PARLIAMENT HILL, Ottawa—CSIS Director Richard Fadden unleashed a political firestorm with allegations Canadian politicians were under the influence of the Chinese and other foreign regimes, but we still haven’t learned the lesson.
That was one theme of a forum at 131 Queen Street on Wednesday night. In an office building where Parliamentary committees sometimes meet to scrutinize possible legislation, panellists told attendees about the shadowy world of espionage and the risk of ignoring Fadden’s warning.
The Opposition's Position
While the government has stood behind Fadden, the opposition parties have denounced the director as a racist who smeared politicians and Chinese Canadians alike.
A Liberal motion tabled at the Public Safety committee Oct. 27 called for Fadden to resign and apologize for comments given in a CBC interview alleging some municipal and provincial elected officials looked to be under the influence of a foreign regime. Fadden also suggested some agents of influence were recruited while still in university in Canadian schools and that some people didn’t even realize they were being used by a foreign power.
But denouncing Fadden’s warnings as racist is a betrayal of Canadian interests that Michel Juneau-Katsuya, former head of the Asia desk for CSIS, thinks is aimed at garnering ethnic votes.
Speaking at the forum on Wednesday, Juneau-Katsuya questioned the loyalties of elected representatives who focused their outrage on Fadden rather than any foreign regime that may be trying to undermine Canadian interests.
“This practice is as old as the world, where there are people in power, there will be people trying to get access to them… So why are MPS acting like it does not happen?”
Ignoring the Canary
Juneau-Katsuya said if Canada is naive about the threat, that makes it easier for spies, especially if those inclined to speak out about the danger will be attacked by the people who should push for action.
Overlooked, he said, were the ethnic communities that often feel the brunt of foreign influence exercised in Canada, like Iranians and Chinese dissidents who are subject to coercion, threats and intimidation by foreign regimes. Instead of protecting their constituents, Juneau-Katsuya said some politicians ended up helping tyrannies from abroad.
“Rather than shoot the messenger … you should look at your own riding,” he advised elected officials.
“I invite you to rethink whose interest you are serving. Rest assured, foreign spies are smiling on you.”
Victims of Silence
Sheng Xue knows what it means to speak out on human rights from within the Chinese community. After witnessing the Tiananmen Square Massacre, she fled to Canada and started calling for democracy in China. Attempts to go back to China years later to visit her mother after her father died were met with detention there and expulsion back to Canada.
It is a threat every Chinese Canadian knows well, she said.
Like the friend who wanted to meet her with but wouldn’t talk to her on the phone or come to her house. Instead they met at a coffee shop. When asked why he would not come to her home, he said her house was being monitored by Chinese agents.
“People don’t feel safe even though they are living in Canada,” she said.
She went on to recount tale after similar tale. Chinese Canadians afraid to attend protests, public events, or raise their voice about issues in China out of fear they would be forever banned from their motherland or expose their families there to a backlash from the authorities.
It is a lesson most Chinese learned in China, she said. “They have been trained to be very well self-censored.”
