espionage
BREAKING — Diaspora Coalition Urges Canadian Foreign Minister to Sanction Hong Kong Security Chiefs for Illegal Bounties on Canadians
CCP targets include 2025 Conservative election candidate Joseph Tay and former Chinese-language media editor Victor Ho, both named in HK$1 million bounties issued by Hong Kong police.
In the August 8 letter the groups invoke Canada’s Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (Sergei Magnitsky Law) and the Special Economic Measures Act, calling for asset freezes and travel bans on a roster of Hong Kong political, judicial, and security officials. These individuals, the letter says, have “played critical roles in enforcing the region’s repressive policies, undermining judicial independence, and facilitating the persecution of pro-democracy activists.”
The push echoes pressure from several of the same groups to escalate the case of one Canadian bounty target — Tay. According to Canadian intelligence assessments, Tay was targeted by Chinese state security in a campaign allegedly amplified by his Liberal rival, MP Paul Chiang. In the aftermath, Tay’s relatives in Hong Kong were detained and questioned by police. Hong Kong authorities have since expanded their wanted list to include additional overseas activists.
The letter to Anand singles out officials most directly responsible for the December 2024 charges amplified by Paul Chiang — among them Chris Tang Ping-keung (Secretary for Security), who invoked Hong Kong’s Article 23 “Safeguarding National Security Ordinance” to impose special orders against former lawmakers and activists; and Raymond Siu Chak-yee (former Commissioner of Police), who led the Hong Kong Police in posting HK$1 million bounties for information leading to the arrests of dozens of overseas activists, including Canadian citizens Tay and former Sing Tao Daily editor Victor Ho.
Victor Ho’s assertion that the Chinese Communist Party has effectively taken control of all Chinese-language media in Canada is reflected in a 2022 CSIS document on Chinese election interference obtained by The Bureau. “The CCP weaponizes the Chinese media to gain election intervention,” Ho told The Bureau in a 2023 story on that document. “To do this, the Chinese Consulates in Canada make every effort to influence the top Chinese editing teams in Canada.”
Hong Kong authorities have issued international arrest warrants and cash rewards — ranging from HK$200,000 to HK$1 million (C$35,000 to C$175,000) — for six pro-democracy activists with ties to Canada, including three Canadian citizens.
In the August 8 letter to Anand, Edmund Leung, chair of the Vancouver Society in Support of Democratic Movement, says: “The actions of these officials constitute a direct attack on the principles of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.”
“By targeting specific individuals who have misused their authority to oppress rather than uphold the integrity of the judiciary, Canada will send a clear message that judicial positions are not shields for impunity,” the letter says.
Cheuk Kwan, co-chair of the Toronto Association for Democracy in China, added: “We count on Canada to continue its leadership role post-G7 summit. By imposing these sanctions, Canada will send a strong message to the world that it stands firmly against human rights abuses and authoritarian overreach.”
His appeal carries particular weight: Kwan played a central role in exposing one of the most explosive diaspora interference cases in recent Canadian politics. As The Bureau reported in March, he helped publicize evidence that Chiang had amplified an illegal Hong Kong bounty targeting Tay — evidence the RCMP confirmed they were reviewing, but only after Hong Kong democracy groups intensified pressure on Ottawa.
The safety threats linked to that bounty effectively shut down Tay’s in-person campaign in Don Valley North. Despite calls for intervention, then–Liberal leader Mark Carney refused to remove Chiang from the race. Chiang stepped aside only after the RCMP announced its review — and the Liberals went on to hold the seat.
The new sanctions request names senior Hong Kong officials alleged to have orchestrated and enforced these transnational repression measures, including:
- Paul Lam Ting-kwok, Secretary for Justice, who in 2022 ordered 47 pro-democracy activists tried without a jury, breaking Hong Kong’s 177-year tradition of jury trials.
- Chris Tang Ping-keung, Secretary for Security, who in 2024 invoked Article 23 to cancel passports, freeze assets, and block financial transactions for exiled activists.
- Raymond Siu Chak-yee and Joe Chow Yat-ming, current and former Police Commissioners, who authorized HK$1 million bounties against overseas activists, including Tay and Ho.
- Andrew Kan Kai-yan and Steve Li Kwai-wah, National Security Department officers accused of freezing activists’ bank accounts and criminalizing financial support.
- John Lee Ka-chiu, Chief Executive, whose administration advanced Article 23 legislation and intensified mass arrests under the National Security Law.
The signatories argue these actions breach international law, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and meet the threshold for Magnitsky and SEMA sanctions.
Magnitsky sanctions stem from the case of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Moscow prison in 2009 after exposing a massive state-backed tax fraud scheme. Canada’s version allows Ottawa to freeze assets and ban travel for foreign officials involved in human rights abuses or significant corruption.
espionage
Starmer Faces Questions Over Suppressed China Spy Case, Echoing Trudeau’s Beijing Scandals
Alleged political meddling in a collapsed espionage case targeting Starmer’s China-critical opponents sparks crisis of confidence in Whitehall’s independence.
Keir Starmer’s government is undergoing a credibility crisis over national security, with the Prime Minister himself facing mounting questions about whether he wielded political influence to have Whitehall’s independent prosecution service abruptly drop a rare Official Secrets Act case alleging a China-directed political-intelligence network inside Parliament — one that reportedly targeted Starmer’s opponents critical of Beijing.
Two men — parliamentary researcher Christopher Cash and academic Christopher Berry — had been due to stand trial this autumn, accused of gathering sensitive political research from Westminster between late 2021 and February 2023, including on the China Research Group of Beijing-sceptic MPs, and funnelling it onward to a senior figure in the Chinese Communist Party.
“The government deliberately collapsed the trial of two people who spied on MPs for China. I’m one of the sanctioned MPs & we will get to the truth about who ordered this. I believe this goes all the way to the top,” Conservative MP Neil O’Brien wrote Sunday.
The geopolitical echoes of this case resonate far beyond Westminster. A similar pattern has unfolded in Canada, where Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government — also perceived as favouring trade and engagement with Beijing — was accused of turning a blind eye to intelligence warnings that China’s Ministry of State Security was gathering information on Conservative MPs critical of Beijing, including Michael Chong, who incurred China’s wrath by sponsoring a motion recognizing the CCP’s repression of Uyghurs as genocide.
Multiple outlets have reported that British intelligence believed the information gathered on Conservative MPs critical of China inside Whitehall was destined for Cai Qi, China’s fifth-ranking leader, a Politburo Standing Committee member and confidant of Xi Jinping. The Guardian’s reporting of Cai’s alleged role underscores the extraordinary level of authority to which information targeting British parliamentarians may have been directed. The China Research Group itself included high-profile MPs such as Iain Duncan Smith, Tom Tugendhat, and Neil O’Brien — all sanctioned by Beijing for their outspoken positions on Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and broader human-rights issues.
In Canada, a similar pattern emerged when Conservative MP Michael Chong was likewise sanctioned by China and later revealed as a target of Ministry of State Security intelligence-gathering. Justin Trudeau and his staff were accused of failing to alert Chong to Canadian intelligence reports forwarded to the Prime Minister’s senior officials, which detailed Beijing’s targeting of Chong and his family in Hong Kong.
The emerging evidence of parallels is striking: in both countries, during the same 2021 time period, legislators sanctioned and vilified by Beijing were simultaneously subjected to covert information-collection efforts — suggesting a coordinated strategy by the Chinese Communist Party to identify, monitor, and neutralise its most vocal democratic critics.
At the centre of the growing political storm in Whitehall is an allegation that echoes Justin Trudeau’s reported downplaying of threats against his Conservative opponents. In London, the claim is that Downing Street’s top security adviser, Jonathan Powell, decided the government would not permit China to be described in court as an “enemy” — language prosecutors believed was essential to meet the statute’s threshold. After that decision, the Crown Prosecution Service declared it could no longer proceed for “evidential reasons,” and the case collapsed. If accurate, the intervention would represent an extraordinary instance of political calculation colliding with the operational demands of counter-espionage.
With new reporting from Britain today, Starmer is coming under scrutiny for a potential motivation behind what would amount to improper meddling in an independent prosecution — driven, critics say, by Labour’s desire to sweeten relations with Beijing for economic reasons.
Downing Street’s official response to the dropped prosecution has only fuelled the political fire. The Prime Minister’s spokesperson said it was “extremely disappointing” that the CPS decision meant Cash and Berry would not face trial, insisting the decision was “made rightly independently of government.” That claim of independence, however, now looks increasingly hollow in light of Times and Telegraph reporting that the decisive instruction on the “enemy” wording originated from Starmer’s own national-security team.
The move — and the CPS’s refusal to explain why it could present no evidence — has triggered outrage across party lines. Former Conservative security minister Tom Tugendhat, joined by four other MPs, has written to Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Parkinson demanding a full account of the decision to drop the case and clarification of any communications between the CPS, No. 10, and the Cabinet Office.
The legal explanation for the collapse of this explosive case is technical: the wording of the 1911 Official Secrets Act, which criminalised acts “useful to an enemy.” Prosecutors reportedly determined that to meet the statutory threshold, China would need to be explicitly designated an enemy — a label the current government refused to authorise.
The National Security Act 2023, which replaced the century-old statute, eliminates that outdated “enemy” clause and creates broader offences for “foreign interference” and “assisting a foreign power.” But the new law came into force only in December 2023 and cannot be applied retrospectively to alleged conduct that occurred between 2021 and 2023, according to several legal experts.
In Canada’s Foreign Interference Inquiry, Trudeau faced questioning on his government’s lack of response to CSIS’s “Targeting Paper” — a high-level intelligence document that described how Beijing collected information to classify which Canadian MPs could help China and which could hurt it, in apparent efforts to guide Beijing’s election interference and political influence campaigns.
Trudeau and his senior aides claim he was never informed of the explosive report. Drafted in 2021 and circulated to a small number of public servants in 2023, the Targeting Paper “named names” and outlined how Chinese diplomats categorised Canadian parliamentarians into three groups: those friendly towards Beijing, those neutral or persuadable, and those deemed antagonistic due to their criticism of China’s human-rights record, particularly on issues like the Uyghurs and Hong Kong.
Echoing the allegations now confronting Starmer’s government, Trudeau’s national security adviser and senior bureaucrats reportedly refused to adopt Canadian intelligence’s view that Beijing’s targeting of MPs represented a serious national-security threat that could undermine Canada’s sovereignty, testimony from Ottawa’s inquiry suggested.
In the hearings, Trudeau’s former senior officials Jody Thomas and Janice Charette defended their decisions not to escalate two high-impact 2022 intelligence reports on Chinese interference — including the Targeting Paper — to the Prime Minister.
Crime
The “Strong Borders Act,” Misses the Mark — Only Deep Legal Reforms Will Confront Canada’s Fentanyl Networks
The fallout is a grim roll call of major investigations that collapsed before trial in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec: Project E-Pirate, E-Nationalize, Syndicato, Cobra, Brisa, and Endgame all aborted.
Bill C-2, Ottawa’s so-called “Strong Borders Act,” promises to secure Canada’s frontiers with new surveillance powers, sweeping ministerial discretion, and higher penalties. But as veteran Canadian investigators know, the bill misses the point. It is an omnibus solution that expands the state’s reach online, while leaving untouched the very legal choke points that have made Canada a permissive financial platform and fentanyl laboratory for cartels, Triads, and state-linked terror networks.
For more than a decade, Canadian and U.S. enforcement leaders have pointed to the same failures. Police are confronting transnational fentanyl labs, a flood of Chinese chemical precursors, Hezbollah-linked laundering, and Mexican cartels setting up on Canadian soil.
Yet they are forced to fight these threats with laws “never designed for today’s criminal landscape,” as Canadian Chiefs of Police president Thomas Carrique recently warned.
Former RCMP investigator Calvin Chrustie testified before British Columbia’s Cullen Commission that, due to judicial blockages arising from Charter of Rights rulings, by 2015 it had become effectively impossible to obtain wiretaps on Sinaloa Cartel figures in Vancouver.
This year, RCMP Assistant Commissioner David Teboul said a proliferation of “commercial-grade chemistry” fentanyl labs in British Columbia — like the sophisticated factory dismantled last year in Falkland, north of Lake Okanagan, where Mexican cartels have quietly taken over domestic biker gang networks — underlined the urgent need for legislative reform.
Canada wasn’t always so overwhelmed by lethal foreign gangs. What happened? Overly permissive immigration rules and porous borders explain part of the story, but the deeper problem lies in the laws that have steadily eroded enforcement power since the early 1990s.
Instead of enabling prosecutions against transnational traffickers of humans, narcotics, and weapons, unintended consequences from misguided jurisprudence surrounding Canada’s Charter of Rights now ensure these cases almost always collapse, or are simply avoided by the Crown.
Two Supreme Court rulings — Stinchcombe and Jordan — have gutted the capacity to prosecute complex crime. Stinchcombe requires exhaustive disclosure of sensitive intelligence, often impossible in Five Eyes investigations that depend on close cooperation between Canada and the United States.
Jordan imposes strict trial ceilings that tick down while Stinchcombe disclosure battles drag on. Criminal lawyers know these two rulings function as trump cards stacked in favor of their clients.
The fallout is a grim roll call of major investigations that collapsed before trial in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec: Project E-Pirate, E-Nationalize, Syndicato, Cobra, Brisa, and Endgame all aborted. Project Collecteur — a landmark probe linking Hezbollah and foreign terror-financing networks across Canadian cities to transnational drug money laundering, built on U.S. and Australian intelligence — barely made it to court, despite its far-reaching implications.
It was crippled by RCMP corruption and by underfunded, risk-averse agencies that abandoned Canadian leads painstakingly developed by Five Eyes partners.
How bad was it?
Farzam Mehdizadeh, a major Iranian money launderer and suspected weapons proliferation actor who ran a Toronto currency exchange while shuttling bags of drug cash between Toronto and Montreal, escaped back to Iran just as the RCMP was poised to arrest him on money-laundering charges. The beneficiary of a leaky national police force, evidently.
A senior U.S. enforcement source told The Bureau that during Project Collecteur, the RCMP stumbled onto an even bigger Chinese money launderer while probing Iranian networks, but the agency ignored the file — reportedly unable to shift its original investigation focus onto new enterprise targets.
These kinds of policing failures and decisions are part of the reason President Donald Trump has said senior U.S. investigators told him that Canada lacks the resources and capacity to confront fentanyl trafficking gangs.
In Washington, there is frustration — and at times a lack of understanding — that Stinchcombe either bars or effectively scares the Mounties out of cooperating with U.S. agencies or sharing intelligence.
Derek Maltz, former DEA chief under President Trump, pointed to the Falkland fentanyl super-lab case — part of a U.S.-led probe into Chinese precursor suppliers — as the latest example of “historical issues with the RCMP not sharing properly,” calling it a “major disaster that happened on that big lab in British Columbia.”
“It goes down to the basic information sharing, the antiquated laws,” Maltz said. After meeting with current Canadian police leadership, he concluded: “They’re so far behind and the laws are so antiquated and so archaic.”
The cost is staggering. Officers walk away from enterprise files, knowing they cannot meet disclosure or trial deadlines. Prosecutors refuse to take high-risk cases. U.S. agencies stop sharing intelligence that could be exposed in open court. Canada defaults to “low-hanging fruit” prosecutions while the upper echelons of global networks operate with near impunity.
Meanwhile, at the border, permissive Non-Resident Importer rules allow foreign entities to move chemical precursors through Canadian ports under layers of corporate opacity. Chinese logistics hubs repackage bulk fentanyl shipments bound for Vancouver, obscuring Canada’s visibility into their true origin. Once in Canada, packages can be collected by foreign nationals who further conceal their identities. To visualize the scheme, think of an “end-to-end encryption” app — Chinese trafficking networks enjoy the same kind of seamless concealment when shipping narcotics into Canada.
At the same time, Vancouver’s port — stripped of federal police under Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government — has container inspection rates below one percent, according to a British Columbia study.
It doesn’t seem that Bill C-2 will do anything to address these core vulnerabilities. It gives Ottawa broad powers to expand online surveillance, which may help with the drug networks that now brazenly advertise street sales on social platforms. But it would do so by subjecting all Canadians to invasive cyber surveillance. The bill does not target the transnational criminals who are already easy to identify and well known to law enforcement. These networks continue to operate openly in Canada, confident that the Charter shields them from real prosecution.
Meanwhile, experts warn that parts of C-2 resemble Ottawa’s wish list of new powers tossed into a grab bag. The effect is the opposite of inspiring public confidence or addressing the real enforcement crisis. As written, Bill C-2 could do more harm than good. Mark Carney’s government should shelve it and start again with the reforms Canada actually needs.
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