Canada-China Relations Committee on May 31st, 2021

[Rukiye Turdush]

Yes. I think other students associations and the school gave probation to the Chinese student association and said that they could no longer organize and do those kinds of activities anymore.

I think the probation was for one year. I don't remember right now. I didn't participate in the probation. The school did that to those Chinese student associations. They opened the hearing—they opened the court—and they decided....

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Could you give us the background? Was that because they were deemed to have engaged in activities that weren't becoming in an academic environment?

[Rukiye Turdush]

Yes. The Chinese academics and the Chinese student association at McMaster...like I said, we had a screenshot evidence of what they did, how they connected with the Chinese embassy. They proved it with their own statement, and they tried to stop the Hong Kong students too, afterwards, so they were very actively involved with these kinds of issues. That's why.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Thank you.

Thank you, Chairman.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Mr. Williamson.

Mr. Dubourg, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Emmanuel Dubourg, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's now my turn to commend you, Ms. Lhamo and Ms. Turdush, for your courage and for all that you do for freedom and democracy. It is really very brave of you.

The first question that comes to mind is this. You are very involved in the academic field. You spoke eloquently about the threats that you and your families were facing.

Because you are appearing before our committee tonight, do you believe that the people threatening you are aware and watching you, sitting in front of their television sets, and they intend to continue to make these kinds of threats against you?

Do you think that could be happening, or is it rather insignificant?

Go ahead, Ms. Turdush.

[Rukiye Turdush]

I was thinking they don't have to directly show up in front of you. For example, they secretly say it in their group chat to look for my son. When they say that, I think right away about what Saudi Arabia did to Khashoggi.

Those kinds of governments can do any kind of dirty game. That's disturbing me a lot. We are not one of their provinces, so they're not going to openly do something here, but in the long term they can do something very harmful. That's disturbing.

[Emmanuel Dubourg, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Thank you.

Ms. Lhamo, did you want to add anything?

[Chemi Lhamo]

I just wanted to echo those sentiments and also just add to that. The mere fact that I have no access to my own family members and that my generation of Tibetans do not know how to speak their own mother tongue is in itself a sign of violence and the aftermath of what they're doing.

A direct threat at this point is manageable for me, which is unfortunate to say even in a society like this.

[Emmanuel Dubourg, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Thank you.

Ms. Turdush, you mentioned your son. I don't know how old he is, but you seem very concerned about him.

Is he safe at school? Does he report any of his friends' actions at school to you?

[Rukiye Turdush]

He was accepted into McMaster before, but at that time he was working in Boston. When the event happened, he came back. Right now he's a master's student at the University of Toronto at the downtown campus. On the downtown campus of the University of Toronto there are a lot of Chinese people. I don't want to say all Chinese people are dangerous or...Chinese espionage, but I still worry and I am tell my son not to be friends with the Chinese people sometimes. He says things like, “Are you crazy? Why does the country 5,000 miles away have to control me? I am Canadian. Why do they have to control our soil? This is crazy. You are crazy”.

He doesn't believe that. I'm worrying because he was thinking about some country 5,000 miles away and they have to control him. That's why I'm just very worried about him.

It's not only about my son. If they expand their influence like that, it's every kid. What's going to happen to the future of our kids? Right now they are intensely developing their AI technology. They're controlling everybody's brain and manipulating everyone in Canada and the globe.

[Emmanuel Dubourg, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Thank you.

I have one last short question.

You are very involved in the academic field, in Toronto, for example, and at McMaster University.

How do you feel about the role that Confucius Institutes play in those educational institutions? Can you tell us more about how that relates to these threats?

[Rukiye Turdush]

As I said in my statement, the government should ask every university to report their co-operation with the Chinese institutions and the Chinese universities. In what area do they have co-operation and in what kind of research? This is not only about the students' safety. This is about the Canadian information and how they are stealing our information. They have to.... Okay.

[Emmanuel Dubourg, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Thank you.

[Chemi Lhamo]

I'd say put your money where you mouth is in your diversity and inclusion statements.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Dubourg.

I would like to thank our panellists, Ms. Lhamo and Ms. Turdush, very much for their appearance here today. I think you saw how much members of the committee appreciated your coming.

Now we will suspend while we connect the next panellists. Thank you so much.

We'll suspend for two minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I call the meeting back to order.

For our second panel this evening, we have Cherie Wong, executive director at Alliance Canada Hong Kong, as well as Kyle Matthews, executive director at the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies.

Thank you both for being here.

Let's start with Ms. Wong. For opening remarks, you have five minutes.

[Cherie Wong, Executive Director, Alliance Canada Hong Kong]

Thank you for inviting me again to speak to the committee.

Before I start, I want to make clear that the diasporic communities are not a monolithic group. With heightened geopolitical tensions, we need to prioritize the protection of the diaspora and dissident communities from CCP surveillance and intimidation and to be critical while not fanning xenophobia.

I was asked to speak about harassment and intimidation today, but what I'm about to tell you may not be what you're expecting.

Dissidents are not safe—not in their own homes, not in civil societies, not at work, and not in Canada. This is because threats, censorship and intimidation will continue as long as companies, non-profits, academia, politicians, media and other institutions with vested interests are fearful of angering Beijing and are doing its bidding.

Beijing is effectively exporting its authoritarianism overseas. From previous meetings, witnesses from Canada's intelligence and enforcement agencies have assured the committee of their collective effort in combatting foreign interference. With my lived experiences, I can tell you that the existing institutions and legislation are not working. Beijing's foreign influence cannot be addressed with blanket policies, as the CCP operates across sectors and often within legal grey areas, making bans or criminalization largely ineffective.

Last time I spoke about Beijing's global expansionist authoritarianism, their blatant disregard for international rules-based order, their influence and interference operations in Canada, and I included my own experience of surveillance and intimidation. Beijing's capabilities, capacities and ambitions already pose a dangerous threat, but few countries fully see their global strategy of influence. The CCP has been testing the tolerance of liberal democracies with their authoritarian over-reach as international norms are being rewritten.

The current approach to China lacks the comprehensive view from the diasporic communities that speak the language and understand its history, culture and intentions. Activists have witnessed these influence efforts since the 1990s. It's not new, but only newly realized.

In ACHK's most recent report and recommendations, we covered service-level examinations of seven aspects of the CCP's foreign interference in Canada: political influence; elite capture; surveillance and intimidation; information and narrative discursion warfare; academic influence and vulnerability of intellectual property; national security; and the United Front Work Department. We found similar tactics, strategies and operations throughout the various sectors.

We need a whole-of-government approach to how Canada engages with foreign authoritarian powers such as China. We need to invest in the proper tools, infrastructures and resources to protect Canadians and our national interests. Canada has an important role to play on the international stage, as multilateral actions are an effective way to confront Beijing collaboratively, but it is imperative to expand Canada's foreign and domestic policy toolbox to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

Our recommendations are as follows.

Create legislation for foreign influence transparency schemes, a public registry of individuals, of organizations and representatives who are acting on behalf of foreign states in Canada. The transparency scheme should be paired with a public commission with investigative and enforcement powers, serving as a centralized point to coordinate the different levels of government and Canadian institutions, public agencies and the general public.

Support Canadian research and intellectual property with a cohesive federal policy to regulate research collaborations with foreign actors, while increasing funding for Canadian innovation.

Invest in resources and infrastructures for ethnic communities in Canada.

Protect Canadians by placing restrictions on foreign actors from the collection, purchase or export of Canadian personal information and data.

Harassment and intimidation of Canadians need to be understood from the perspective of dissidents. We need an approach to foreign interference that centres the community's needs while addressing the issue holistically and strategically.

Thank you again for having me. I am happy to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Ms. Wong.

We'll now go to Mr. Matthews for five minutes, please.

[Kyle Matthews, Executive Director, Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies]

Thank you very much.

I'm pleased to join you this evening. I will do my presentation in English, but afterwards I will be able to speak both languages.

Dear esteemed members of Parliament, thank you for the invitation to give testimony to the Special Committee on Canada-China relations. I lead the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University. I applaud the committee for studying issues related to the national security dimension of the Canada-China relationship, including cyber-enabled influence operations, espionage, cybersecurity, foreign interference and harassment. I think many democracies around the world are dealing with this right now and no one quite has an answer.

The rise of authoritarian China poses an existential threat to Canada's values and interests, including the respect for human rights, the rule of law and the future of democracy. That can't be said enough. In March 2019, my institute hosted Dolkun Isa, leader of the World Uyghur Congress. The Chinese consul general contacted me by email the day before the event, seeking to urgently discuss the event. I ignored his email only to find out that the next day the Chinese consulate in Montreal had put pressure on the mayor of Montreal to have our event cancelled. Thankfully, no one succumbed to this foreign interference. I had follow-up with Canadian officials, Global Affairs Canada and CSIS, and the event was covered by the U.S. State Department in its annual reports on human rights in China.

That incident that happened to me and my colleagues follows other examples in Canada and around the world where the Chinese government has purposefully attempted to curtail academic freedom, while simultaneously stomping upon our fundamental human rights, including freedom of expression, freedom of opinion, and privacy, to name just a few of those human rights.

Since 2019, Canadians have seen two of our citizens locked up for over 900 days, a deadly pandemic killing over three million people across the planet, disinformation campaigns targeting democracies in an attempt to foster mistrust in our own democratic institutions in the media, as well as to sow distrust about western-developed COVID-19 vaccines. We've also seen economic warfare against our ally, Australia, for having the audacity to call for international investigation into the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We have seen similar blowback and retribution against Canadian politicians and U.S. and European officials, for labelling abuses against Uighurs as genocide. We see a very aggressive China that we haven't seen four or five years ago. These actions by China—I don't mean the people, but the CCP—reveal that the government there is a hostile actor with far-reaching implications for Canada and our allies.

While this committee is tasked with the immense challenge of what Canada should do about China, let me offer a few insights. China is trying to win the global competition to be a tech leader and is exporting these technologies across the planet, as well as to Canada. It is imperative that a more robust response be taken to limit the export of Canadian technologies to China and for us to work with our democratic allies to counter digital authoritarianism. We must not allow Huawei to establish Canada's 5G network. Both the Czech Republic and the Netherlands are examples that we cannot ignore of where privacy cannot be guaranteed.

I'd like to talk about genocide and surveillance. All Chinese companies that have been found to have assisted Beijing in the surveillance and persecution of the Uighur Muslim minority should not be allowed into the Canadian market or to provide financing and co-operate with Canadian universities. Tencent, Hikvision Huawei and iFlytek are all documented as having offered their services to Beijing's genocide and are complicit in these crimes. This past weekend, the Globe and Mail reported that iFlyTek is funding projects at Queen's University and York University. This is unacceptable. The same concept should be applied to the Canada pension plan contributions that are being invested in companies involved in Uighur genocide. This is not a good look for us.

Last but not least, Facebook recently announced that it had taken down a coordinated cyber harassment campaign targeting Uighurs living in numerous western countries, including Canada. We must develop operational capabilities to protect Canadian citizens from surveillance and online harassment and to expose who is behind these actions.

Thank you for having me today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Mr. Matthews.

We'll now go to our first round of questions and begin with Mr. Williamson for six minutes, please.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Thank you very much and thank you to both our witnesses for coming forward today.

Ms. Wong, could I ask you to talk about your personal experience of being harassed and threatened by other individuals. Could you just talk about that a little bit? It's important for us to hear your stories so we can understand more than just the statistics, but what individuals who are speaking out face in Canada.

[Cherie Wong]

Long before I was executive director of ACHK, I was a local organizer in Ottawa, where I organized a couple of protests, and we were invited to speak to the press. I found that soon after I had spoken to the media, I would get hundreds of messages on my social media. These were very explicit messages, anywhere from calling me “democrazy” a pun on democracy—to [Technical difficulty—Editor] to rape me and my mother like pigs and slaughter us in our sleep. It's been very tough being an activist and speaking about Hong Kong issues when these are the kinds of threats I face online. Despite this, online harassment, as we know, is not widely addressed by the police agencies.

The last time I was at committee, I also spoke about when I travelled to Vancouver, where a teammate had booked my hotel room. However, two days after we had done the launch of Alliance Canada Hong Kong, a strange man called my hotel room, identified me by name, identified me by my room number and said they were “coming to get” me. Those were the exact words being repeated. I did what I was supposed to do. I called the Vancouver police and said, “I feel in danger, and I don't feel safe.” They said that they would send officers to my location. They did. I never met the officers. They were dismissed at the hotel lobby because it was not a real threat; it was not an issue they would address because it was not criminal. I called again, and there was no follow-up.

Even today, I cannot forget those words that were said to me on the phone: “We are coming to get you.” It was very explicitly a form of intimidation, but it was very carefully crafted because it was not criminal in intent, and that is how they're able to get away with it.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Thank you.

I can tell that that's difficult and not a pleasant experience, but I appreciate your sharing it again in parts with us.

What are your feelings when you hear senior law enforcement in this country talking about the need to do more, but then nothing happens? You saw the commissioner of the RCMP here a few weeks ago, for example, who admitted that more needs to be done, but that seemed to be it. Meanwhile, we are hearing more and more stories like yours, and people don't know where to turn for help or for support.

[Cherie Wong]

Like I said, these kinds of harassment attempts are very carefully crafted. Despite the fact that there have been very real death threats against dissidents, the police have also said that there is nothing they can do, and there are no first steps to do to protect these individuals. We know that policing doesn't work, and this is why we recommended a foreign transparency scheme paired with the commission because this type of information cannot really.... We can't let it go. We can't let these stories go, and we can't let this kind of valuable information go without sharing it with the public. The public should know how many Canadians feel unsafe and feel that they're being harassed.

The CCP is only one regime. We know that other governments are also doing these types of behaviours, and we need federal data collection on these types of issues.