Bob Mackin
Canada’s spy agency sent three people to warn Richmond City Council about foreign meddling in the Oct. 17 civic election.
A source told theBreaker in early July that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) contacted city hall to arrange the briefing, which was based on open source reports.
In camera meetings are routinely held for land, labour and legal issues, but the Richmond city hall website shows a closed-door meeting was called July 6 under a vague section of the Community Charter, for “a matter that, under another enactment, is such that the public must be excluded from the meeting.”
Richmond City Hall. (Mackin)
Council members were warned that Richmond, a hotbed for money laundering, is fertile ground for foreign interference. They were also cautioned about attending private functions with people working with foreign actors.
The CSIS personnel distributed an unclassified pamphlet titled “Foreign Interference and You: A Safe, Secure and Prosperous Canada Through Trusted Intelligence and Advice.”
The document is available on the CSIS website and says that elected and public officials across all levels of government… [including] municipal officials and representatives of Indigenous governments” are attractive targets.
For the first time since 2001, the city’s top job is in play because Mayor Malcolm Brodie is retiring. Brodie was originally elected in a by-election and re-elected six times. Brodie has fostered closer ties with China, including a sister city relationship with Xiamen and a friendship city arrangement with Qingdao. Coun. Kash Heed and Coun. Alexa Loo are the high-profile contestants to succeed Brodie.
Cover of CSIS pamphlet given to Richmond city council members.
The CSIS briefing came after Loo appeared with members of her Richmond Strong party on stage at Richmond’s Canadian Flower Winery for a Canada Day event presented by the Canadian Alliance of Chinese Associations (CACA), a group that supports the Chinese consulate. The pro-Beijing PSTV channel reported on the event, where the Chinese flag was on the opposite end of the stage from Canada’s.
Loo sat beside Acting Consul-Gen. Zeng Zhi and spoke onstage.
Loo is the Honorary Lieutenant Colonel for the Canadian army’s 39th Service Battalion. theBreaker reported in 2023 on her attendance at a Lunar New Year house party with a donor to her re-election campaign who had also donated to China’s military.
During the 2021 federal election campaign, members of local groups that support the Chinese Communist government promoted Liberal candidate Parm Bains. In 2022, the RCMP investigated the Wenzhou Friendship Society for allegedly hosting a clandestine Chinese police station after a report by Safeguard Defenders.
The Wenzhou Friendship Society supported several candidates in Vancouver, Burnaby and Richmond during the 2018 municipal elections, including real estate and immigration lawyer Hong Guo, who had worked in the Chinese government’s State Council and denied China committed human rights abuses in an interview with a reporter. Guo finished a distant fourth on the 2018 Richmond mayoralty ballot.
