Garry Clement: Politicians even appeared to benefit from the relationships cultivated with Chinese officials and members of Bliss and Wisdom

Editor’s Note:

This opinion column by Garry Clement analyzes a deeply reported investigation into the land acquisitions and foreign affiliations of the Bliss and Wisdom Buddhist group in Prince Edward Island. Clement argues that the federal government, law enforcement, and Canadian officials have failed to confront what he sees as a growing national security risk—including strategically significant purchases of critical agricultural land.

His warning is underscored by a recent CBC/Radio-Canada investigation, which examined Bliss and Wisdom’s extensive land holdings, financial networks, and reported ties to the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department—allegations the religious group denies.

That probe featured findings from Clement, former CSIS officer Michel Juneau-Katsuya, and publisher Dean Baxendale—all co-authors of the forthcoming book Canada Under Siege, which devotes entire chapters to these Prince Edward Island land dealings.

Readers should understand a crucial piece of context: Clement, a former senior RCMP officer, and Michel Juneau-Katsuya were central figures in the joint RCMP-CSIS Sidewinder investigation of the 1990s. That probe examined how the Chinese Communist Party was infiltrating Canada’s economy—most notably through massive and suspicious real estate acquisitions in Vancouver and Toronto. Parallel investigations, including the RCMP’s Project Sunset, examined Beijing’s growing influence over Vancouver’s ports and critical infrastructure. Yet despite their explosive findings, these intelligence probes were buried or gutted. Now, more than two decades later, the same warning signs are surfacing in pastoral Prince Edward Island—and once again, the threat is being ignored.

OTTAWA — When our investigative team began looking into the Bliss and Wisdom Buddhist organization’s activities on Prince Edward Island, we expected a quiet story of land development and foreign investment. What we uncovered instead was a chilling portrait of political complacency, potential foreign influence, and the fragility of democratic accountability in Canada.

Over the course of our work, we tracked millions of dollars in unexplained cash inflows from Taiwan and mainland China, funneled through Canadian banks and into real estate and development projects across PEI. These were not obscure transactions—they were significant and frequent enough to raise alarms in any functioning system of democratic oversight.

And yet, those alarms never sounded.

Neither local politicians nor federal leaders lifted a finger. Some even appeared to benefit from the relationships cultivated with Chinese officials and members of the Bliss and Wisdom organization, whose quiet influence grew in tandem with land purchases and political access. The very leaders entrusted to safeguard transparency and public interest were, at best, disengaged, and at worst, complicit.

The RCMP, for its part, has thus far declined to launch a public investigation—a silence that is deafening, particularly in light of recent national debates about foreign interference in Canadian politics. How can we claim to take such threats seriously if a clear case of questionable foreign financial involvement in one of our provinces is allowed to pass without scrutiny?

What made this investigation even more revealing was the contrast between institutional inaction and the commitment of ordinary citizens. Residents of PEI, concerned about unchecked land acquisitions, foreign influence, and environmental stewardship, were the first to sound the alarm. They provided testimony, documents, and moral courage. They believed that Canada’s democratic institutions should still function as intended—on behalf of the public, not in service to silence or convenience.

In a time when democratic erosion often feels like a faraway problem, PEI is a case study of how it happens at home: not through coups or grand conspiracies, but through the quiet neglect of responsibility, the normalization of secrecy, and the sidelining of civic duty.

Our investigative team did what governments refused to do. We followed the money. We asked hard questions. We connected the dots. And while we do not claim to have all the answers, we believe this is precisely the kind of work that institutions—law enforcement, media, elected officials—should have done long ago.

Democracy doesn’t collapse overnight. It erodes when those in power forget who they serve. But it also endures, stubbornly, through the vigilance of citizens who refuse to look away.

It is time for accountability—not just from those involved with Bliss and Wisdom, but from the public servants who allowed this to happen under their watch.

Former senior RCMP officer Garry Clement consults with corporations on anti-money laundering, contributed to the Canadian academic text Dirty Money, and wrote Canada Under Siege, and Undercover, In the Shady World of Organized Crime and the RCMP