Anders Corr: Win-Win Between China and Liberals Must End

Police officers stand guard outside the Canadian embassy in Beijing on Jan. 27, 2019. Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images

Commentary

Another leak in Canada from its intelligence agency, CSIS, is drawing attention to China’s illegal influence, interference, and intelligence operations in support of the Liberal government in Ottawa.

Predictably, the Liberals are in damage control mode. Why bite the hand that feeds you?

In public comments, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau seems more concerned with the identity of the whistleblower who exposed the coverup, than with the crimes of Beijing and its witting Canadian agents. Ottawa has for years self-servingly downplayed and hidden this authoritarian influence from the public.

To this day, the names of the 11 winning members of Parliament supported by China have not been released. Neither have any charges been brought against those involved in the schemes.

Nine Liberal and two Conservative MPs, all supported by China, are now making laws in Ottawa and influencing the public from positions of authority.

The alleged crimes include political campaign donations encouraged by China that accrue tax credits for the donors, who then get refunded the balance from the campaign. It’s an outrageous scheme that bilks money from taxpayers, including Conservatives, to support the Liberal Party and those few Conservatives seen as “friends of China.”

“Sympathetic donors are … encouraged to provide campaign contributions to candidates favoured by China – donations for which they receive a tax credit from the federal government,” reports The Globe and Mail. “Then, the CSIS report from Dec. 20, 2021 says, political campaigns quietly, and illegally, return part of the contribution – ‘the difference between the original donation and the government’s refund’ – back to the donors.”

China’s sophisticated political strategy in Canada maximizes its influence by seeking a Liberal minority government, meaning the Liberals would need to gain support from at least one other political party to remain in power. This, Beijing apparently reasoned, would keep relatively China-friendly Trudeau in power, but keep him sufficiently off-balance to remain maximally dependent on continued support from the Chinese Communist Party.

“Trudeau’s reaction to all of this should have been one of fire and brimstone. He should have said he would demand answers from China, that he would haul China’s ambassador to Canada on the carpet and demand answers,” writes Brian Lilley in the Toronto Sun. “He did nothing of the sort; instead, he expressed concern that CSIS was leaking to the media.”

One point of contention is between a China diplomat in Canada, who claimed that she was instrumental in defeating two Conservative MPs, and Trudeau, who downplayed the claim. He said, “The fact that a Chinese diplomat would try to take credit for things that happened is not something that is unseen in diplomatic circles around the world.”

But Trudeau here is obfuscating the facts through an over-generalization.

A China diplomat bragging about interfering in the internal affairs of another country is highly irregular, as not interfering is supposedly a point of pride for them and a way to differentiate the Chinese regime from the United States, which frequently supports improved human rights and more democratic governance around the world.

The latest leak demonstrates Beijing’s interference, and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been raising further concerns.

“Justin Trudeau knew about this interference, and he covered it up because he benefited from it,” Poilievre said on Feb. 17. “He’s perfectly happy to let a foreign, authoritarian government interfere in our elections as long as they’re helping him.”

Poilievre noted that the leaked CSIS report said China’s communists wanted Trudeau to lead Canada because they knew “Trudeau would work for their interests rather than Canada’s interests, and that’s why he’s covered up this information for so long.”

Unlike Trudeau, Poilievre supports a public registry of foreign agents in Canada, as in the United States and Australia. Some British lawmakers also support such a registry.

Proponents hope registries will decrease foreign political influence and election interference, and improve the integrity and public confidence in election processes and results.

Registries are positive steps, but no panacea. In both the United States and Australia, foreign governments can exploit extensive loopholes to compensate local agents through lucrative contracts that have no obvious link to politics. Quid pro quos allow such compensation from regimes to obtain cooperation from agents without technically violating laws requiring registration. Neither are enforcement agencies in the United States and elsewhere sufficiently resourced for thorough investigations required to enforce the laws.

Trudeau is not taking these issues seriously, as he hasn’t even publicly endorsed the idea of a registry, much less developed a plan to close the loopholes found elsewhere. This explains why the documents were leaked in the first place. Trudeau has ignored years of persistent and unaddressed concerns within the intelligence agencies that not enough is being done to stem the tide of China’s influence operations.

This threat persists around the world.

China’s support of liberals can be found in Beijing’s support of U.S. Democrats over Republicans, and the Australian Labor Party over the country’s conservatives.

Beijing consistently supports political parties that it considers the lesser of democratic evils, that scrimp on defence in favour of handouts, play the race card when the threat is from the regime in China not the Chinese people, and leave our allies in Asia dependent and defenceless. In response, liberal parties around the world typically downplay the threat from China.

It’s a win-win relationship that should end immediately through new and tougher political representation.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.