Commentary
If there is one thing we as Canadians have heard an awful lot about of late it is what has been termed “foreign interference.” This refers to efforts by foreign states to identify those in our land and use them to advance their own interests, or stifle any activity deemed not in those interests. And while several nations have been highlighted as behind this kind of effort, of late the number one country by far is the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
The PRC has been accused, by Canada’s intelligence service CSIS, of intimidating immigrants and critics in Canada—Uyghurs, Tibetans, Falun Gong, etc.—and of trying to sway voters in a certain direction (i.e., favourable to China). These charges have been leveraged by Canadian security intelligence and law enforcement agencies for decades, to little result. Successive governments have not only ignored these threats to our democracy but even accused spies of “racism” for even raising the alarm. All in all a series of failures of imagination by senior government officials and politicians….