Sen. Woo downplays evidence that China ‘targeted’ MPs Chong, Kwan

An independent senator is calling evidence the Chinese government “targeted” MPs Michael Chong and Jenny Kwan “cavalier and flimsy,” downplaying Beijing’s efforts to collect “human intelligence” on Canadian parliamentarians.

Sen. Yuen Pau Woo, whom the Liberals appointed to the Senate in 2016, has been a vocal critic of the federal government’s response to Chinese interference operations and skeptical of allegations that Beijing is meddling in Canadian affairs, was denied standing during the second phase of the federal inquiry into foreign interference after participating in the first round.

Standing would’ve allowed Woo to participate in the second round of testimony, and the senator requested the commission cover his legal costs. Both requests were denied.

But Woo still offered some closing thoughts as Justice Marie-Josée Hogue and her team prepare their final report on foreign interference in the last two federal elections. Woo’s written submission, published by the inquiry last week, suggested Chong and Kwan inflated claims that the Chinese government “targeted” them.

“Other claims made by prominent witnesses, for example, Mr. Michael Chong and Ms. Jenny Kwan, are not only cavalier and flimsy, but they amount to a smear on individuals and groups that is highly corrosive of Canada’s multicultural identity,” Woo wrote.

“Could it be that the Chinese Embassy ‘targeted’ Mr. Chong and Ms. Kwan only in the sense that they kept files on the two MPs, among other files that they keep on parliamentarians?”

A 2021 intelligence report from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) suggested Beijing’s Ministry of State Security targeted Chong after the MP voted in favour of a 2021 House of Commons motion condemning China’s treatment of the Uyghur minority as a genocide.

CSIS’s assessment found that in addition to sanctioning Chong and barring him from China, Beijing took other measures to pressure the Halton Hills MP, including targeting his relatives in Hong Kong.

The Liberal government eventually took the extraordinary step of expelling a senior Chinese diplomat, Zhou Wei, who CSIS assessed was involved in the campaign.

NDP MP Jenny Kwan revealed in 2023 that CSIS informed her that she’s been a target of Chinese foreign interference going back years – interference that the spy agency believed to be ongoing. Citing national security concerns, Kwan said she could not share details of the alleged interference.

But in her interview with the Hogue commission, Kwan testified that CSIS informed her that she would be an “evergreen target” for Beijing – even after she retired from political life. Kwan told commission lawyers that the interference has damaged her relationship with both voters and major Chinese community groups – a significant constituency in her Vancouver East riding.

In an interview last week, Woo told Global News he takes issue with the term “target” and said it suggested Beijing was threatening physical violence or taking out a “hit” on the MPs.

Woo said, based on Chong and Kwan’s own testimony before the inquiry, they were not aware of any threats of physical harm to them or their families.

Woo conceded that there’s a spectrum of harm from foreign interference – that such activity could be damaging to a parliamentarian without rising to the threat of physical violence.

“And where (Hogue) chooses to put her interpretation of that spectrum is important because if she puts it at the extreme end and leaves the impression (with) Canadians that any government collecting information on politicians is harmful, then it’s an overstatement of the threat,” Woo said.

Asked if he thought it was normal practice for Chinese security agencies to collect information on the families of Canadian politicians who live abroad, Woo suggested it wasn’t unusual but isn’t necessarily for nefarious purposes.

“All of that, I think, is normal intelligence collection, and it doesn’t have to be seen in a sinister light,” Woo said.

In a statement, Kwan’s lawyer, Sujit Choudry, said Woo’s allegation that the MP’s testimony was “flimsy” is “false and misleading.”

“It was CSIS who informed MP Kwan in a classified briefing that she was a long-time target of (Chinese Communist Party) interference and will remain an ‘evergreen target.’ MP Kwan testified and brought to the commissioner’s attention that she believed she had been de-platformed by Chinese community organizations,” Choudry wrote in a statement to Global News.

Choudry noted that CSIS officials testified that Beijing works through proxy agents in Canada’s Chinese diaspora and that Kwan is concerned the Chinese government used those proxies to target her for her advocacy on human rights issues in China.

“Senator Woo has every right to turn a blind eye to foreign interference actors and activities. MP Kwan chooses to use her voice to speak up and speak out to protect and defend Canada’s democratic institutions and processes.”

Chong’s office declined Global’s interview request.

Hogue and her team of lawyers have until the end of January 2025 to deliver their final report and recommendations.

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