The astroturfing during the head tax redress fight, in which the Chinese Canadian community asked the government to pay restoration and apologize for the Chinese Exclusion Act and its head tax, was a campaign that was carried out over 20 years before that by people in the Chinese Canadian community. I represented one of the organizations, the main organization at that time, to lead this fight.
As I mentioned, right after Tiananmen Square, the Chinese set up an umbrella organization called the National Congress of Chinese Canadians, NCCC. They usurped the issue by themselves, which they have no connection to. These are recent Chinese immigrants. They have nothing to do with the Chinese Exclusion Act, and yet they took up the topic. They issued press releases. They formed over 300 proxy organizations, registered with Corporations Canada, some of which share directors and postal addresses and so forth.
These are examples of astroturfing. They set up these fake organizations, issue press releases and have press conferences.