First of all, the Chinese community underwent a long history of discrimination in Canada until the 1960s and 1970s. Only then was all of that legislation removed. The CCP is trying to exploit that history, in order to remind most Chinese Canadians they need the motherland to protect them; that's almost their way of expressing it. They are trying to combine it with the current situation—the tension between east and west—to suggest that all of this is China-bullying. They use the word “racism” as an excuse to deflect any criticisms launched against the CCP.
Those are the ways in which they use history to try to pull at the heartstrings of so many Chinese Canadians.