espionage
Canada prepares to launch public inquiry into China’s alleged election meddling
From LifeSiteNews
“The great difficulty we have in Canada is the general public has trouble understanding that we’re threatened”
A public inquiry into alleged meddling in Canada’s two most recent federal elections by agents of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is set to start on January 29.
The investigation into allegations of CCP interference in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections will be led by Marie-Josée Hogue, a Conservative appointee to the Québec Court of Appeal.
The federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been slow in responding to allegations of CCP election meddling after announcing on September 7, 2023, that it would be launching a public inquiry led by Hogue.
The public inquiry comes after Trudeau launched a failed investigation into CCP allegations last year after much delay headed by “family friend” and former Governor General David Johnston, whom Trudeau appointed as “independent special rapporteur.”
Johnston quit as “special rapporteur,” after a public outcry last year after he concluded that there should not be a public inquiry into the matter. Conservative MPs demanded Johnston be replaced over his ties to both China and the Trudeau family.
The public inquiry also comes after Trudeau for months was opposed to the idea of launching a full public inquiry into CCP election meddling despite calls from the opposition to do so – and after his failed “special rapporteur,” attempt to launch his own internal investigation.
The inquiry comes at the same time Trudeau’s own Privy Council office has been quietly polling Chinese Canadians in British Columbia on how relations between the two countries could be improved, as per documents dated June 14, 2023, which were obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter.
The polling was also done at a time when the Trudeau Liberal cabinet, instead of launching a public inquiry, had two reports commissioned by former CEO of the Trudeau Foundation, Morris Rosenberg, to investigate the matter.
To the surprise of no one, Rosenberg’s February 28 Report on the Assessment of the 2021 Critical Election Incident Public Protocol exonerated the Trudeau cabinet from any wrongdoing regarding potential election meddling.
Election meddling scandal implicates some of Trudeau’s top ministers
The potential meddling in Canada’s elections by agents of the CCP has many Canadians worried, especially considering Trudeau’s past praise for China’s “basic dictatorship” and his labeling of the authoritarian nation as his favorite country other than his own.
On Monday, LifeSiteNews reported that one of Trudeau’s top ministers, Mary Ng, was called out as having allegedly received support from the CCP in the 2019 Canadian federal election.
Reports from September 2023 have noted how despite a continuous stream of evidence suggesting that CCP agents have interfered in Canada’s last two federal elections, the nation’s elections commissioner omitted any mention of China from her annual foreign interference report to Parliament.
According to retired director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Richard Fadden, as per a 2021 testimony to the same committee, subterfuge by Chinese agents in Canada is a fact of life.
“The great difficulty we have in Canada is the general public has trouble understanding that we’re threatened,” he noted.
“They’re after us, if I can use the vernacular, from a whole variety of perspectives,” he noted, adding, “And they’re after us in a negative sort of way.”
Besides election meddling, China and by extension the CCP has been accused of operating clandestine “police stations” in Canada and other nations.
Last month, LifeSiteNews reported that Conservative MPs confirmed the Chinese CCP operated police “stations” in multiple locations in Canada, which allegedly serve to target its citizens abroad, but no one has been held accountable yet for allowing this to happen.
The police stations are currently being investigated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), including “formal diplomatic protests to the Chinese Ambassador.”
In September 2022, LifeSiteNews reported that these stations have been linked to the CCP’s official law enforcement agency, the Fuzhou Public Security Bureau (PSB).
espionage
The Scientists Who Came in From the Cold: Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory Scandal, Part I
From the C2C Journal
By Peter Shawn Taylor
In a breathless 1999 article on the opening of Canada’s top-security National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg, the Canadian Medical Association Journal described the facility as “the place where science fiction movies would be shot.” The writer was fascinated by the various containment devices and security measures designed to keep “the bad boys from the world of virology: Ebola, Marburg, Lassa” from escaping. But what if insiders could easily evade all those sci-fi features in order to help Canada’s enemies? In the first of a two-part series, Peter Shawn Taylor looks into the trove of newly-unclassified evidence regarding the role of NML scientists Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng in aiding China’s expanding quest for the study – and potential military use – of those virus bad boys.
Crime
The US Canadian border: Greatest number of terrorist watch list individuals being apprehended at northern border
A Border Patrol agent standing watch at the Montana-Canada border in the CBP Spokane Sector. The Spokane Sector covers the U.S.-Canada border along the northwestern section of Montana, part of Idaho, and the eastern part of Washington.
From The Center Square
Lack of operational control at northern border poses national security threats
The northern border largely has been unmanned and understaffed for decades as federal reports issue conflicting conclusions about how much, or how little, operational control exists.
Some officials have suggested the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has just 1% operational control over the northern border after a 2019 General Accounting Office audit of U.S. Customs and Border northern border operations. But a December 2022 DHS report claimed, “The Border Patrol is better staffed today than at any time in its 87-year history,” noting no surveillance of extensive parts of the northern border existed prior to 9/11.
After 9/11, several federal agencies were combined to fall under the newly created Department of Homeland Security. Within 20 years, roughly 950 miles along the U.S.-Canada border from Washington to Minnesota, and roughly 200 miles along the northern border in New York and Lake Ontario, were under unmanned aircraft surveillance. None of these areas “were covered prior to the creation of DHS,” DHS says, meaning the northern border was largely unprotected since Border Patrol’s founding in 1924.
In 2012, DHS released its first unified department strategy for U.S.-Canada border security, prioritizing “deterring and preventing terrorism and smuggling, trafficking, and illegal immigration; safeguarding and encouraging the efficient flow of lawful trade, travel, and immigration; and, ensuring community resiliency before, during, and after terrorist attacks and other disasters.”
Within 10 years at the northern border, more than 2,200 Border Patrol agents were stationed between ports of entry; nearly 3,700 CBP officers were stationed at ports of entry; more than 35 land ports of entry were modernized; and thermal camera systems, mobile and remote video surveillance systems had been deployed.
Despite these improvements, “the northern border is under-resourced by far compared to the southwest border,” former Border Patrol chief Mark Morgan told The Center Square. “But at the same time, it still represents significant threats. Cartels are expanding their operations, flying people into Canada, which doesn’t require a visa, presenting an opportunity for terrorist watch-listed individuals to exploit. It’s much easier to get to Canada to come across.”
“Data from 39 months shows terrorist watch-listed individuals are coming here every day and they aren’t stopping,” Morgan added.
For years and prior to the current border crisis, there weren’t enough personnel to cover all shifts, and the infrastructure, technology and equipment afforded to them didn’t compare to those at the southwest border, he said. People can easily drive snow mobiles over frozen territory or boats across the Great Lakes in areas that are unmanned, Morgan said, with a previous policy of self-reporting to authorities.
“The northern border represents a threat,” Morgan said. Noting it only took 19 men to carry out the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Morgan has warned that a terrorist threat is already in the U.S. No one knows how many terrorist watch-listed individuals have illegally entered who weren’t caught, multiple officials have told The Center Square.
While much attention has focused on the southwest border, the greatest number of known or suspected terrorists to ever be apprehended in U.S. history were at the northern border in fiscal 2023, breaking fiscal 2022’s record, The Center Square first reported.
This fiscal year through April, the greatest number of KSTs (known or suspected terrorists) continue to be apprehended at the northern border, 143 so far, according to CBP data.
Potential terrorist threats are not new and have persisted for some time, federal reports indicate. One Border Patrol intelligence report says terrorist threats potentially come from “foreign violent extremists to exploit established alien smuggling routes and networks for the purpose of evading detection en route to the United States.”
Other threats include drug smuggling from Canada into the U.S., connected to “criminal groups with known ties to or hired by Mexican drug trafficking organizations” and human smuggling. In the last few years, human smuggling attempts and apprehensions have significantly increased, The Center Square has reported.
The Center Square first began reporting on northern border national security threats several years ago. Since then, apprehensions of illegal border crossers in the first six months of fiscal 2024 were the highest on record. In the busiest sector of Swanton, Border Patrol agents recently apprehended more people in one week than they did in all of fiscal 2021.
Last month, they apprehended more than 1,400 illegal border crossers, more than they did in fiscal years 2021 and 2022 combined, Swanton Sector Chief Border Patrol Agent Robert Garcia just announced, saying it was “another record-breaking milestone in northern border history.”
This is after they apprehended more than 6,700 in fiscal 2023, more than the apprehensions of the previous 11 years combined, The Center Square first reported.
The U.S.-Canada border is the longest international border in the world of 5,525 miles. Unlike the U.S.-Mexico border, there are no border walls or similar barriers along the U.S.-Canada border. Through DHS, CBP officers are tasked with border security at ports of entry and Border Patrol agents between ports of entry along 4,000 miles. The U.S. Coast Guard, working with CBP’s Air and Maritime Operations, covers maritime security.
-
Brownstone Institute17 hours ago
Medical Elites’ Disgrace Over Ivermectin
-
National15 hours ago
Despite claims of 215 ‘unmarked graves,’ no bodies have been found at Canadian residential school
-
Brownstone Institute10 hours ago
The WHO’s Proposed Pandemic Agreements Worsen Public Health
-
John Stossel4 hours ago
Protecting Free Speech: The Early Warning Signs From Around The World
-
COVID-197 hours ago
Trudeau’s public health agency recommends another experimental COVID booster
-
COVID-1911 hours ago
The New York Times Admits Injuries from COVID-19 Shots
-
Health8 hours ago
THE WPATH TAPES: Behind-The-Scenes Recordings Reveal What Top Gender Doctors Really Think About Sex Change Procedures
-
Automotive22 hours ago
Electric vehicle mandates mean misery all around