Bob Mackin
A candidate for the Vancouver mayoralty sat at a VIP table with a Chinese diplomat and supporters of China’s Communist government during a Burnaby fundraiser in December.
Videos circulating on Chinese social media and the pro-Beijing Phoenix TV service show Vancouver Liberals leader Kareem Allam introduced and posing for a group photo at a volunteer appreciation banquet for the Burnaby Hospital Foundation.
Vancouver Mayoral candidate Kareem Allam (right) with former Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations chair Wei Renmin (centre) and Canadian Community Service Association executive president Chi Fan. (Yangshulin Vancouver/WeChat/Red Book).
Who was there
Allam sat among senior members of two groups closely affiliated with the consulate: the Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations and Canadian Community Service Association.
“I was invited to support the Burnaby Hospital Foundation, had no idea that it would be so well-attended,” Allam, a former Fraser Health board member, said in an interview.
Allam said he was invited to give remarks on volunteerism.
Also in attendance: Richmond Conservative MLAs Hon Chan, Steve Kooner and Teresa Wat, Burnaby Conservative candidate Michael Wu, NDP Parliamentary Secretary for Chinatown George Chow and NDP-affiliated Burnaby Coun. James Wang. One of the main sponsors was Respon Wealth Management, whose president was banned from holding an insurance licence in B.C.
Defends attendance
Allam said he would never shy away from accepting invitations to support organizations like the Burnaby Hospital Foundation. He said it is the responsibility of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Canadian Security Intelligence Service to guard Canadians from foreign interference and the country is waiting for updated legislation after the Hogue Commission final report last January.
“Municipal political parties, we just don’t have the tools to vet,” Allam said.
Additionally, Allam said China isn’t the only security risk. He pointed to efforts to destabilize Canada by Russia, Iran’s Islamic Guard Revolutionary Corps, Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel.
“This is a problem with our entire national security apparatus and us being a clearinghouse for every country interested in causing chaos and havoc,” he said. “They’re here because of our weak money laundering rules, they’re here because of our weaker immigration rules, they’re here because of our proximity to the U.S.
China reset
Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney will meet with Xi Jinping in Beijing next week, the first such visit since Justin Trudeau in 2017. Since then, a global pandemic originated in China’s Wuhan, Beijing broke the one country/two systems promise in Hong Kong, mass-arrested Uyghur Muslims, held two Canadians hostage and secretly executed four others, forged a “no limits” alliance with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, and rehearsed the invasion of Taiwan.
“I don’t have the tools, I don’t have the resources, I don’t have the intelligence apparatus nor the economic data available to me to take a position on what Mark Carney is doing,” Allam said. “I am running because I want to make our streets safer, I am running because there are some things on money laundering I believe I can do, to take dangerous drugs off streets. I’m running because I want to get our garbage picked up, I’m running to get rats out of my city.”
Foreign interference report
In January 2025, Commissioner Marie-Josee Hogue deemed China “the most active perpetrator of foreign interference” in Canada. She warned that it uses the United Front Work Department arm of the Chinese Communist Party to target all levels of government in Canada. It favour candidates that it believes will help further its interests.
Recommendation 35 stated: “The federal government should continue and intensify its efforts to engage and collaborate with provincial, territorial, Indigenous and municipal governments to counter foreign interference.”
ABC + CCP?
Allam was the campaign manager for Mayor Ken Sim’s ABC party in the 2022 election.
Almost three years ago, the Globe and Mail reported on a leaked CSIS document that indicated a Chinese diplomat in Vancouver helped get a Chinese-Canadian candidate elected mayor in 2022.
Sim and ABC won by a landslide over pro-Taiwan incumbent Mayor Kennedy Stewart.
“If there is proof of this, I’d be as mad as hell as everyone else,” Sim said after the Globe and Mail story in March 2023.
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