Canada-China Relations committee  Foreign influence from China has explicitly been happening since the nineties. Soon after the Tiananmen Square massacre, they realized that they needed to control overseas dissidents to ensure that there would be less resistance to the Beijing regime. This has been happening fo

Canada-China Relations committee  Absolutely. There are a lot of incidents of harassment where it doesn't qualify as a criminal offence. This is why we need external tracking and an external commission to deal with these types of grey-zone issues. Foreign investment is not illegal either, but when a foreign act

Canada-China Relations committee  Many of the activities are, but as the previous panel said, there are explicit death threats—and with the policing, nothing—so criminalizing these events obviously does not work. There are many activities that are outside of what would be considered a crime under the Criminal Cod

Canada-China Relations committee  These operations are very well coordinated. In one of my previous submissions to CACN, we recorded a weekend of events that happened globally. Hong Kongers call for a globalized event. On August 6, we called for a globalized solidarity event, and from August 13 to 16, the days th

Canada-China Relations committee  Yes. We have some threats being made against [Technical difficulty--Editor] and also [Technical difficulty--Editor] humanitarian crisis in Hong Kong. Recently, a Toronto Star article featured an individual who faced that death threats and reported it to the RCMP, and no action

Canada-China Relations committee  As I do a lot of research into the sector, this tip line is known to me. However, no, our average community members do not know about this tip line, and many of them do not trust the tip line either. Many of us have been sent from department to department. For example, I was se

Canada-China Relations committee  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 v

Canada-China Relations committee  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 individua

Canada-China Relations committee  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 C

Citizenship and Immigration committee  I don't have that number. I believe it may be something GAC or IRCC would have.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If there are measures to enable Canadians to bring their extended family members back to Canada with them, there will be a lot more who are seeking to come back, but at the moment, most people who I know who are Canadian and in Hong Kong do not want to leave their family or spous

Citizenship and Immigration committee  If their family members are able to go through an expedited pathway to obtain PR status, meaning they are able to work and study here in Canada, I think that would be an improvement to the measures that exist right now.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Being an international student here is very expensive. However, many families are looking into sending their kids here because they're afraid of state violence.

Citizenship and Immigration committee  We know that the Xi Jinping regime has been increasing control over private corporations, so there is definite concern with giving biometric data to a Chinese state-owned company, especially under the knowledge that many Hong Kong activists' biometric data has already been illega

Citizenship and Immigration committee  Taiwan doesn't have a formal asylum scheme, so I believe Canada should consider issuing travel documents for those who are in Taiwan without status to travel to Canada and resettle here, whether to claim for asylum, to study or to work.