Independent MP Han Dong (Don Valley North, Ont.) yesterday admitted foreign students attending school out of town voted in his 2019 Liberal nomination. Dong dismissed the incident as commonplace though his own campaign manager questioned Chinese teenagers' eligibility to vote: "Do you accept that would be an outrageous intervention by the People’s Republic of China in our democracy?"
Liberal MP Ken Hardie (Fleetwood-Port Kells, B.C.) yesterday said he privately contacted the Canadian Security Intelligence Service following his 2021 re-election regarding allegations of pro-Liberal interference by foreign agents. The China inquiry yesterday disclosed names of 13 ridings including Hardie's that were allegedly targeted by Beijing. Others include seats held by two former cabinet ministers and the current chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee: "I asked for a meeting with CSIS."
Erin O’Toole’s Conservative Party was never told its candidates were targeted by foreign agents, the China inquiry learned yesterday. One confidential memo said offshore money was “funneled to preferred candidates” deemed pro-China: "Would information of this nature have been useful to your Party?"
Pensions for retired MPs averaged $77,900 last year, an increase of nearly 10 percent since the pandemic, says the Treasury Board. Pensions are indexed to inflation to “cover increases in the cost of living.”
Zookeepers are protesting a Senate bill to restrict the public display of elephants and apes. Exotic animals in Canada enjoy the highest standards of care, the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee was told: "It is very disappointing."
Federal investigators waited years to look into allegations a 2021 Liberal candidate benefited from thousands in undisclosed donations from friends of China, records show. Vancouver East candidate Josh Vander Vies’ campaign was ultimately fined $500 for poor bookkeeping: "I cannot speculate here."
Federal election monitors never caught any Chinese agents despite numerous tips but instead spent four years prosecuting Rebel News Network for improper signage, the China inquiry was told. A director of Elections Act enforcement testified it was complicated: "It is difficult to answer such questions."
The insolvent SaltWire Network newspaper chain pocketed more than $5 million in taxpayers’ subsidies in one year while failing to pay its tax debts, Court records show. Creditors in filings with the Nova Scotia Supreme Court described SaltWire management as incompetent: 'They mismanaged the business.'
A 2019 pre-election program promising to make home ownership “an achievable dream” failed, says a CMHC report. The billion-dollar scheme was poorly designed and delivered only a fraction of the promised benefits, wrote auditors: "The program has low uptake."
Middle class Canadians say they are overtaxed and underappreciated, according to in-house Privy Council research. Focus groups nationwide told federal pollsters they were fed up with rising costs and “the high tax burden.”
Easter greetings to all friends and subscribers. Blacklock's pauses today for the federal observance. We are back tomorrow -- The Editor
Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “I was told that God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. Who created Steve, then?…”
In 1919 there were so many Bolsheviks in Port Arthur, Ont. the local MP called it one of Canada’s worst “breeding places of revolution.” The mayor calculated three-quarters of local Finnish immigrants were socialists. In neighbouring Fort William they held a memorial for Lenin in 1924 and sang the Internationale.
The twin cities on the north shore of Lake Superior were “storm centres in Canadian working-class history,” writes Michel Beaulieu, associate professor of history at Lakehead University.
It is popular now to dismiss Canadian communism as a historical curiosity peopled by colourful idealists. In its day it was serious business. Churchill scorned fifth columnists like the Lakehead Leninists as Moscow “missionaries”: “Obscure people awaiting the day when they hope to be the absolute masters of their fellow countrymen and pay off old scores.”
Yves Côté, now-retired Elections Commissioner, yesterday acknowledged dismissing complaints that Chinese agents were targeting Conservative Party voters in the 2021 campaign. “There is no duty to investigate everything,” Côté testified at the China inquiry.
Federal security agents in a censored 2021 election memo said they were aware China sought to “cultivate relationships with current MPs.” China-friendly Members of Parliament were not identified: 'China is interested in individuals who are viewed as ‘pro-PRC’ or ‘neutral' in key areas."
