China, Hong Kong and Foreign Interference

CPAC VIDEO: NDP MP Jenny Kwan testifies before the Public Inquiry on Foreign Interference

CPAC NEWS: NDP MP Jenny Kwan testifies before the Public Inquiry on Foreign Interference

HANSARD: Order Questions on Hong Kong Pathway

Globe NEWS: Foreign-interference inquiry resumes with focus on targeting of MPs, how system can be fixed

Householder Summer 2024

City TV NEWS: Advocacy group critical of report into foreign election interference

The New Democratic Party’s MP for Vancouver East Jenny Kwan says she believes she was also targetted.

“There’s no question in my mind that the diaspora community and, particularly, the Chinese Canadian community has been impacted,” she said.

She says hate-related incidents are happening because of interference, but the inquiry is required to get to the truth.

“So we’re not under the same cloud of suspicion, for elected officials to be suspected of being ‘traitors,’ quote unquote, of Canada, and if we don’t, sort of, get to the bottom of it we will continue to live under this cloud,” she said.

Hill Times NEWS: Foreign interference bill passes, but online harms and citizenship bills left on hold until House comes back

NDP MP Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, B.C.), her party’s critic for immigration, refugees and citizenship, told The Hill Times that she is frustrated with needing to wait longer for progress on Bill C-71.

“The issue around lost Canadians has been going on for literally decades. People have lost their status, families have been separated, some have been rendered stateless. It’s created significant, undue hardship for Canadian families, and this is primarily as a result of Canada’s archaic immigration citizenship laws,” said Kwan. “The Liberals, time and again, they say one thing and then they do another, and this is yet another example of them dragging their heels in fixing the lost Canadian issue.”

Kwan attempted to put forward a unanimous consent motion in the House on June 10 and on June 11 to urge parties to expedite passage of Bill C-71, but the motions did not receive unanimous consent.

“On the second occasion, I barely uttered my words before the Conservatives said, ‘No,’” said Kwan. “[Passing Bill C-71] is the right thing to do not only morally, but legally. It needed to be done and it should have been done.”

 

Global NEWS: RCMP commissioner urges ‘caution’ on naming alleged foreign state colluders

NDP MP Jenny Kwan is the latest federal politician to call for their identities to be revealed.

“I think we’ve got to be cautious about a right to know and the need to know,” said Duheme, who has read the unredacted version of the NSICOP report.

But Kwan says keeping the names secret damages the reputation of all members of the House of Commons, and the trust Canadians have in their elected officials.
The MP for Vancouver East raised a question of privilege and requested the matter be referred to a parliamentary committee to “explore options” on how to disclose who the parliamentarians are without “compromising national security.”

Kwan received a briefing from Canada’s spy agency that she was targeted by China over her criticism of Beijing’s human rights abuses.

The RCMP commissioner warned that investigations could be compromised if names are revealed.

“If we start disclosing a lot of secret and top-secret information, there's tradecraft involved in that,” Duheme said.

“We have to be mindful about the impact we’ll have on the international partners who are supplying some of that information.”

 

Hill Times NEWS: Trust versus transparency

Conservative MP MICHAEL COOPER and New Democrat JENNY KWAN were among the MPs who pushed LeBlanc the hardest to explain why the government wasn’t giving Hogue what she had asked for. (Hogue’s commission has said it is in talks with the government over getting the unredacted documents.)

LeBlanc returned several times to the following points:

1. That Hogue already had everything she needed, in the opinion of the government. The information that had been withheld or redacted wasn’t relevant to the Commission.

(Kwan asked: Shouldn’t Hogue decide for herself which documents are relevant? Neither LeBlanc nor Drouin really refuted this suggestion, but Drouin assured the committee that the government had not withheld any information about a specific “incident” of foreign interference.)

National Post: Trudeau's security adviser plays down concealing documents from foreign interference inquiry

Opposition MPs remained unconvinced by Drouin’s testimony and proceeded to press Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc over why the government is withholding information from a commission that is working under a tight deadline to have a final report completed by Dec. 31.
“Ultimately, what we all want coming out of this inquiry is to have faith in the process and in the inquiry and its outcome. If documents are withheld, you are going to undermine and undercut the work of the commissioner,” said NDP MP Jenny Kwan.

LeBlanc reiterated that public servants, not politicians, were involved in deciding what information is considered a cabinet confidence.