Some of Beijing’s top critics in Parliament were re-elected this week, but a Tory candidate said by authorities to be targeted by a Chinese regime operation lost his bid to sit in the House of Commons.
There is no evidence so far that Conservative candidate Joe Tay fell short because of Beijing’s efforts, but in the lead-up to the vote election security officials had warned he was the victim of a transnational repression operation.
Tay was running in the Don Valley North riding of Toronto, which was the site of Chinese interference in the 2019 Liberal nomination contest, according to government intelligence.
Tay lost to Liberal candidate Maggie Chi, a Toronto public servant, by nearly 5,000 votes.
Tay has been an outspoken advocate for freedom and democracy in Hong Kong, and the region’s authorities placed a bounty on his head in December 2024. The repression operation directed at him, revealed by the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force, was said to have leveraged this aspect on Chinese social media.
SITE officials said users who searched for information on Tay on Chinese social media would also only get results related to the bounty and arrest warrant for him.
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This is “not about a single act, but rather about the accumulated impact of many acts designed to discredit a candidate, silence criticism and dissent, and manipulate the information that informs voters,” said Laurie-Anne Kempton, assistant secretary to the cabinet for communications with the Privy Council Office, on April 21.
SITE took a more proactive approach during this election, providing weekly briefings to the public. The election was conducted in an environment of heightened concern over foreign interference because it took place on the heels of a public inquiry into the threat.
The inquiry reviewed intelligence and testimonies about alleged interference in the past two elections and identified China as the foremost perpetrator.
Tay was the subject of another controversy during the election campaign, when previous comments made by Liberal candidate and incumbent MP Paul Chiang surfaced. Chiang remarked at a January ethnic media gathering that Tay should be taken to the Chinese consulate to claim the bounty on him. Liberal Leader Mark Carney rejected calls to remove him as a candidate but Chiang later stepped down of his own accord.
Tay said at the time the situation had left him fearful for his safety and that he had previously contacted the RCMP about his personal protection.
Chiang was replaced as the Liberal candidate in the Markham-Unionville riding by former Toronto police deputy chief Peter Yuen, who also had China links. Yuen attended a military parade in Beijing and also gave a military-style salute to China’s flag during a ceremony at the Ontario legislature.
Yuen was defeated by Conservative candidate Michael Ma by more than 2,000 votes.
Some incumbent MPs who were previously targeted by Beijing for their stance against the regime have been re-elected.
Tory MP Michael Chong was at the centre of a controversy in the spring of 2023, when media outlets were leaking intelligence reports on meddling by the People’s Republic of China.
One Globe and Mail report said the Canadian Security Intelligence Service had warned the government that China had targeted Chong and his family since 2021. After the report was published, then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and then-Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said they were unaware of the situation.
“I am profoundly disappointed to find out through a Globe and Mail report that the Trudeau government knew two years ago a PRC diplomat, working out of the consulate in Toronto, was targeting my family in Hong Kong,” Chong said in a statement.
Chong, who served as foreign affairs critic for the Tories in the previous Parliament, kept his Ontario seat of Wellington-Halton Hills North with 51.4 percent of the vote, compared to 43.7 percent for the Liberal candidate.
NDP MP Jenny Kwan has also been targeted by Beijing for her advocacy for human rights in China. Kwan testified at the Foreign Interference Commission she was being ostracized by Chinese-Canadian community organizations.
“Intelligence holdings indicate that the PRC worked to exclude particular political candidates from public events in 2019, and that this strategy continued in 2021,” the Commission wrote in the section of its final report on Kwan.
Kwan was re-elected this week in Vancouver East, besting the Liberal candidate by approximately 4,500 votes.
Another case of interference took place in B.C. during the last general election in 2021, with Tory candidate and incumbent Kenny Chiu being targeted by false narratives on his stance on a foreign influence registry. “Canadian intelligence holdings identified the media spreading these false narratives as having close links to the PRC government or PRC state media,” says the Commission’s final report.
Chiu had lost to Liberal Parm Bains at that time in the riding of Richmond East-Steveston. Bains was re-elected this week with an approximate 1,000-vote lead over the Tory candidate.
