Liberal Leader Mark Carney said his party will “move on” and find another candidate in the Toronto-area riding of Markham-Unionville after Liberal candidate Paul Chiang said he was dropping out.
Chiang had come under criticism this week for his comments in January suggesting people turn in his then-rival, Tory candidate Joe Tay, to a nearby Chinese consulate to collect the bounty placed on him by Hong Kong authorities.
Chiang announced on March 31 he was stepping down and the RCMP said it was “looking into” the comments. Carney had rejected calls to remove Chiang from the ballot, saying he had a “terrible lapse of judgment” but retained confidence in him.
“Mr. Chang made his resignation, offered his resignation last night. I accepted it,” Carney said during an event in Winnipeg on April 1.
“As I said yesterday, his comments were deeply, deeply troubling and regrettable. We will move on with looking for a new candidate for Markham, and I'll leave it at that.”
Chiang’s comments about Joe Tay were made to Chinese-language media Ming Pao in January during an ethnic media event. The remarks were recently resurfaced by the Toronto Association for Democracy in China.
“To everyone here, you can claim the $1 million dollar bounty if you bring him to Toronto’s Chinese Consulate,” Chiang reportedly said about Tay at the event. Chiang did not deny having said those words and apologized after they surfaced.
Chiang, a career policeman, had been elected in 2021 in Markham-Unionville and served in two parliamentary secretary roles during his term, with the immigration and housing portfolios. He was also a member of several parliamentary associations and inter-parliamentary groups, including the Canada-China Legislative Association.
Joe Tay was the Tory candidate in Markham-Unionville riding when Chiang made the bounty comments. Tay is now running in Don Valley North.
Tay is the founder of democracy advocacy platform HongKonger Station. He and other democracy activists were placed on a wanted list by the Chinese regime in December 2024. Ottawa condemned the move at the time, calling it an attempt to “conduct transnational repression abroad.”
Hong Kong authorities issued arrest warrants under the territory’s national security law and offered a HK$1 million bounty (approximately CA$180,000) for information leading for the arrest of the activists.
“This [arrest warrant] to the founder of the HongKonger Station serves a deeper purpose: to warn those who are politically aligned with the Conservative Party, whether they are prospective candidates or other party supporters, especially Hong Kong residents and immigrants in Canada. It’s a signal telling them not to support these individuals,” he said.
Tay said on March 31 that he fears for his safety and that he had contacted the RCMP before Chiang’s comments surfaced in public.
“Threats like these are the tradecraft of the Chinese Communist Party to interfere in Canada,” he said in a March 31 statement.
Pro-democracy group Hong Kong Watch sent a letter to RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme on March 31, suggesting that Chiang’s comments could have breached Canadian law. The group noted the offence of counselling someone to conduct a kidnapping and the new law to counter foreign interference adopted last year. This law says it is an offence for someone to intimidate an individual for the benefit of a foreign entity.
In a statement to The Epoch Times, the RCMP said it is “looking into the matter” of Chiang’s comments, but that “no specific details can be provided at this time.”
The police force said “foreign actor interference, including instances of transnational repression, continues to be a pervasive threat in Canada,” and that it takes “all such reports and allegations seriously.”
There are heightened concerns about foreign interference during the current electoral campaign. The Foreign Interference Commission concluded its work in January and identified Beijing as the foremost perpetrator of foreign meddling.
