even from the end of July 2020, when the subcommittee hearings that would trigger the eventual 2021 parliament vote were still ongoing. In November 2023, when “Central Tibetan Administration” (the “Tibetan-Parliament-in-Exile”) President, Sikyong Penpa Tsering, came “tp garner support for Tibetan freedom struggle”, an IPAC Co—chair for Canada (Conservative MP Garnett Genuis) and three other Canadian members including Canada’s justice minister MP Arif Virani, MP Zuberi and MP Sgro, met with Tsering.

It would be IPAC Canada member, Bloc Québécois MP Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, who put forward a non-binding motion in June 2024, unanimously supported by parliament, that refers to Tibetans as ‘a people and a nation’ who should get self-determination.

Furthermore, The Canada Files has found that Conservative MP Alex Ruff, who sits on the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP), a crucial body has seriously influenced Canadian political discussion, has also been an IPAC member since July 2020.

Who’s being paid to help the special ‘Uygur refugge’ project?

Canadian IPAC member MP Zuberi’s bill led to $982k CAD being given to CIA-funded Ugyhur Rights Advocacy Project (URAP) – founded in April 2020 and known for threatening to get a Senator, Yuen Pau Woo, kicked out of the Senate after he opposed a Uygur genocide motion in Canada’s Senate in Summer 2021 – to “provide direct financial support and fund the provision of immediate and essential services to eligible recipients as listed in Ts & Cs [Uygur Muslim dissidents]”, beginning on May 8, 2024.

These funds being disbursed to URAP more than a year after Canada’s parliament voted unanimously (on a non-binding motion) to bring in 10,000 Uygur refugees, should raise questions about the true ‘urgency’ of the situation.

This author explained, about URAP:

“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.”

In a May 2023 memorandum, URAP verified stories The Canada Files initially broke, and even confirmed their central role in getting Canadian government commitment to bring in 10,000 anti-China Uygur dissidents to Canada:

“Successes include: the building of a Uyghur parliamentary friendship group; Canada’s recent commitment to welcome 10,000 Uyghur refugees; and the hearing conducted by the Subcommittee on International Human Rights in 2020 and the subsequent parliamentary motion recognizing the Uyghur genocide.”

This author further found this year, that:

A 2023 URAP memorandum “declared their efforts to have a replica of the Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act (UFLPA) implemented in Canada, and told an unnamed department of the US government that ‘URAP would greatly benefit from the United States’ assistance in these efforts.’ Their desired help was for the United States officials’ to ‘raise this issue in bilateral discussions with their Canadian counterparts’, ‘among other things’.”

Which Uygurs has Tohti wanted to bring to Canada before?

Fascinatingly, the US government wanted Canada to bring in Uygurs (these from Guantanamo Bay [Cuban territory occupied by the US] prison) as early as 2005. Back then, Canada supposedly rejected this request, based on terrorism-connection concerns:

“In a cordial but candid exchange, A/DMs Janet Siddall (Operations) and Daniel Jean (Policy and Program Development) made clear that Uighurs -- both enemy combatant and non-combatant -- are ineligible for admission to Canada based on their prior association with Taliban training camps…

Another concern was that these individuals were ‘terrorists,’ albeit not directed against the U.S. and its allies. (NOTE: Atkinson had noted that unlike U.S. law, Canadian law does not "differentiate" among
terrorists based on putative target. END NOTE).”

However, Uyghur Canadian Society (UCS)’s then-President, Mehmet Tohti, would allege in The Ottawa Citizen in 2009, that Canada’s rejection of Guantanmo Uygurs was a close decision came to in 2006.

Now guess who advocated for these Uygurs to come to Canada: UCS’ then-President, Mehmet Tohti, in February 2009. Tohti’s justification? The Ottawa Citizen article quotes Tohti, in a February 3, 2009 article, as saying “Canada should ‘get the score equal’ with China [for not getting Hussein Celil, who was convicted on terrorism charges, out of China] with China by ignoring the country’s international plead to reject the Guantanamo Uyghurs” and also “send a signal of Canada’s willingness to co-operate with the Obama administration.”

A February 5, 2009, article in The Calgary Herald noted that “The minister [Immigration Minister Jason Kenney] meets every few months with Mehmet Tohti of the Uighur [Uyghur] Canadian Society in Toronto, most recently in late January, when they discussed Canada accepting a few Guantanamo detainees now that President Barack Obama has ordered the prison’s closure”.

The February 5, 2009, article in The Calgary Herald.

One of the six Guantanamo prisoners who Tohti said should be allowed in, was Anvar (Ali) Hassan, a then 34-year-old who “fled China to live and train in a camp in Afghanistan in 2001” and was “later caught in the hills of Pakistan”, who “admitted to military training in Afghanistan” with the motivation of fighting the “oppressive Chinese government”. This was confirmed in The Ottawa Citizen’s February 3, 2009 article:

Caption: The February 3, 2009 article in The Ottawa Citizen.

What’s being done with the money, and who could be let in?

There has only been one Uygur ‘refugee’ brought to Canada under this special program. Canadian YouTuber, Daniel Dumbrill, points out that:

“Since there isn't even a significant Uyghur refugee crisis in countries bordering China, finding large numbers of legitimate refugees is inherently challenging.

The standard of life and economic opportunities in Xinjiang have continually improved.”

This author, having visited the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region this June on a media tour, can concur with Dumbrill’s last sentence. The horrific terrorism China had to quelch, is mentioned in the article on the tour. Furthermore, the US only de-listed the UN-listed terrorist organization, East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), from its own terrorist list in November 2020, having previously had it on since 2002.

With the lack of Uygur ‘refugees’ in mind, here’s an important question: what has URAP been doing with the $982k CAD given to them by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC)? The Canada Files reached out to both URAP and IRCC with questions and a request for comment, which were not responded to.

Another important question for Canadians is this: Are there potential security risks of bringing in 10,000 Uygur ‘refugees’? This concern comes particularly because of three factors:

In 2009, URAP Director Mehmet Tohti advocated for a Guantanamo Uygur to come to Canada, who admitted to getting military training in Afghanistan in 2001 with the goal to fight the “oppressive Chinese government”.
Dumbrill argues there’s a possibility of Uygurs who fought with re-branded Al-Qaeda (Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham [HTS]) to overthrow the Syrian government, or Uygurs who come to HTS-run Syria, being brought to Canada under the program. However, HTS is listed on Canada’s terrorist entities list, so this is unlikely, at least through the M-62 program.
In 2023, URAP Director Mehmet Tohti confirmed that “As more Uyghurs to arrive in Canada next year some of them will join the Canadian Arm[ed] Forces”. This means that past and present East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) terrorists could be allowed into Canada’s military, especially since ETIM and TIP are not listed on Canada’s terrorist entities list.

These concerns are exacerbated by the reality that Canada is not above bringing those with terrorist connections into the country. For example, members of the medical brigade of Al-Qaeda’s Syria affiliate (Al-Nusra), known as the White Helmets, were brought to Canada in 2023.

Canada’s national security seems to be a non-existent priority for the federal government, in comparison to supporting the desperate US bid to maintain unipolarity at all costs and crush any peer competitors or economic blocs that could challenge its power.

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.

Please consider setting up a monthly or annual donation through Donorbox.

More Articles

Featured