No Decision Made on Expulsion of Chinese Diplomat, Trudeau Says

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks to reporters at the Liberal party convention in Ottawa on May 5, 2023. Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

The government is still evaluating the consequences of expelling a Chinese diplomat reportedly involved in targeting a Conservative MP, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on May 5.

“This is a big step, not a small step to expel diplomats. It’s one that has to be taken with due consideration on all the potential impacts and all the very clear messages that it will send,” Trudeau said while attending the Liberal Party convention in Ottawa.

“This is something that the minister is looking at very carefully, looking at all the information around it and she will make a decision in due course.”

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly told a House of Commons committee on May 4 her department was assessing the potential consequences of expelling Chinese consular officer Zhao Wei, who is stationed in Toronto.

According to national security information initially relayed by the Globe and Mail on May 1, Zhao Wei was involved in efforts to target Conservative MP Michael Chong and his family for his anti-regime stances.

Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Director David Vigneault briefed Chong on the same information on May 2 after the controversy was brought to light.

Joly warned that Beijing would probably retaliate if the diplomat is expelled and said she was drawing from the experience of the arbitrary detention of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.

Kovrig and Spavor were kept in captivity by Beijing for over 1,000 days in retaliation for Canada honouring its legal obligations towards the United States by keeping under house arrest Huawei executive Meng Wangzhou, who was accused of fraud.

Chinese Ambassador to Canada Cong Peiwu was summoned by Global Affairs Canada on May 4 over the revelations that a Chinese spy service and Zhao Wei had targeted MPs after the 2021 House of Commons declared the treatment of Uyghurs in China a genocide.

The Chinese embassy in Ottawa released a statement after the meeting and suggested it would retaliate if Canada continues to “make provocations.”

MP Chong has decried the fact that he wasn’t warned two years ago about the threat and that the diplomat is still in Canada.

“Once it becomes public that a diplomat is engaged in coercive and intimidating activities targeting Parliament, targeting elected Members of Parliament, then the government has no choice but to have this individual removed from Canada,” he told reporters on May 4.

“To do otherwise is to put a giant billboard up to the world advertising that Canada is open for authoritarian states to send agents here to conduct threat activities against Canadian citizens and that’s unacceptable.”

Trudeau said on May 5 that the CSIS information about threats to MPs had never made it to him or his chief of staff, after saying two days earlier it hadn’t left CSIS.

National Security and Intelligence Adviser Jody Thomas reportedly told Chong on May 4 that the information had actually been passed to her predecessor who sits within the Privy Council Office, the prime minister’s department.