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For the week of March 12, 2023: 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau continues to resist calls for a public inquiry into the Chinese Communist Party’s interference in Canadian elections and is taking his time to ponder a registry for foreign government lobbyists.

Fenella Sung of the Friends of Hong Kong (Mackin)

Trudeau said March 6 that he plans to hire an “eminent Canadian” to investigate and asked two national security committees to conduct reviews. Human rights advocate Fenella Sung of the Canadian Friends of Hong Kong says those half measures announced will prolong the harm to Canadian institutions. She said a full, independent inquiry is necessary, including how Canadian political parties are funded and operated. 

“I doubt anything will come out before the next election, but that’s exactly the situation we don’t want to see,” Sung told thePodcast host Bob Mackin. “We’ve already got doubts about the 2019 and the 2021 election, not about the result, but about the process, about whether any interference has affected or compromised our democracy. The last thing you want is to have Canadians to go to the polls for the election, next time, and have this doubt in the mind.”

On this edition of thePodcast, hear Mackin’s full interview with Sung. 

Plus: Martin Kendell of Clean Up Burnaby on the controversial proposal to build a green waste plant on sensitive parkland and headlines from the Pacific Northwest and Pacific Rim.

CLICK BELOW to listen or go to TuneIn or Apple Podcasts.

Now on Google Podcasts!

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For the week of March 12, 2023:  Prime

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Bob Mackin

Fraud was detected within the last year at 61% of the B.C. government organizations polled by Auditor General Michael Pickup.

Michael Pickup, B.C.’s new auditor general (Nova Scotia)

The most common incidents were theft of physical assets (43%), misappropriation of company funds (22%) and information theft, regulatory or compliance breach and internal financial fraud (17% each). 

Pickup’s staff surveyed 23 organizations representing 86% of government assets for the Fraud Risk and Financial Statements: B.C. Public Sector, Part 1 report, which was published March 7. 

“Fraud is a lot more than stealing money or cash out of the drawer,” Pickup told reporters. “There’s many facets to what constitutes fraud. So we have to think of fraud in that broader context.”

Pickup found more than two in 10 organizations polled had not assessed the need for fraud risk management training for staff and 9% had not assigned a senior manager to oversee fraud risks. More than a third did not have a dedicated fraud risk management policy and almost four in 10 organizations did not have ways and means of identifying and documenting fraud risks.

The Office of the Auditor General asked Crown corporations, agencies, universities, health boards and school boards to self-report. They ranged from B.C. Housing, B.C. Lottery Corporation and B.C. Liquor Distribution Branch and BC Hydro to the Burnaby and Surrey school boards, University of B.C., Vancouver Coastal Health Authority and Community Living B.C. 

A similar survey gauging fraud risks in ministries is forthcoming, Pickup said. 

Pickup’s report, however, did not name names. 

“There are findings in here that organizations can look at and say, okay, why aren’t we doing this? Does this make sense that we’re not doing it? Here’s what other organizations may be doing,” Pickup said.

B.C. Legislature.

Pickup found that one organization had no fraud risk management policies at all, while another said it did not have all incidents of fraud and corrective reviewed by senior executives and senior management. 

The report also did not mention any specific incidents. 

Pickup’s office is the auditor for five of the 23 organizations polled. One of those is the Provincial Health Services Authority, which employed a fake nurse at B.C. Women’s Hospital in 2020 and 2021. 

Brigitte Cleroux was charged in late 2021 with fraud over $5,000 and personation with intent. She is serving a seven-year jail sentence in Ontario. 

Pickup’s office also audits BC Hydro. In April 2022, he found the NDP-appointed board did not formally assess the potential for fraud at the $16 billion Site C dam project until after his staff began to investigate. 

The Tuesday-released survey did not include the Legislative Assembly. Disgraced former clerk Craig James was convicted last May of fraud and breach of trust for using taxpayers’ money to buy personal clothing. He was sentenced to a month of house arrest followed by two months under curfew. 

Also not included was the Ministry of Children and Family Development. Former social worker Robert Riley Saunders was jailed for five years in 2002. He used a fraudulent university degree to get the job and then deprived Indigenous clients of $460,000.

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Bob Mackin Fraud was detected within the last

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Bob Mackin

Burnaby’s Christine Sinclair, the greatest soccer player Canada has produced, said the “most painstaking battle” for national team players has been with their own federation.

Christine Sinclair on Parliament Hill, March 9 (OurCommons/ParlVu)

“As a team, we do not trust Canada Soccer to be open and honest as we continue to negotiate for not only fair and equitable compensation and treatment, but for the future of our program,” Sinclair testified March 9 to the House of Commons Canadian Heritage committee. 

Sinclair was joined in Ottawa by teammates Janine Beckie, Quinn, and Sophie Schmidt for the hearing, part of the ongoing, all-party investigation of the governance of federally funded sport organizations.

Sinclair said soccer in Canada is at a crossroads. The men’s team played last fall in a World Cup for the first time in 36 years and is co-hosting the next men’s World Cup in 2026. Meanwhile, the Canadian women’s team is the reigning Olympic champion and is bound for the Women’s World Cup this summer in Australia and New Zealand. 

Yet, the four players noted that Canada has no professional women’s soccer league, they get no royalties from merchandise sales and must go public with their collective bargaining grievances in order to get the CSA’s attention. Players announced a strike last month over program cuts, but relented when the CSA threatened to sue them. 

Sinclair said the CSA has long refused to provide full details of its finances and compensation. In 2021, the CSA reported $5.03 million in revenue from player registration fees, $4.7 million from government grants and $18.25 million in commercial and other fees. Yet, it spent $11.03 million on the men’s teams but only $5.09 million on women’s. The CSA does not disclose how much it pays executives or details on its supplier and sponsor contracts. 

CSA acting president Charmaine Crooks (NSB)

Players on the women’s national team were shocked to learn in 2021 that players on the men’s team were paid five times more. 

“For many years we’ve been forced to negotiate in the dark. Canada Soccer’s approach has reflected a culture of secrecy and obstruction,” Sinclair told the Members of Parliament. 

At the end of February, president Nick Bontis resigned after losing confidence of provincial soccer association presidents. West Vancouver’s Charmaine Crooks, a former International Olympic Committee member, was promoted from vice-president to acting president. Sinclair said she welcomes a woman in the top role. However, she said Crooks, a member of the board since 2013, has not communicated directly to the players. 

“During her tenure, she has shown nothing to the women’s national team that proves that she’s there fighting for us,” Sinclair said. “In fact, since she’s been elected president, she has not reached out, and, in fact, her first action involving the women’s national team was to release that statement earlier today, which I found to be highly inappropriate in terms of the timing of it and the way that was done.’

That statement came a couple hours before the committee meeting, an apparent pre-emptive move by the CSA to claim it is solving the pay dispute. 

CSA claimed that the Canadian women’s team would become the second-highest paid among all of FIFA’s 211 member associations, only behind the U.S. national team.

FIFA vice-president Victor Montagliani (Mackin)

Players for men’s and women’s senior national teams would be offered $3,500 per-match, plus win bonuses of up to $5,500 per player, depending on the rank of the opposing team. Each team would receive $1.15 million for World Cup qualification and other incentives. 

Sinclair also told the committee that she believes former CSA president and current FIFA vice-president Victor Montagliani should be called to testify. She also wants the committee to obtain the CSA’s agreement with Canadian Soccer Business, which the committee has already demanded to see. The private company behind the Canadian Premier League and OneSoccer streaming service receives the CSA’s marketing and broadcast royalties and reportedly pays the CSA a fee of $3 million to $4 million a year. 

“It shocks me,” said committee chair Hedy Fry (Liberal, Vancouver Centre). “When we heard earlier on with Hockey Canada, and now we’re hearing again, that the places where we send our young children to learn how to be team players, to learn how to have courage and resilience, and to go for it, seems to have so little transparency and accountability. All of them.” 

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Bob Mackin Burnaby’s Christine Sinclair, the greatest soccer

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Bob Mackin

A Vancouver Provincial Court judge has reserved decision on whether to sentence a Pakistani climate change protester to jail for repeatedly blocking traffic in Vancouver and Richmond and reneging on his promises to stop.

Muhammad Zain Ul Haq, a Pakistani national outside the North Fraser Pretrial Centre (Save Old Growth)

Muhammad Zain Ul Haq, 22, pleaded guilty to five charges of mischief for his role in illegal Extinction Rebellion road and bridge blockades in 2021 and one charge of breaching a release order for the August 2022 Stop Fracking Around protest on the Cambie Bridge. 

Crown prosecutor Ellen Leno asked Judge Reginald Harris last month to send Haq to jail for 90 days and impose 18 months probation. On March 9, Haq’s lead defence lawyer, Ben Isitt, argued for a conditional discharge. 

Isitt urged Harris to be lenient and heed the words of B.C. Supreme Court Justice Douglas Thompson, the judge in the Fairy Creek contempt hearings. Isitt said Thompson called the anti-logging protesters “altruistic and compassionate” people who were not oblivious to the importance of the rule of law, but “decided that these desperate times call for desperate measures.” 

Isitt, who is based in Victoria, was joined in court by another of Haq’s lawyers, John Kingman Phillips of the Toronto firm Waddell Phillips.

Haq briefly addressed Harris, explaining that he wanted to change tactics and be involved in legal protest campaigns. He cited his involvement in the Simon Fraser University hunger strike threat in late 2021 that prompted the university to commit to divesting from fossil fuels by 2025.

“Moving forward, my intention is to limit my actions to those types of activities, in order to bring about change,” Haq said. 

Haq briefly mentioned his climate change doomsday theory, but did not, as other guilty protesters did, apologize to the court. 

Leno told the court that Haq minimized his role in the pre-sentence report when he claimed to be a spokesperson rather than protest leader. She said he did not take responsibility for his full culpability and made a “bald assertion” that he has gained some insight, after three times in custody in 2022. The first of which was nine days in North Fraser Pre-Trial Centre in February 2022 for contempt of court after an anti-Trans Mountain Pipeline protest.

Provincial Court Judge Reginald Harris (Langara/YouTube)

“He had an opportunity to speak to the court today, he did not, which many of the others have, take the opportunity to acknowledge and address the harm to the community or to the rule of law,” Leno said.

Canada Border Services Agency held Haq in custody last June for violating the terms of his visa to study at SFU. He faces deportation and a one-year ban on returning to Canada. 

A pre-sentence report by probation officer Kim Kirby concluded that Haq took responsibility for his actions and recognized “that radical activism is not productive on many levels.”

The report said Haq’s mother Haida is a doctor and father Aijaz a newspaper employee. He attended private school for Grades 10 to 12 in Pakistan. He became an outspoken atheist and was compelled to protest after 2013 monsoon floods in Pakistan, which officially killed 80 and left tens of thousands homeless. 

Haq began studies at SFU in 2019 in economics, but switched to history. He was employed by Save Old Growth from December 2021 until the June 2022 CBSA arrest, currently resides with activists Quetzo Herejk and Janice Oakley and receives “a couple hundred dollars a month from family for incidentals.”

Haq’s student visa was to expire on Feb. 13. He has been unable to study or work and is required to report to CBSA twice a week. 

“Zain relates that although he continues to be passionate about the ‘environmental movement,’ and ‘climate emergency,’ he now recognizes that it is not wise to be engaged in civil disobedience. He conveys that he lost sight of his academic pursuits and prioritized climate issues,” said Kirby’s report. 

Court heard that should Haq succeed in overturning his deportation on compassionate and humanitarian grounds, he has a job waiting for him at a prominent environmental charity. 

In a letter to the court, Tzeporah Berman from Stand.earth said she would “personally… facilitate Zain’s acceptance into my organization/campaigns that are lobbying governments via legal means.”

Ian Schortinghuis on June 13 at the Massey Tunnel (Save Old Growth/Twitter)

Berman turned her activism against Clayoquot Sound logging 30 years ago into a career and is one of 56 people on staff with the organization, which reported US$8.67 million in revenue to U.S. tax authorities in 2021.

“He would be a valuable member of our team in a position as an organizer of public events, doing research and developing strategic plans on critical environment issues that need to be brought forward,” wrote Berman.

In January 2022, Haq and four others incorporated Eco-Mobilization Canada, a federal not-for-profit behind the Extinction Rebellion splinter group Save Old Growth. Haq had boasted last August in the New York Times that Save Old Growth received US$170,000 in grants from the California-based Climate Emergency Fund.

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Bob Mackin A Vancouver Provincial Court judge has

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Kitsilano Point residents didn’t get a say on Vancouver city hall’s 120-year deal to service the cluster of residential towers to be built on the Squamish Nation reserve around the Burrard Bridge’s south side. 

But the B.C. Utilities Commission (BCUC) sent the application for a $26 million district energy system at Senakw to public review because it proposes building under civic infrastructure and connecting to the regional district’s utility.

B.C. Utilities Commission (BCUC)

The decision sparked a rebuke from the chair of the Squamish Nation council, who accused the regulator of ignoring the band’s wishes and demanded an audience with the commission. 

“We remain steadfast in our belief that a public consultation and review process on this project is not warranted and represents a serious infringement of our right to self-government, with the potential to set a harmful precedent, and a further affront to the Crown’s treatment of our peoples in the past history of this land,” wrote Dustin Rivers, aka Khelsilem, on Jan. 19. “However, the Nation has decided at this time to not seek a reconsideration of the commission’s decision given the need to obtain timely approvals of the energy system to meet our financing commitments.”

The federally approved project to build 11 towers over four phases is a partnership between the Squamish Nation’s Nch’kay Development Corp. and Westbank Projects Corp. Westbank is also the parent of Creative Energy, whose Creative Energy Senakw LP (CESLP) filed the October application for a certificate of public convenience and necessity to heat and cool the seven buildings in the first two phases of the project. 

The application included a June letter from Peter Baker, Squamish Nation director of rights and title, that asked Creative Energy senior vice-president Kieran McConnell to not consult the public. Baker wanted McConnell to seek an exemption from the typical process due to the Squamish Nation’s sovereignty and jurisdiction. 

Architect’s rendering of the proposed Westbank development on Squamish Nation land near the Burrard Bridge (Senakw.com)

Baker’s letter said consultation was also unnecessary, because the utility infrastructure and service area would be contained within the parcel of land officially known as Kitsilano Indian Reserve No. 6.

A BCUC tribunal disagreed, opening the door to interveners and letters of comment from individuals, organizations and groups. 

“Given the lack of public consultation prior to this application, the panel considers that there may be additional interests and stakeholders to consider,” said the Nov. 30 decision. “The panel, therefore, finds that an opportunity for affected parties to participate in the hearing is required, and there is a need for additional evidence to determine whether the application can and should be approved as being in the public interest; therefore, additional process is warranted.”

The Residential Consumer Intervener Association registered in early January. Last Friday, the commission announced a schedule for written submissions through May 25. 

The CESLP application noted that the civic services agreement required the low-carbon district energy system, which the BCUC describes as an “electrified energy system that provides cooling with electric chillers… and provides heating with captured waste heat from the cooling equipment and reclaimed heat from a Metro Vancouver main sewer line using high-temperature heat pumps.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with Squamish Nation’s Dustin Rivers (left) and Wilson Williams (pm.gc.ca)

Also in its application, CESLP said it had the financial capacity to fund the project through shareholders Westbank Holdings Inc., Instar Asset Management Inc. and third party debt. Nch’kay was reviewing an option to acquire up to 50% ownership of CESLP, but any interest greater than 20% would require BCUC approval. 

Kits Point Residents Association and two of its directors filed Oct. 5 for a judicial review in B.C. Supreme Court. They want a judge to quash the Senakw services agreement because the city negotiated and approved it behind closed doors. City of Vancouver says it acted properly under the Indian Self-government Enabling Act and the Vancouver Charter. 

In 1913, the province removed Kitsilano reserve inhabitants by barge, after offering the 20 family heads $11,250 each, contrary to the Indian Act. Eighty-seven years later, in 2000, Squamish Nation ceded 60 acres of Kitsilano Point to the federal government in a $92.5 million land claims settlement. 

Five B.C. Court of Appeal judges unanimously agreed in 2002 to return 10.5 acres of land to the Squamish Nation that had been expropriated for the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1886 and 1902. 

Band members voted in 2019 to partner with developer Westbank to build on Senakw after an expert report estimated cashflow of as much as $12.7 billion. 

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Bob Mackin Kitsilano Point residents didn’t get a

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Negotiators for Vancouver city hall and the Squamish Nation discussed keeping the services agreement for the Senakw development secret.

Dustin Rivers (aka Khelsilem), Mayor Kennedy Stewart and Coun. Christine Boyle on May 25, 2022 (Twitter)

Documents from closed-door Vancouver city council meetings, filed in response to the Kits Point Residents Association (KPRA) application for B.C. Supreme Court judicial review, include a July 2021 report from a city hall manager. Major terms of the agreement were substantially complete, except for whether to make it public.

“While council provided earlier direction to make the entire services agreement available to the public, the Squamish Nation’s position is that the agreement should remain confidential, with only a short, high-level summary of the key terms to be made public,” wrote Ben Pollard, the director of business planning and project support.

In June 2021, Toby Baker was CEO of Nch’kay Development Corp. (NDC), the Squamish Nation company behind the development on 4.7 hectares of Kitsilano Indian Reserve 6. He wrote to city manager Paul Mochrie to emphasize the confidentiality of the service agreement. 

“As the city recognizes and accepts, we are a fourth level of government within the federal and provincial framework, however our primary obligation is to our band members and council,” Baker wrote. “This service agreement, while it is between our respective governments, is ultimately a private business arrangement which would normally not be open to public view.”

Baker conceded the city has a duty to inform taxpayers, so he proposed a short list of five general “talking points” that the city could release without revealing sensitive financial terms. 

Pollard’s report included a sample, three-page summary of the service agreement that the parties were considering instead of publishing the full contract. The summary omitted financial terms.

The issue was eventually settled with an “open government and transparency” clause, but not the city’s standard Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act wording. The 250-page, 120-year agreement released publicly last July 29 spells out how Senakw will connect to the city’s water and storm sewers, sidewalks, roads, bike lanes and public transit, and who pays for what. Squamish Nation’s development partner Westbank began work last summer on the first phase of an envisioned four-phase, 11-tower residential complex around the south side of the Burrard Bridge. 

Senakw (Westbank/Nch’kay)

Then-Mayor Kennedy Stewart and Squamish Nation council chair Dustin Rivers, aka Khelsilem, signed the agreement at a May 25 on-site photo op. Pollard’s affidavit includes a copy of an escrow agreement that Rivers signed the previous day with Mochrie and city solicitor Francie Connell for Squamish Nation law firm McCarthy Tetrault to keep the document secret until at least June 3 while it underwent further review and negotiation. 

The city’s court filings say it continued to negotiate final terms until July 19. The agreement was quietly added to the city website on the eve of B.C. Day long weekend. No public announcement was made.

KPRA and two of its directors, Eve Munro and Benjamin Peters, filed for a judicial review on Oct. 5 in B.C. Supreme Court. They want a judge to quash the agreement because the city negotiated and approved it in secret. Residents were not given the opportunity to be heard at an open city council meeting, allegedly violating procedural fairness and natural justice, according to the KPRA filing.

The city maintains it acted properly under both the Indian Self-government Enabling Act and the Vancouver Charter and council has authority to pass resolutions behind closed doors. 

The reports provide a glimpse into difficult aspects of negotiations. For instance, the Squamish Nation’s original stance on land rights claimed the Burrard Bridge was trespassing on reserve land.

“The nation has proposed a contribution of continued use and access to the Burrard Bridge and rights of way on parts of the surrounding streets,” said the internal city report. “Because this element is rife with legal, historical and financial sensitivities, significant effort has been exerted to create a position to which both the city and the nation can agree.” 

Both sides acknowledged the bridge as an essential piece of regional infrastructure and the Squamish Nation committed that development would not cause any detrimental impacts to the bridge.

In the final version, the parties explicitly acknowledged different positions on ownership and legal access rights and reserved “all existing legal rights (actual or alleged)” to the bridge, street utilities and assets. 

An appendix lists $48.43 million of costs estimated for 15 street, bike lane, sewer and seawall projects, mostly paid by the Squamish Nation. Of that, $15 million is the estimate to build a transit hub on the bridge.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a $1.4 billion loan at the Sept. 6 groundbreaking ceremony through Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to finance half the units in the first two phases.

Before Squamish Nation members voted in 2019 in favour of the 50-50 partnership with Westbank, they received an expert report that estimated the project could generate as much as $12.7 billion in cashflow for the band and developer. 

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Bob Mackin Negotiators for Vancouver city hall and

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Richmond real estate and immigration lawyer Hong Guo is banned from practising law for a year. 

A March 1 decision by the Law Society of B.C. Tribunal’s five-member Review Board rejected the Law Society’s bid to strip Guo of her licence.

Richmond 2018 Mayoral candidate Hong Guo

The Law Society found in November 2021 that Guo committed professional misconduct by misappropriation, breaching trust accounting obligations, failing to properly supervise her bookkeeper, and breaching an undertaking and a Law Society order.

Guo had alleged that bookkeeper Zixin “Jeff” Li took $7.5 million from her firm’s trust accounts for 100 clients in 2016, laundered the cash at a casino and fled to China.

The society found that Guo had signed blank trust cheques and left them with Li before departing on a two-week vacation in March 2016. 

“The bookkeeper was able to orchestrate the theft by crediting fake deposits to a trust account ledger he had set up in a former conveyancing assistant’s name, thereby inflating the apparent balance available for withdrawal,” the 2021 ruling said. 

The Review Board decided that Guo would not be disbarred due to exceptional circumstances, even though she created the circumstances that led to the theft. 

“[Guo] was essentially caught between a rock and a hard place,” said the new ruling. “Whether she took any steps or not, many of her clients’ pending transactions were adversely impacted by the massive theft.”

The misappropriations only occurred in response to the $7.5 million theft and were done to prevent losses to her clients. 

“[Guo] took steps to make her clients whole, including having employee defalcation insurance, asking the Law Society for help and through counsel pursuing the insurer to pay out the claim, which it eventually did after an 18-month delay,” said the ruling. “The Law Society has not alleged, and no hearing panel found, the respondent is ungovernable; and there is no evidence the respondent was dishonest with her clients about her misappropriations.”

By early 2018, Guo had deposited $2.6 million of family money and $4 million from the insurance policy to repay the trust account. The Law Society issued the citation against Guo in September 2018.

The Review Board still had harsh words for Guo. It called the current practice supervision agreement ineffective and said Guo has continued to downplay the pre-theft misconduct and focused on the theft as the underlying problem for her misappropriations and breaches. 

Richmond lawyer Hong Guo announced her run for Mayor of Richmond last June.

The panel also rejected Guo’s arguments that she suffered a breach of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 

“Although the impact of discipline of a racialized lawyer on a marginalized group of the public may be a mitigating factor in certain circumstances, those circumstances do not arise here.”

The decision set March 8 as the beginning of Guo’s 12-month suspension. Before resuming her career as a lawyer, Guo must also enter, and comply with, a practice supervision agreement acceptable to the Law Society’s practice standards committee.

Guo is also ordered to pay costs and disbursements of $47,329.44 at a rate of $1,000-a-month beginning April 1. 

Guo originally came to Canada in 1993 and studied law at the University of Windsor. She worked in the State Council in China’s central government and was called to the B.C. bar in 2009. Guo finished fourth in the Richmond mayoral election in 2018 after an interview with theBreaker.news in which she denied the existence of China’s well-documented human rights abuses.

Guo was represented by Craig Jones, the Thompson Rivers University law professor who became counsel to Premier David Eby last November. 

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Better late than never to ban TikTok from federal government devices and investigate whether the video sharing app meets Canadian privacy laws, says an expert on Chinese social media companies. 

But Benjamin Fung, a professor in the School of Information Studies at McGill University, says WeChat should have been included.

Prof. Benjamin Fung (McGill/YouTube)

“If you talk about the intrusiveness of the app, WeChat is even worse,” Fung said.

Fung said Chinese-Canadians find WeChat, a popular social media, instant messaging and digital wallet app, useful to communicate with friends and family across the Pacific. It can also help new Canadians learn where to apply for a driver’s licence or social insurance number. But there is also a dark underside that can undermine Canadian institutions and values.  

“During the critical moments, like elections, then those communities will be used as a channel to spread disinformation,” Fung said. 

In January 2022, Fung and Sze-Fung Lee co-authored a Policy Options analysis of the 2021 defeat of Conservative MP Kenny Chiu in the Steveston-Richmond East riding. A disinformation campaign spread on WeChat, that falsely claimed Chiu’s proposal for a foreign agents registry would apply to anyone of Chinese ethnicity. Globe and Mail’s coverage of a leaked Canadian Security Intelligence Service report about the election reinforced Fung’s analysis. 

In May 2020, the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto’s “WeChat, They Watch” report looked  at how WeChat functions within China’s state surveillance and censorship regime. But the report’s authors revealed that parent company Tencent ignored questions about WeChat privacy policies. Tencent was “unwilling to provide any assistance or information above and beyond helping us use this tool: our more specific data access request questions were never acknowledged, let alone responded to.”

In early January, Ohio banned its state workers from using both TikTok and WeChat. By mid-month, similar bans, mainly targeting TikTok, were announced by a total 27 states. U.S. President Joe Biden has expanded the TikTok prohibition to federal devices. 

(TikTok/Douyin)

During a Feb. 23 conference in Vancouver, the privacy commissioners of Canada, Quebec, B.C. and Alberta announced a joint investigation of TikTok’s handling of personal information, including whether children’s privacy is at risk. A representative of B.C. commissioner Michael McEvoy said WeChat would not be examined, but offered no reason.

The privacy commissioners cited U.S. class action lawsuits and media reports about TikTok. Last June, BuzzFeed reported on leaked audio recordings from internal TikTok meetings that proved China-based employees of parent company ByteDance repeatedly accessed non-public data about users in the U.S.

On Feb. 27, Treasury Board President Mona Fortier gave federal workers one day’s notice to remove TikTok from government devices. She cited security risks, but said there was no evidence yet of government information being compromised. 

B.C. Citizens’ Services Minister Lisa Beare followed Fortier’s lead and announced a temporary TikTok ban on B.C. government devices “as we continue to examine the risks associated with the app.”

For the wider public, Fortier said social media apps and platforms are a personal choice, but echoed the Communications Security Establishment’s caution to put personal security before convenience and consider where data is stored.

WeChat/Tencent

Fung said TikTok users are vulnerable to inadvertently sharing information on their devices, including passwords. Despite ByteDance claiming that U.S.-housed data is safe, its workers in China are legally obliged to cooperate when the Chinese government demands to see data.

“It’s just like a Chinese company wearing a mask, and then pretending to be an American company,” Fung said. “So if there’s strong evidence showing that the engineer in China can access the data data in Canada, or in America, then then the privacy commissioner should look into that very closely.”
Fung said TikTok is built on a very powerful “recommender system,” a machine learning algorithm running that helps decide what the user sees. 

“This tool has the power to change people’s perception on some particular issues,” Fung said.

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Bob Mackin Better late than never to ban

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For the week of March 5, 2023: 

It is the biggest political scandal out of Ottawa in 2023, so far.

Terry Glavin (Twitter)

A leaked report from Canada’s spy agency confirms China’s government meddled in Canada’s last two federal elections, helping flip two Richmond ridings from the Conservatives to the Liberals. 

Conservative and NDP members on a House of Commons committee want a public inquiry. Liberal members don’t. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his inner circle are bobbing and weaving, deflecting and denying. What did he know and when did he know it? 

Terry Glavin, National Post columnist and The Real Story Substack publisher, joins host Bob Mackin on this week’s edition of thePodcast to discuss the Chinese Communist Party’s influence over Canada’s so-called “natural governing party.” 

“He’s clearly hiding something, and what he’s hiding is that the Liberal Party in the Chinese communities and the United Front hierarchy, the Mandarin bloc, is the same thing,” Glavin said. “It’s one and the same.”

Has Canada reached the tipping point with Xi Jinping’s China? What next? Listen to the full interview. 

Plus commentary and Pacific Northwest and Pacific Rim headlines.

CLICK BELOW to listen or go to TuneIn or Apple Podcasts.

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For the week of March 5, 2023:  It

Business, News

Bob Mackin

Premier David Eby says he is not waiting for action from the federal government to continue his ongoing battle against money laundering in B.C.

Premier David Eby (left) with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on March 1 at Kwantlen Polytechnic (BC Gov)

On March 1, shortly after Eby’s healthcare funding photo op with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the B.C. Prosecution Service announced a special prosecutor secretly appointed almost a year ago decided not to charge Paul King Jin for money laundering and other 2017 offences. It brought a screeching halt to one of the biggest investigations in the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit’s history. 

Eby had used his power as Attorney General in November 2021 to order Assistant Deputy Attorney General Peter Juk to retain a special prosecutor after Crown counsel earlier concluded that the case against Jin would not likely result in a conviction. Eby believed prosecution was in the public interest.

However, special prosecutor Chris Considine reached the same conclusion about the case, code named E-Nationalize. Considine blamed gaps in the federal Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act and the absence of a link between Jin’s cash and true criminal activity, as opposed to unlicensed activity.

“Regrettably, the challenge of proving a viable predicate offence, given the wording of the current legislation, combined with the complexity of an enormous data set in a foreign language [Mandarin], have conspired to make the prospects for conviction poor, despite the best efforts of many dedicated officers,” Considine concluded in his Wednesday-released report.

Eby did not respond to a direct request for comment, but referred it to press secretary Jimmy Smith, who delivered a prepared statement late Wednesday afternoon. 

Paul King Jin (second from right) and Tourism Minister Lisa Beare (second from left) on Aug. 27, 2019 at World Champion Gym in Richmond (Mackin)

“In relation to this case, the attorney general [Niki Sharma] has received the recommendations made by the special prosecutor and I join her in thanking the B.C. Prosecution Service for their diligent work,” said Eby’s statement. “Our government remains committed to working with the federal government to ensure federal law can properly respond to the challenge of money laundering. 

“We support [Considine’s] recommendation that propose changes to the criminal code to expand the tools available for prosecutors to successful convict money launderers but we are not simply going to wait for federal action. In the coming months, we will be tabling legislation that will allow the seizure of property and luxury cars that are likely the result of proceeds of crime and corruption.”

The province isn’t finished alleging that Jin has benefited from the proceeds of crime. Last summer, a fourth civil forfeiture action was launched against Jin in B.C. Supreme Court, aimed at seizure of Jin’s real estate.

The province may be in a better position to succeed under a lower burden of proof after last month’s Court of Appeal decision in the Director of Civil Forfeiture’s watershed quest to seize three Hells Angels clubhouses in East Vancouver, Nanaimo and Kelowna. 

The appeal tribunal ruled that the clubhouses “constituted instruments of unlawful activity” and are subject to forfeiture. The verdict overturned a 2020 B.C. Supreme Court decision by a judge who said there was not enough evidence the clubhouses were used for criminal activity. 

Nonetheless, Considine’s decision is politically embarrassing in the wake of the nearly $19 million Cullen Commission public inquiry into money laundering. Commissioner Austin Cullen had focused heavily on Jin’s casino and real estate exploits in his final report and called E-Nationalize “a groundbreaking investigation into a sophisticated money laundering operation.”

Commissioner Austin Cullen (Cullen Commission)

Cullen had granted Jin’s lawyer, Greg DelBigio, participant status to question witnesses at the public inquiry. But the commission lawyers never called Jin to testify. 

A related investigation, which also involved Jin, was called E-Pirate and it began in February 2015. Caixuan Qin and Jian Jun Zhu, the two principals of a Richmond underground bank called Silver International, were set to stand trial, but the charges against them were stayed in November 2018 after errant disclosure of a police informant’s name. 

Zhu was murdered in a Richmond sushi restaurant in September 2020 while seated next to Jin. Jin survived his injuries. Yuexi “Alex” Lei and Richard Charles Reed were charged with first-degree murder. 

Cullen’s June 15-published final report made more than 100 recommendations. In October, the province replaced the Mortgage Brokers Act with new regulations for brokers, lenders and administrators, giving new licensing powers to the B.C. Financial Services Authority. 

Little else has happened. Two of the marquee recommendations were to hire an anti-money laundering commissioner and create a dedicated, provincial money laundering intelligence and investigation unit.

During the six years after E-Nationalize was announced, Jin’s case also took a few plot twists that were politically embarrassing to the NDP.

Tourism, Art, Culture and Sport Minister Lisa Beare announced kickboxing deregulation in August 2019 in, of all places, Jin’s Richmond boxing and mixed martial business, World Champion Gym. She posed for a group photo with Jin and his wife, Xiaoqi Wei, and appeared surprised when a reporter pointed out Jin. 

“This was a venue chosen through the athletic commissioner’s office as a possible venue, and that [Jin’s ownership and attendance] is news to me,” Beare said.

Pursued by a reporter, Jin tried to refer questions to his lawyer, but eventually relented. “Nobody who charged me, nothing, four years already. I work hard and teach young people to work hard in Canada,” Jin said. 

In July 2020, the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General licensed Blackcore Security and Investigations, a new company co-founded by Jin’s son, Jesse Xin Jia. Blackcore’s address was the same as World Champion Gym.

The next month, the Director of Civil Forfeiture filed a lawsuit to seize the gym, calling Jin the true owner of Warrior Fighting Dream Ltd., which bought the property at No. 5 and Dyke roads in June 2016. Blackcore quietly closed later in 2020. 

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