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Foreign influence a fact in Canada
Grace Wollensak, Falun Dafa Association of Canada
As victims of the Chinese Communist
regime's interference and influence in Canada, Falun Gong practitioners'
experience in the past 11 years corroborate the comments about foreign
influence made by CSIS director Richard Fadden, and also match the patterns
and tactics described by Chen Yonglin, a former Chinese diplomat.
In 2005, Chen Yonglin, first
secretary and consul for political affairs, defected from the Chinese
consulate in Sydney and exposed the Chinese regime's mandate for all
Chinese embassies and consulates worldwide to influence government officials,
mobilize Chinese students and the Chinese community, and control the
Chinese media to influence public policy. Chen revealed that the tactics
include putting pressure on western government officials and exchanging
political benefits by economic means. He stated that one of the most
effective methods used to influence political leaders is to provide
them with all-expenses-paid travel to China and lavish entertainment.
He stated they also regularly
promoted the private business ties of some Australian political leaders.
He also said, "The control
of the overseas Chinese community has been a consistent strategic objective
of the Chinese Communist Party as a way to penetrate into the mainstream
of the host country. It's not just in Australia. It is done this way
in countries such as the U.S. and Canada, too.”
Some examples in Canada are
as follows:
- In May this year,
media reported 1
2 that Ottawa
Mayor Larry O'Brien, upon return from a business trip to China, refused
to proclaim Falun Dafa Day as he had done in previous years because
he said he "made a commitment." It was construed that he made
a commitment to Chinese officials during his trip to China. City council
later bypassed the mayor to proclaim Falun Dafa Day.
- In 2009, at the
Montreal Caribbean festival, Falun Dafa's Tian Guo Marching Band was
invited to join the parade. However, then-Montreal city councillor Marcel
Tremblay asked the president of the festival to kick out the band. The
president refused. Tremblay had been an active participant of Chinese
embassy-organized events.
- In 2005 the Globe
and Mail3 detailed extensively how the City of Toronto and many councillors
were being targeted by the Chinese consulate and its agents to follow
the party line on how Falun Gong and other groups unfavoured by the
communist regime should be treated in Toronto.
Chen Xiaoling, the Chinese consul general in Toronto, wrote to city
councillors, and the mayor asking the city not to hold a Falun Dafa
Day. She wrote that if the motion is passed it "will have a very
negative effect on our future beneficial exchanges and cooperation."
The motion did not pass.
- To call for an end
to the persecution in China, Vancouver Falun Gong practitioners set
up a vigil in front of the Chinese consulate in 2001. Since then, the
City of Vancouver has been under pressure to remove the vigil. Sam Sullivan,
elected mayor in 2005, after being "treated like an emperor"
on a visit to China, took on as his responsibility to have the display
board removed. The appeal court of British Columbia recently has ruled
the act ‘unconstitutional’.
Sullivan admitted that he had never even read the bylaw which he sought
to invoke as the vehicle to remove this thorn in the side of the Chinese
Communist Party.
These examples show there is
cause for alarm for Canadian citizens that our democratic values, freedom
and principles can be eroded by foreign influence.
Similar situations have taken
place around the world.
The unanimously passed U.S.
304 Resolution4
calling on the Chinese regime to end the persecution and interference
in the U.S. from Chinese officials.
When Fadden exposed this issue
he, in fact, raised awareness of a threat that could seriously harm
Canadian sovereignty and democracy if left unchecked.
Canadian democracy is under
subtle invasion from a totalitarian regime. This is the core issue deserving
attention.
Thank you.
More examples:
- In 2007, the mayor
of Port Alberni proclaimed Falun Dafa Day, and then he received a letter
from the Chinese Consulate General spreading hate propaganda towards
Falun Gong and asking him not to proclaim Falun Dafa Day in 2008. Since
then, the mayor has stopped issuing the proclamation.
- A former MP from
British Columbia who had written a support letter asked us to remove
his letter from the Falun Gong website, because Chinese consulate refused
to issue him a visa to China for a business trip otherwise.
- For the first few
years after the persecution began, the Chinese embassy and consulates
routinely sent anti-Falun Gong hate propaganda to all MPs, MPPs, and
city councilors of a number of cities.
- December 2000, several
MPs attended a press conference to support efforts to rescue Canadian
citizen Prof. Kunlun Zhang, who was imprisoned in China for practicing
Falun Gong. After the press conference, the Chinese state-run newspaper,
People's Daily, reported that the president of the Ottawa-Carleton Chinese
Federation, a front organization of the Chinese embassy claiming to
represent 25 Chinese community groups then, wrote to all the MPs who
attended the press conference and asked them to stay away from Falun
Gong. Several of the MPs confirmed that they had received these letters.
- In May 2008, an
Ottawa city employee of Chinese origin excluded our local Falun Gong
group from participating in the "Health Is Wealth" event during
Asian Heritage Month after our group had earlier been informed that
we would be included. A complaint has been filed to the Ontario Human
Rights Tribunal.
- In May 2008, Falun
Gong's Tianguo Marching Band was banned from performing at the Ottawa
Tulip Festival a few minutes before its scheduled performance, due to
Chinese embassy pressure. After a media blitz and public outcry, festival
organizers eventually apologized and welcomed the band back.
- In 2005 the vice
chair of the Chinese students' association at University of Ottawa wrote
to student Ms. Lingdi Zhang that according to investigations by the
association, she was still a Falun Gong member, and warned her to "watch
out for herself". The email said that "The University of Ottawa
Chinese Students" Association is under the direct leadership of
the Education Office at the Chinese Embassy in Canada.
- In January 2006,
the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal ruled that the Ottawa Chinese Senior's
Association discriminated when it terminated the membership of Daiming
Huang, a 73-year-old Canadian citizen, because she practiced Falun Gong.
The association was in fact acting under the instruction of the Chinese
Embassy.
- In 2005, when Chinese
public security officer Hao Fengjun defected to Australia, he brought
with him intelligence information of Canadian Falun Gong practitioners
smuggled out from China. One of the documents that went public was intelligence
info about Ms. Jillian Ye, a Falun Gong practitioner in Toronto.
- The spying and information
collection by the Chinese regime caused a few Canadian practitioners
arrested when they went back to China for work reasons or to see families.
For example, Ms. Ying Zhu5 from Montreal and Ms. Ying Li from Vancouver.
- Hundreds of Falun
Gong practitioners around the world, including some in the cities of
Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal have received harassing phone calls
for years since 1999. (It was reported in 2005 by Globe and Mail)
- In 2005, Edmonton
police after a one-year investigation reported that the materials spread
by the Chinese consulate in Calgary at a conference in June 2004 at
the University of Edmonton constituted hate propaganda.
- On December 15,
2001, Talentvision aired an anti-Falun Gong propaganda program from
the Chinese state-run TV station CCTV. The Canadian Broadcast Standards
Council (CBSC) later ruled that it breached Canadian codes of ethics
and required Talenvision to announce the CBSC decision on the air.
- In fall 2001, the
Chinese embassy pressured both DFAIT and the city of Ottawa to restrict
the daily Falun Gong vigil in front of the embassy. President of Ottawa
- Carleton Chinese Federation, known in the community as the voice for
the Chinese embassy, filed a complaint and the city attempted to use
a by-law to restrict the vigil. Fortunately the city's Transport Committee
unanimously passed a motion to grant an exemption to the by-law allowing
the protest to continue in a visible manner.
- Falun Gong participated
in the 2001 Tulip Festival Flotilla, but in 2002 the festival organizer
barred our group from joining the Flotilla, saying that the festival
had promised the Chinese embassy to exclude us. It was only after a
media outcry that the festival allowed our group to rejoin the flotilla.
- In 2007, Ms. Jiyan
Zhang, a defector and wife of a diplomat of the Chinese embassy in Ottawa,
revealed that Ambassador Lu Shumin personally delivered anti-Falun Gong
materials to MPs. Lu Shumin also personally delivered anti-Falun Gong
hate propaganda to former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson.
- A 2007 secret document
from the Chinese embassy showed that it had given instructions to mobilize
Chinese students and communities to write to the CRTC to prevent a TV
station critical of the Chinese regime from getting a licence to air
in Canada.
- Chinese Regime has
have engaged in hacking of dissident Falun Gong website and Falun Gong
practitioners computer systems outside of China for the past 10 years
continuously.
For example, in July 1999 the Falun Gong websites in four countries
(one in Britain, two in Canada, one in Australia, and two in the United
States) that reported real-time the situation in China were attacked
to the point of no function. The attacker was traced back to the Public
Security Bureau in China.
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