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Bob Mackin

Mayor Ken Sim said Vancouver city council will not follow the lead of Seattle city council, which released its contracts for the FIFA 26 World Cup.

Ken Sim at the Qatar 2022 World Cup (Ken Sim/Twitter)

Speaking Aug. 28 at a provincial housing announcement in South Vancouver, Sim said city council has discussed, during closed-door meetings, what it can and cannot release to the public. When it comes to the most-important documents, which define the duties of the event host and the event owner, “we are bound by confidentiality agreements.”

“Some things can be disclosed, some can’t,” Sim said. “But let’s be very, very clear. The City of Vancouver would not enter into something that we believe would be detrimental to the taxpayers, the residents, not only of Vancouver, but the province as well.”

Vancouver and Seattle are among 16 cities in Canada, U.S. and Mexico for the 48-nation, 104-match tournament in less than three years. On Aug. 8, Seattle officials released the host city and stadium agreements when city council formally delegated responsibilities to the Seattle International Soccer Local Organizing Committee (LOC). 

The host city contract said Seattle’s host city authority is responsible for supporting the government to provide safety, security, fire protection and medical services at no cost to FIFA, plus free public transportation to ticketholders on match days, and to anyone accredited by FIFA throughout the competition period. Unless otherwise explicitly stated, the host city authority shall be responsible to bear all the costs of hosting and waive all claims of liability against FIFA, its officials and related entities.

“I can’t comment as to what’s happened at Seattle because I don’t know what’s happened,” Sim said. “I don’t know if they’ve breached one of their agreements or if they have a different agreement. But I can tell you, at the City of Vancouver, everything that we can disclose we enthusiastically disclose, and we’re looking at this from a lens of fiscal responsibility and what’s best for the residents of B.C.”

B.C.’s Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner has repeatedly ruled in favour of releasing contracts between public bodies and private entities under the freedom of information law. In 2021, an adjudicator ordered Canadian Soccer Association Inc. (CSA), on behalf of FIFA, to release the contract with B.C. Place Stadium for the Canada 2015 Women’s World Cup. CSA dropped its court challenge in February 2022. The document showed the maximum payment for exclusive use of BC Place for almost six weeks was just under the $2 million subsidy provided by the BC Liberal government. 

Meanwhile, short-term rentals through Airbnb and Vrbo could ease the hotel room shortage on the road to 2026, but the NDP government’s housing minister acknowledged the struggle with high rents and low vacancy rates for long-term rentals.  

Ravi Kahlon said the government needs to “find that balance” between the hotel industry and “short term rentals that are bypassing local government rules, not paying their fair share, and displacing local residents.”

Ravi Kahlon (left) and David Eby in December 2022 (Flickr/BCGov)

“We’ll have to more to say on that in the coming weeks,” Kahlon said.

Sim said the World Cup offers opportunities to “look at things differently,” with the expedited development permitting and the possibility of cruise ships to augment hotels in June 2026. 

“We’re taking a very empathetic and human lens to it as well, to make sure that our people don’t get displaced.” Sim said.

Vancouver is expecting to host five matches in early June 2026, while Seattle’s LOC estimates it could get up to eight at Lumen Field. The LOC co-chair revealed at an Aug. 3 city council committee meeting that between 400,000 and 750,000 unique visitors are expected to descend on Seattle for two-to-three days each, with 50% to 70% from other countries. Maya Mendoza-Exstrom, who is also the Seattle Sounders’ chief operating officer, estimates all accommodation between Bellingham and Portland will be full. 

“We really do expect 100 per cent of hotel nights, border-to-border, I mean it is going to take everything on that transportation corridor, I-5, on our rail system, using our extended regional network to access the hotels between Bellingham and Portland and then east along I-90, as well,” Mendoza-Exstrom said.

The Destination BC Crown corporation estimated B.C. could draw 269,000 World Cup visitors, approximately half from outside Canada and the U.S.

The B.C. government announced in June 2022 that B.C. taxpayers could expect a bill of $240 million to $260 million to subsidize FIFA. But, in January of this year, the province said the city is now responsible for $230 million in costs. To help raise money for the tournament, the provincial government gave Vancouver special power to levy a 2.5% accommodation tax through 2030. 

The province has not elaborated on cost estimates for BC Place, such as installation of a temporary natural grass pitch and interior renovations to transform part of the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame into additional luxury suites.

A study on local, regional and national economic impacts of mega events by Victor Matheson, an economics professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, found that many large sporting events “simply supplant, rather than supplement the regular tourist economy.”

“In other words, the economic impact of a mega-event may be large in a gross sense but the net impact may be small,” Matheson concluded.

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Bob Mackin Mayor Ken Sim said Vancouver city

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For the week of Aug. 27, 2023: 

Another long, hot, record, costly summer of wildfires around British Columbia. 

In some places, like around Kelowna, firefighters got the upper hand. But more than 200 houses are gone.

Conservative Party of B.C. leader John Rustad (Facebook)

The Forest Practices Board’s June report said B.C. needs to move toward landscape fire management, to co-exist with fire, but take steps to contain it. More than 96 million acres of public land are at high or extreme risk of wildfire in B.C., but only 1% of the wildland urban interface has been treated since 2018 at a cost of $72 million. Meanwhile, B.C. spends more than $200 million every year to fight fires. 

On thePodcast, host Bob Mackin welcomes Conservative Party of B.C. leader John Rustad, who was a forests minister and aboriginal relations minister in the previous BC Liberal government. He said the NDP government needs to rethink the way it fights fires and rethink the way it manages forests in an era with longer, hotter, drier summers. 

“I don’t want to take away from the fact that there are tens of thousands of people that have been significantly impacted by these fires, right?” Rustad said. “I mean, it’s just, it’s tragic, when you think about it. We need to make sure we get everything we can in there to support these people to get them so they can get their lives back together, to be able to rebuild. But long term, yes, we need to think about changing how we manage on the landscape.”

Plus Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines. 

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Bob Mackin

Vancouver city hall is keeping citizens in the dark about how traffic to and from the Senakw towers will affect area streets, says the president of the Kits Point Residents Association (KPRA).

Section of Lanier Park excavated for Senakw towers (Mackin)

Eve Munro filed a freedom of information request in August 2022 for traffic impact studies about the federally approved, 11-tower project, under construction beside the Burrard Bridge since last summer. Almost a year later, Munro received 179 pages, all but six were censored in their entirety. The city invoked exceptions to the law for fear that disclosure would harm intergovernmental relations and reveal Indigenous cultural heritage and traditional knowledge.

“The decision to withhold these traffic studies is consistent with the city’s approach of keeping everything about the development secret, and away from public scrutiny,” said Munro, who is planning an appeal to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner. “It also seems to me that it’s pretty much the antithesis of transparency and accountability in government.”

The only record provided was a May 2020 memo from City of Vancouver transportation and parking management engineer Lynn Morishita to a manager at Westbank Development, the Squamish Nation’s development partner, about “person trip generation.” 

The memo references studies by consultant Bunt and Associates and mentions roadway connections to the site proposed from Chestnut Street north of Greer Avenue and an extension of Fir Street north of West First Avenue and Creekside Drive. The towers, when fully built by 2030, are expected to be home for 10,000 to 12,000 people, but with fewer than 1,000 parking spots. That means demand for buses will skyrocket. 

“The Senakw Lands are anticipated to generate 4,900 person trips during the AM peak hour. Transit trips could be between 1,200 and 1,700 during the peak hour, which equates to 10 to 14 additional articulated buses,” Morishita’s letter said. 

“Existing routes which run close to the site are already very busy. All rank in the top 20 that generate the most passenger-hours of delay. Consideration is needed on how to support these prospective new transit trips by providing adequate service to the Senakw Lands.” 

The letter cites TransLink’s 2019 Bus Speed and Reliability Report, which pinpointed the four nearby transit corridors — Burrard Street, Granville Street, West 4th Avenue, and Broadway — that rank in the top 20 for most passenger-hours of delay in the region. Some of the demand may ease with the 2026 opening of the Broadway Subway. 

The memo emphasizes a key challenge for transportation planners, based on economic and transportation trends sparked by the pandemic: What about traffic from Uber, Evo, Amazon and Skip the Dishes vehicles to and from Senakw? It is the great unknown. 

“Ride-hailing, taxis, and deliveries will also occur irrespective of the parking supply and may therefore be higher than would normally be expected for such a development in this location,” Morishita wrote.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau breaks ground under the Burrard Bridge for Westbank’s development on the Squamish Nation’s Senakw reserve (pm.gc.ca)

“It’s a very large development, it’s beyond the question of density,” Munro said. “It’s a very large number of people that will be accessing and egressing that parcel, and they’re going to be doing it through residential streets. So we have a pretty keen interest in what that’s going to look like for our community.”

Neither Morishita nor the Squamish Nation’s Nch’kay Development responded for comment. 

KPRA is waiting for a B.C. Supreme Court judge to rule on its legal challenge to city hall’s 120-year deal to service the cluster of residential towers. Kitsilano Point residents say the 2022-signed agreement with the Squamish Nation is one-sided and should be quashed because it was negotiated and passed in secret. The city maintains it acted properly under both the Indian Self-government Enabling Act and the Vancouver Charter.

KPRA’s concerns about lack of public consultation were also conveyed to the B.C. Utilities Commission via the Residential Consumer Intervener Association. The regulator is conducting a written inquiry into the application to build a district energy plant for the towers. 

Westbank is also the parent of Creative Energy, whose Creative Energy Senakw LP (CESLP) filed the application last year for a certificate of public convenience and necessity to heat and cool the seven buildings in the first two phases. Phase one of the towers is expected to be complete in 2025.

When he appeared for a groundbreaking ceremony at the Squamish Nation reserve on Sept. 6, 2022, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a $1.4 billion loan through Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to finance half the units in Senakw’s first two phases.

A 2019 expert report for Squamish Nation members estimated the project could bring as much as $12.7 billion cashflow for the band and developer. 

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Bob Mackin Vancouver city hall is keeping citizens

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Bob Mackin

When the NDP government backed Capilano University’s purchase of the former Quest University campus in Squamish, the $63.2 million deal did not include the four student dormitory buildings. 

But, a week later, the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills says it is eyeing them.

Student housing at ex-Quest University (NAI)

NDP Minister Selina Robinson was non-committal when she and Capilano University president Paul Dangerfield announced the acquisition of the 18-acre campus from Primacorp Ventures on Aug. 16.

“Having a campus here means that people can stay in their existing housing and go to school,” Robinson said. “We recognize that housing is really challenging right across the province and so that’s why Capilano University is exploring housing options, and we’re in ongoing discussions about how to address additional housing needs that the university might need to pay.”

Capilano University plans next year to reopen the former private university, which suspended operations in April. 

The 55-acres of land, which includes the campus, its buildings and surrounding lands, were valued at almost $89 million, and listed for sale by NAI Commercial earlier this year. Primacorp paid $43 million for the land and university buildings to rescue Quest out of court protection from creditors in December 2020. Quest’s biggest lender, the Vanchorverve Foundation, had demanded repayment of $23.4 million at the start of 2020. 

After the province’s purchase was announced, the same NAI real estate agent listed the four dormitory buildings for sale. The offering price was not disclosed, but B.C. Assessment Authority shows each was valued at $10.724 million last year. The residences total 145,928 square feet in gross built area.

A spokesperson for Robinson said the ministry and Capilano University undertook due diligence before making the campus deal with Primacorp “and any future potential purchase would have to undergo similar processes.” Before the province committed $48 million toward the purchase, Capilano University had been developing a business case for a new campus elsewhere in Squamish. 

“There is an opportunity in the future to acquire the student housing buildings that would provide approximately 450 beds,” said a statement from the ministry. “Further feasibility analysis about this potential acquisition will be required.”

While Primacorp owns the land under the four vacant buildings, the buildings that contain 416 student residential units belong to the company that built them, Southern Star Developments. 

In an affidavit in November 2020, Southern Star president Michael Hutchison said his company spent $41.7 million to build the residences specifically for student use, with financing from a Bank of Montreal mortgage.

Near its main North Vancouver campus, Capilano University operates residences in three buildings on Dollarton Highway. The campus of a former International boarding school has space for 290 students in shared and single configurations. 

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The CEO of Concord Pacific Group has lost his bid to thwart the petition by condo owners at a tower near Yaletown who are seeking access to a 6,000-square foot amenity space. 

In oral reasons on Aug. 11, released Aug. 22 in written form, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Lauren Blake rejected Terry Hui’s application to throw out the petition from strata owners at The Erickson, the 17-storey, False Creek North condo building where Hui owns the penthouse and claims the second-floor amenity space for himself.

Concord Pacific’s The Erickson in Vancouver (Chambers Electric)

“In addition to the fee simple land making up lot 60, Mr. Hui says that the owner of lot 60 is entitled to additional amenities and privileges consistent with the ownership of a luxury penthouse condominium,” Blake wrote. 

That includes a private elevator linking private parking with a private lobby. But, when the city issued the development permit in November 2005, it stipulated that access to all amenities be made available to all residents. 

The strata’s petition said there was an inconsistency between the development permit and disclosure statement, both of which said the amenity space was for all residents, and the 2010-filed strata plan, which errantly shows the amenity space as limited common property for strata lot 60. 

In August 2021, a city inspector found the restricted second floor amenity area was in contravention of the development permit and city zoning bylaws. Concord unsuccessfully applied for an amendment.

The strata failed to convince the Registrar of Land Titles to correct the error and filed the court petition last November instead of appealing the registrar’s decision. 

Hui argued that the petition should be dismissed on the grounds that it is an abuse of process, not a reasonable claim, and is unnecessary, scandalous, frivolous or vexatious. 

The judge rejected all three.

Blake made a key determination that the strata owners seek rectification of the filed strata plan, not expropriation. If the petition is successful, it would lead to a ruling that the space was never supposed to be for Hui’s benefit.

“The legal basis of the petition makes clear that the strata’s position is that Mr. Hui, as president of Concord, ‘knew or ought to have known that Concord had submitted a development permit application to the city requesting that the L-2 amenity space be excluded from the computation of [floor space ratio] on the basis that it would be used as an amenity space for the benefit of all the residents of The Erickson’,” Blake wrote. “The developer ultimately received a development permit with the ‘express condition that the amenity spaces, including the L-2 amenity space, had to be permanently maintained for the exclusive use of the residents and occupants of The Erickson’.”

B.C. Assessment Authority’s website shows the penthouse at The Erickson was valued last year at $18.98 million. 

Blake awarded costs to the strata owners.

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Bob Mackin The CEO of Concord Pacific Group

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What: 

A map of 214 fire calls to single-room occupancy buildings in Vancouver, from Jan. 1, 2022 to Dec. 8, 2022. The log, obtained via freedom of information from Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services (VFRS), lists the calls by date, cause, location, number of deaths or injuries and approximate cost of damage. 

Human cost: 

During the period, there were 10 fire-related injuries and four fire-related fatalities. 

Two injuries were reported in a Feb. 17, 2022 fire at the Astoria Hotel, 769 E. Hastings, when a battery rectifier ignited due to ignorance of hazard. A similar incident happened June 11, 2022 at the Hotel Empress, 235 E. Hastings, but one person died. 

Two deaths resulted from the April 11, 2022 Winters Hotel blaze on 203 Abbott in Gastown. 

The other death was May 5, 2022 at the Patricia Hotel, 403 E. Hastings, which originated in a portable cooking unit. 

Deadliest blaze: 

The four-alarm fire at the 115-year-old Winters Hotel was the worst of 2022’s SRO fires.

The bodies of residents Mary Ann Garlow and Dennis Guay were discovered more than a week-and-a-half after the inferno. The building was demolished and the disaster now the subject of an application for a class-action lawsuit against city hall and B.C. Housing-funded property manager Atira. 

It was a tragedy waiting to happen. On April 8, 2022, after a minor fire, VFRS had ordered Winters Hotel management to immediately hire a qualified technician to service the fire alarm and sprinkler and provide 24-hour fire watch until the system could be reset and fully functional. 

In the months that followed the tragedy, the Downtown Eastside went from bad to worse. Sidewalks on both sides of East Hastings filled with tents containing 200 people, many with addictions and/or mental illness. Many of them refused to live inside buildings similar to the Winters Hotel, even if rooms were available. 

On July 24, 2022, fire chief Karen Fry issued an extraordinary order to remove tents and structures from congested sidewalks, so that firefighters could access buildings in case of emergency. Full enforcement did not happen until April 5 of this year, when Vancouver Police officers and civic crews removed tents and belongings.

Most-expensive damage:

A total $90.34 million in estimated fire losses during the year. Most of that from two devastating blazes. 

The Winters Hotel disaster estimate was $68.7 million. That was due to an open flame.

The Powell and Princess fire, at 568 Powell, on Aug. 22, 2022, was $20 million. That was blamed on smoker’s material. 

A July 17, 2022 fire caused $350,000 damage to 566 Powell, due to smoker’s material. The June 11, 2022 fire at 235 E. Hastings caused $240,000 damage. 

There were three fires worth $100,000: 431 E. Pender on Jan. 3, 2022 (open flame); 936 Granville on Aug. 6, 2022 (incendiary fire); and 143 Dunlevy on Sept. 24, 2022 (cannot be determined).  

Igniting objects:

Leading causes were open flame (41) and smoker’s material, which includes matches, lighters, torches, candles, cigarettes and drug-related materials (19).

Acts or omissions: 

In 48 cases, suspected impairment, use of alcohol, drugs or medication was involved. Followed by ignorance of hazard (21) and incendiary (or intentionally lit) fire (14). 

Most fire calls: 

There were 15 addresses with four or more fire calls. 

The Lookout Housing and Health Society-managed Tamura House at 225 Dunlevy topped the list at 16. 

Atira’s Sereena’s Housing for Women at 143 Dunlevy and Hotel Canada at 518 Richards had seven fire calls each. There were six each at the PHS flagship Portland Hotel (20 W. Hastings) and Tellier Tower (16 E. Hastings), Brandiz Hotel (122 E. Hastings) and the Colonial Hotel (122 Water). 

Lookout director of development Megan Kriger said the 52-year-old charity has met with the VFRS and City of Vancouver to discuss ways to reduce the fire risk. Kriger said Lookout conducts regular site inspections to ensure hallways are clear and that there are “more than the required number of fire extinguishers.” Blow torch lighters and lithium battery chargers are no longer allowed inside units. 

“Lookout sites have fire warden programs where residents are trained and certified by the Vancouver fire department,” Kriger said. “Increased education has been provided around safer smoking options, including how to properly put out and dispose of cigarettes, eliminating dry grass and flammables during heat season.” 

Kriger said kitchen fires are caused by residents “not watching food while it’s being cooked” and the society is also providing education around cooking safety and healthier options to reduce fats or oils. 

“Lookout also promotes the use of community kitchens onsite where residents can support each other and share the responsibility of cooking together,” she said. 

Records falling: 

VFRS revealed Aug. 8 that the first half of 2023 was a record-setter. Fire responses are up 31% year-over-year and more than a quarter of fires were deliberately lit. The leading cause of fires (57%) is carelessly discarded smokers’ materials. 

Four people died in fires from January to June. Three involved smokers’ materials and two of the victims were suspected to be impaired. 

–with technical assistance from Stephen Bohus

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Bob Mackin  What:  A map of 214 fire calls

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The office of B.C.’s conflict of interest commissioner Victoria Gray confirmed it has received a complaint from an Ontario watchdog about ex-Premier John Horgan’s pending directorship of a steelmaking coal company. 

The day after Horgan formally resigned as the Langford-Juan de Fuca NDP MLA on March 31, he announced he would join the board of Teck Resources spinoff Elk Valley Resources. Glencore’s hostile takeover attempt has delayed the votes by Teck shareholders on splitting the company and appointing Horgan to the Elk Valley board.

Jonathan Wilkinson (left) and John Horgan in Victoria on March 15, 2019 (BC Gov/Flickr)

Democracy Watch co-founder Duff Conacher formally complained Aug. 17 to Gray, alleging that Horgan was in conflict of interest for participating in or attempting to influence government decisions about whether the International Joint Commission should investigate Teck for contaminated runoff from its mines.

Gray’s office acknowledged receipt of the complaint, but would not comment on next steps. 

Horgan met with Teck executives on Oct. 11, more than a month before David Eby succeeded him as premier on Nov. 18. Horgan claimed that he did not discuss the board opportunity until December. 

In the Legislature on April 20, Environment Minister George Heyman said “to the best of my recollection, I never had a discussion about the IJC with the former premier.”

Conacher said the only way to determine whether Horgan and Heyman’s statements are true is by Gray launching an investigation. 

Conacher’s letter said that “Horgan clearly had a conflict of interest or apparent conflict of interest” as defined by the law, “given that he was negotiating a position with Teck that would provide him with financial benefits.”

B.C. Greens leader Sonia Furstenau unsuccessfully tabled a private member’s bill to amend the Members Conflict of Interest Act. Furstenau proposed a two-year, post-employment ban on cabinet members from accepting a board appointment with any entity that they had direct and significant dealings.

When Horgan revealed his new job in the Globe and Mail on April 1, he said: “I don’t have a lot of time any more, none in fact, for public comment on my world view, or what I am doing with my time.”

Teck has not responded for comment. 

In another letter dated Aug. 17, Conacher filed a similar complaint to the office of the federal Ethics Commissioner about Liberal Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Jonathan Wilkinson. 

Wilkinson is one of the senior ministers from B.C. in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet, the government and cabinet are considering whether to request an investigation by the IJC and Teck has lobbied Wilkinson directly six times in the last year, said Conacher’s letter.

“His spouse has investments in financial institutions that are among the top 25 largest institutional investors in Teck Resources and he was CEO of BioteQ when it had a contract with Teck to clean up selenium contamination caused by Teck’s mines,” Conacher’s complaint said.

A statement from Sabrina Kim, the director of communications for Wilkinson, said: “Minister Wilkinson takes his obligations as a public office holder seriously. The Minister has fully and consistently adhered to all of the requirements under the Conflict of Interest Act and the Conflict of Interest Code for Members of Parliament.”

The Democracy Watch complaint noted Wilkinson’s current portfolio and past roles as minister and parliamentary secretary since December 2015, “always in the areas of natural resources and the environment.”

The government has been without an ethics commissioner for six months. If an interim or full-time commissioner is appointed by the Trudeau cabinet, Conacher said that person should recuse themself from investigating Wilkinson. 

“This complaint letter is about one of ministers in the Trudeau cabinet,” the letter said. 

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For the week of Aug. 20, 2023: 

The PNE Fair is back at full-strength, after three years of reduced capacity due to the pandemic. The 113th edition of the summertime tradition runs through Labour Day. Mir Huculak, Ukraine’s honorary consul in Vancouver, is one of the biggest fans of the fair. He has seen 74 of them and joins host Bob Mackin on this week’s podcast. 

Plus, hear from Premier David Eby and Emergencies Minister Bowinn Ma on the Kelowna wildfires. 

Plus Pacific Rim and Pacific Northwest headlines. 

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Anne Kang, the NDP minister in charge of B.C.’s economic immigration program, announced Aug. 16 that the government had opened an account on Weibo, a Chinese language social media service sometimes compared to Twitter. 

But Charles Burton, a former diplomat at Canada’s embassy in Beijing, called it “irresponsible to the extreme.”

NDP MLAs Henry Yao (left), George Chow and Anne Kang (CCSA/Lahoo)

“Serving Canadians in their native languages should be through Canadian social media with the data derived stored securely on servers in Canada,” said Burton, a China analyst with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute think tank, pointing to privacy and national security concerns.  

By the the time it announced the verified account, the B.C. government had 1,100 followers and 47 posts about public safety, emergency preparedness, cost of living, housing, education, health care and justice services. The move comes almost six months after B.C. followed Ottawa’s lead and banned the TikTok video app from government devices for security reasons.

“Weibo is not being downloaded to or used from any government assets such as computers or cell phones,” said a statement from Kang’s Ministry of Municipal Affairs. “A third-party contractor is responsible for day-to-day account administration – at arm’s length from government.” Vancouver-based marketing agency Catalyst Agents, a Weibo, WeChat and TikTok specialist, is the contractor, with a maximum $42,000 value. 

The Ministry of Municipal Affairs estimates 11% of B.C.’s population counts Chinese as the first written language and Weibo has an estimated 800,000 users in Canada, out of 600 million worldwide every month. An account is not needed to view the content, but the government recommended account-holders review and understand Weibo’s privacy conditions. 

“But we know thousands of people in B.C. do use Weibo to stay up to date on current events and news, and it’s critical that we reach people with information that’s accessible to them in their preferred language – for example about things like health care or wildfires,” the ministry said. 

A leader of the Vancouver Society in Support of Democratic Movement, which advocates for democracy and human rights in China, called it disturbing. 

“In the name of ‘providing service’, this would be another opportunity for agents of the [Chinese Communist Party] to infiltrate Canadian society, and to try to influence the views of overseas British Columbian-Chinese,” said Mabel Tung.

It is not the NDP government’s first foray into Chinese social media. During former Premier John Horgan’s 2018 China trade mission, he visited with executives from Tencent, owner of WeChat, to sign a tourism promotion agreement for the Destination B.C. Crown corporation.  

“It will give B.C. a preferred marketing platform on the messaging social media app, which attracts over 900 million daily active users — making it one of the largest in the world,” the government boasted in 2018.

A professor at McGill University’s School of Information Studies said it is understandable why the B.C. government is on Weibo and WeChat, but there are potential negative consequences. 

Benjamin Fung, the Canada research chair in datamining for cybersecurity, said the Chinese government can use algorithms to restrict the reach of B.C. government posts.

B.C. government Weibo account (BC Gov/Weibo)

“Instead of recommending a post to 10,000 people, they can just show it to 100 people. If they do not want you to see something, it will not appear on your list while you are browsing,” Fung said.

Weibo is also useful in tailoring a foreign interference strategy, he said. “The participation of the B.C. government on these platforms provides a wrong signal to the general public that these platforms are safe to use.”

More than two years before China’s foreign interference in Canadian elections and intimidation of politicians became one of the biggest national news stories, the Liberal Public Safety minister at the time told a House of Commons committee that Canadians should be wary of using China-based social media apps. 

“I would say yes, there is a legitimate concern that sometimes the information that’s publicly available on those platforms can be used by the hostile activities of state actors, and some caution should be exercised,” Bill Blair testified at the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations in February 2021. 

In the June 2021 “Buying Silence: The Price of Internet Censorship in China” report, the Washington, D.C.-based Jamestown Foundation estimated China budgeted US$6.6 billion in 2020 to govern online public opinion and dispose what it deemed “harmful” online opinion through its Cyberspace Affairs Commissions.

“To do so, they monitor posts on platforms such as WeChat and Weibo, as well as foreign social media, including Facebook and Twitter. CACs also employ teams of network commentators—internet trolls collectively referred to as the ’50 Cent Party,’ to ‘guide the trend of public opinion’ inside and outside the country,” the report said.

In 2012, then-Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson became one of the first western politicians with an account on Weibo, which became a key strategy in marketing Vancouver as a destination for tourists and real estate investors. 

Robertson’s office hired a consultant from a Beijing company called Flow Creative to prepare content and identify and contract key influencers to promote the Mayor’s account. 

Kang, who was first elected in 2017 to represent Burnaby-Deer Lake, is originally from Taiwan. She raised eyebrows in January as the senior B.C. government official at the pro-Beijing Canadian Community Service Association Lunar New Year banquet in Richmond’s River Rock Show Theatre. Kang and fellow NDP MLAs George Chow and Henry Yao were seated at the head table with local Chinese diplomats, across from Rongxiang “Tiger” Yuan, the president of the Canada-China Friendship Promotion Association who had a career in China’s People’s Liberation Army.

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Bob Mackin 

Vancouver East NDP MP Jenny Kwan, one of the targets of China’s foreign interference campaign, is sponsoring a new online petition to the House of Commons aimed at passing a foreign influence and transparency registry. 

E-petition e-4534, initiated by Winnie Ng of Toronto, calls upon the House of Commons to pass such a law expeditiously during the fall session, develop a strategy to eradicate systemic racism and develop a public education strategy to promote civil engagement and democratic participation.

Jenny Kwan in the House of Commons (ParlVu)

In a June interview, Kwan said that the Liberal government was not moving fast enough. 

“The more you send the message that the government is not taking this in the way it needs to, that doesn’t do Canada any good,” said Kwan, who has represented the federal riding since 2015. “The whole thing about foreign interference, of course, is that they want to undermine our democratic process, and to create chaos in our system. If we allow for this to continue, then they win.”

The new e-petition is the response to an earlier campaign that opposed a foreign agents registry, which was launched by a purported anti-racism activist, sponsored by a Liberal MP from Ontario and backed by pro-China Senators Yuen Pau Woo and Victor Oh. 

Critics of that petition, which drew 2,450 supporters, said it conflated the centennial of the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923, a law that excluded nearly all categories of Chinese from moving to Canada until 1947, with calls in 2023 for a foreign agents registry to reduce the risk of any country seeking to intimidate or coerce Canadians. 

“As an ‘evergreen’ target of foreign interference, it is critical that every effort is made to uncover the extent to which foreign interference has impacted Canada’s political processes and electoral system,” Kwan said. “The threat of foreign interference is real and safeguarding the Charter rights of every Canadian is paramount.”

The earlier petition exceeded the minimum 500 supporters needed for tabling in the House of Commons. It was spearheaded by Ally Wang of Coquitlam, who co-founded the Stop Anti-Asian Hate Crimes Advocacy Group Association of Canada (SAAHCAG) and the Chinese Canadians Goto Vote Association (CCGVA). Wang appeared at a June 24 rally on Parliament Hill with Oh and Woo, where organizers bused-in hundreds of people and told them not to wave Chinese flags or sing patriotic Chinese songs. 

While Wang and co-founder Ivan Pak claimed CCGVA is non-partisan, some of its sign-waving, T-shirt wearing supporters gathered with Liberal Parm Bains before election day in 2021 and displayed Bains’ campaign signs in Steveston. 

Bains upset Kenny Chiu, the Conservative incumbent in Steveston-Richmond East who originally proposed the foreign agents registry and voted to condemn China for committing genocide against Uyghur Muslims. Chiu was the subject of a disinformation campaign on Chinese language social media that wrongly said his private member’s bill seeking a foreign agents registry would make Chinese second class citizens in Canada. A leaked report from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service indicated Chinese diplomat Tong Xiaoling boasted of helping defeat Chiu. 

The new petition went live on Aug. 16 with a deadline of Oct. 16. 

Supporters of the new e-petition, from the Vancouver Society in Support of Democratic Movement and Toronto Association for Democracy in China, officially launched their campaign Aug. 18 in Toronto. 

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Bob Mackin  Vancouver East NDP MP Jenny Kwan,

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