espionage
Trudeau’s office was warned that Chinese agents posed ‘existential threat’ to Canada: secret memo
From LifeSiteNews
‘Until foreign interference is viewed as an existential threat to Canadian democracy and governments forcefully and actively respond, these threats will persist,’ reads the 2023 memo given to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office.
Details from a “top secret” memo have shown that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office was given explicit warnings by Canadian intelligence that agents of the Communist Chinese Party (CCP) meddling in the nation’s elections posed an “existential threat to Canadian democracy.”
The disclosure that Trudeau’s office was warned of CCP meddling in Canada’s elections process came during testimony last week at the Foreign Interference Commission.
Counsel for Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) MP Michael Chong observed that a “top secret” memo titled, Briefing To The Prime Minister’s Office On Foreign Interference Threats To Canada’s Democratic Institutions, dated February 21, 2023, was “truly” a “remarkable document” in what it revealed.
The six-page memo went into full detail as to the extent of CCP subterfuge which targeted Canada’s Conservative Party in both the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.
“State actors are able to conduct foreign interference successfully in Canada because there are few legal or political consequences,” reads the memo.
“Until foreign interference is viewed as an existential threat to Canadian democracy and governments forcefully and actively respond, these threats will persist.”
Trudeau has been coy and has never explicitly stated whether he was ever told by members of Canada’s intelligence agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), that the CCP agents’ actions were in breach of the nation’s Elections Act.
The Foreign Interference Commission was convened to “examine and assess the interference by China, Russia, and other foreign states or non-state actors, including any potential impacts, to confirm the integrity of, and any impacts on, the 43rd and 44th general elections (2019 and 2021 elections) at the national and electoral district levels.”
The Commission is being headed by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, who had earlier said that she and her lawyers will remain “impartial” and will not be influenced by politics and began on January 29.
In January, Hogue said that she would “uncover the truth whatever it may be.”
Thus far, the commission has resulted in some interesting findings which are now public.
Yesterday, LifeSiteNews reported how Chong testified before the inquiry that agents of the CCP could install a premier or prime minister of their choosing by infiltrating supposedly closed party leadership races.
Last week, LifeSiteNews reported that this same memo showed that CCP agents did help to elect “pro-China” candidates after disclosing the existence of a large cash payments scheme totaling $250,000 made to so-called “pro-China” public office holders.
Trudeau in 2023 denied he was warned by security officials
Trudeau, in May of 2023, said to reporters that he did not know anything about CCP agents targeting conservative MPs.
“The Canadian Security Intelligence Service knew about certain things but didn’t feel it reached a threshold that required them to pass it up out of CSIS,” he said.
“Was it briefed up out of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service? It was not,” he said, adding that “CSIS made the determination it wasn’t something that needed to be raised to a higher level because it wasn’t a significant enough concern.”
The memo suggests that during the 2021 federal election, meddling efforts “were orchestrated or directed by the People’s Republic of China.”
The unlawful conduct included “activities aimed at discouraging Canadians, particularly of Chinese heritage, from supporting the Conservative Party, leader Erin O’Toole and particularly Steveston-Richmond East candidate Kenny Chiu,” notes the memo.
Last week, David Vigneault, who serves as CSIS director, told the inquiry that he supports the “conclusions” that the CCP was working to help elect China-friendly Canadian MPs.
Thus far, the testimony at the Commission has revealed that former Conservative Party MP Kenny Chiu said he felt “betrayed” by the federal government after only now learning he was the target of agents of the CCP.
Also, the public has learned via the inquiry from Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault that he was secretly warned by security agents of irregularities in the 2019 election.
Recently, it was revealed that Trudeau’s office knew of security warnings against one of his MPs who was helped to get elected by Chinese agents yet kept him in the party regardless.
When it comes to the CCP, many Canadians, especially pro-freedom Chinese Canadians, are concerned with the nation’s influence in what is supposed to be a democratic process.
As for Trudeau, he has in the past praised China for its “basic dictatorship” and has labeled the authoritarian nation as his favorite country other than his own.
Business
P.E.I. Moves to Open IRAC Files, Forcing Land Regulator to Publish Reports After The Bureau’s Investigation
Following an exclusive report from The Bureau detailing transparency concerns at Prince Edward Island’s land regulator — and a migration of lawyers from firms that represented the Buddhist land-owning entities the regulator had already probed — the P.E.I. Legislature has passed a new law forcing the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission (IRAC) to make its land-investigation reports public.
The bill — introduced by Green Party Leader Matt MacFarlane — passed unanimously on Wednesday, CTV News reported. It amends the Lands Protection Act to require IRAC to table final investigation reports and supporting documents in the Legislature within 15 days of completion.
MacFarlane told CTV the reform was necessary because “public trust … is at an all-time low in the system,” adding that “if Islanders can see that work is getting done, that the (LPA) is being properly administered and enforced, that will get some trust rebuilt in this body.”
The Bureau’s report last week underscored that concern, showing how lawyers from Cox & Palmer — the firm representing the Buddhist landholders — steadily moved into senior IRAC positions after the regulator quietly shut down its mandated probe into those same entities. The issue exploded this fall when a Legislative Committee subpoena confirmed that IRAC’s oft-cited 2016–2018 investigation had never produced a final report at all.
There have been reports, including from CBC, that the Buddhist landholders have ties to a Chinese Communist Party entity, which leaders from the group deny.
In the years following IRAC’s cancelled probe into the Buddhist landholders, The Bureau reported, Cox & Palmer’s general counsel and director of land joined IRAC, and the migration of senior former lawyers culminated this spring, with former premier Dennis King appointing his own chief of staff, longtime Cox & Palmer partner Pam Williams, as IRAC chair shortly after the province’s land minister ordered the regulator to reopen a probe into Buddhist landholdings.
The law firm did not respond to questions, while IRAC said it has strong measures in place to guard against any conflicted decision-making.
Reporting on the overall matter, The Bureau wrote that:
“The integrity of the institution has, in effect, become a test of public confidence — or increasingly, of public disbelief. When Minister of Housing, Land and Communities Steven Myers ordered IRAC in February 2025 to release the 2016–2018 report and reopen the investigation, the commission did not comply … Myers later resigned in October 2025. Days afterward, the Legislative Committee on Natural Resources subpoenaed IRAC to produce the report. The commission replied that no formal report had ever been prepared.”
The Bureau’s investigation also showed that the Buddhist entities under review control assets exceeding $480 million, and there is also a planned $185-million campus development in the Town of Three Rivers, citing concerns that such financial power, combined with a revolving door between key law firms, political offices and the regulator, risks undermining confidence in P.E.I.’s land-oversight regime.
Wednesday’s new law converts the expectation for transparency at IRAC, voiced loudly by numerous citizens in this small province of about 170,000, into a statutory obligation.
Housing, Land and Communities Minister Cory Deagle told CTV the government supported the bill: “We do have concerns about some aspects of it, but the main principles of what you’re trying to achieve are a good thing.”
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Daily Caller
Laura Ingraham’s Viral Clash With Trump Prompts Her To Tell Real Reasons China Sends Students To US
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
On Monday, Ingraham pressed Trump on why a plan to admit 600,000 Chinese nationals into U.S. universities qualifies as a “pro-MAGA” move, challenging him directly after he defended the influx as vital to maintaining Washington’s relationship with Beijing. During a Wednesday broadcast, Ingraham said no modern president has fought harder for American workers than Trump and predicted he will “honor that distinction for the next three years.”
“There was also more consternation over the approach to allowing Chinese and other foreign students to take spots at U.S. universities. A lot of MAGA folks didn’t like that at all. And it’s not, by the way, as some Chinese influencers today said on X, I love this, it’s not that the MAGA folks, certainly not myself, dislike the Chinese people. It’s ridiculous,” Ingraham said.
“What they dislike is the Chinese system that represses Chinese people and uses them as human spies and saboteurs. Remember, when the CCP greenlights hundreds of thousands of their people to come study here, they’re not sending them so they can learn about the wonders of Western civilization, Plato and Socrates, Greek history, become champions of individual freedom and take that message back home. They’re sent here to do whatever is necessary to learn how to push the People’s Republic closer to crushing America, to stealing from us, and for spying on us,” Ingraham added.
Ingraham said that people “understandably perplexed by some of the president’s comments, we cannot forget, what American president has ever been tougher on China than Donald Trump? None.”
Ingraham told viewers that Beijing does not send its students to America to study the Western canon or return home as advocates of individual liberty.
WATCH:
Ingraham warned that China’s rise didn’t happen overnight, saying that decades of inattentive presidents allowed Beijing to gain the strength Trump now must confront.
“Given China’s growing strength that’s been amassed over decades of presidents who were out to lunch, President Trump inherited the most challenging situation,” Ingraham said. “I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say this, that any president has faced in the last 50 years. He and his entire team are dedicated to countering the Chinese aggression that’s building.”
Washington and Beijing struck a deal in June clearing the way for Chinese nationals to enroll in American universities, a shift that followed the administration’s June 5 move blocking Harvard from bringing in additional international students. Officials justified the restriction by pointing to security vulnerabilities and rising campus turmoil, including allegations of antisemitic activity, as reasons to tighten the flow of foreign applicants.
Trump acknowledged at the time that admitting large numbers of students from a country controlled by the Chinese Communist Party carries real intelligence concerns, saying in June that the government “must be vigilant” about who enters U.S. classrooms. National security experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the policy could create openings for the CCP to exploit America’s higher-education system and potentially endanger U.S. interests.
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