OTTAWA, Canada—Canadians should be wondering why their elected officials are not asking the nation’s spy boss about the dangers of foreign regimes controlling their politicians.
That’s the opinion of a former chief of strategic planning at Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)—the Canadian equivalent of the CIA—following a parliamentary committee that grilled CSIS Director Richard Fadden over comments he made in a controversial interview where he said some Canadian elected officials are under foreign influence.
Former chief, David Harris, is also one of Canada’s leading experts on terrorism. Harris watched the committee on Monday and left with concerns over why politicians barely touched the substance of Fadden’s remarks, instead focusing almost exclusively on the political implications of what he said.
Harris said the lack of interest in whether foreign regimes were infiltrating Canada’s basic democratic institutions was a sad commentary on the state of some parliamentarians.
“Are we finding our basic public policy, political, foreign policy, trade, economics subject to manipulation by foreign agents? That should be the big question. It wasn’t especially addressed at this meeting and Canadians should be concerned about the reasons for that.”
Fadden faced tough questions and calls for his resignation on Monday over comments he made in an interview with the nation’s public broadcaster on the eve of Chinese leader Hu Jintao’s visit to Canada. In his comments, the spy boss said some politicians, including two provincial Cabinet members, were suspected of being under the influence of a foreign regime.
He also said Canadians of various ethnicities could be used in such efforts and singled out China as the country most aggressive in recruiting political prospects starting at the university level.
Fadden also said some politicians and public servants have a long-standing relationship with Chinese operatives and have no idea they are being used to advance Beijing’s interests.
When asked if he thought he owed an apology to the Chinese community, Fadden replied “no” saying cases were extremely rare and those people being used to gather intel were the victims.
“I don’t think they are the problem, I think the foreign power is the problem.”
Some members of Parliament from the Bloc Quebecois, a separatists party that aims for the political secession of Quebec from Canada, expressed particular outrage at Fadden, accusing him of sullying the reputation of Canada’s entire political class, a statement Fadden said was exaggerated.
While a motion to call for Fadden’s dismissal was rejected because it required debate, the chair suggested the committee would reconvene for that discussion. It is not clear if they will undertake a detailed review of foreign influence.
In the United States, two congressional commissions examine China and issue an annual report to Congress. No such equivalent exists in Canada.
It was only toward the end of the hearing, and in a few rare moments, that parliamentarians directed themselves toward the issue of foreign influence.
MPs from the governing Conservatives and official opposition Liberals, the two dominate parties in Canada, both brought up the example of the Russian ring recently broken up in the United States.
That spy ring included undercover Russian agents posing as Canadians. The U.S. Justice Department says the group was instructed to “search and develop ties in policymaking circles in [the] U.S.”
The group worked to ingratiate itself with former politicians, financiers, government officials, and others in positions of power and influence, a phenomena remarkably similar to that laid out by Fadden.
Fadden said the intelligence agency decided to voice concerns over foreign influence because the issue is too often overlooked. He told MPs that if not for his most controversial remarks, his warning would not have brought them back from summer break for a hearing.
“We do not as a country often reflect on threats relative to espionage, terrorism, and foreign interference. I would argue it is good public policy for Canadians to be more attuned to the threats the country faces.”
In a press conference following the hearing, Chinese dissidents commended Fadden for speaking out on the issue.
“Falun Gong practitioners have been the target of the Chinese regime’s interference and influence for over 10 years,” said Lucy Zhou of the Falun Dafa Association of Canada (also known as Falun Gong). Zhou listed a string of occurrences where politicians seemed to advocate on the Chinese regime’s behalf after returning from a trip to China.
Wenzhuo Hou, a one-time visiting fellow at Harvard Law School who has testified as an expert witness before the U.S. Congressional Executive Commission on China, said that the regime recalculated its foreign policy strategies following the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, using an often hidden and multifaceted approach to establish long-term infiltration program in countries around the world.
“This is a long-term project called ’transforming by raindrops,' meaning change the West by subtle and imperceptible means,” she said.
Before leaving China, Hou founded an NGO called Internal Migrant Workers Legal Aid and Research Center (IMW) and was a researcher and consultant for UNICEF in Beijing. She says Beijing has spent billions of dollars in its effort to infiltrate and influence Western democracies. Both Hou and previous CSIS reports have identified Chinese state news agency, Xinhua, as a leading component of that effort.
In 2009, Dr. Ross Terrill, a China specialist and Research Associate at Harvard’s Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, told the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission of other efforts the Chinese regime used to influence U.S. foreign policy, including making “healthy donations” to Western think tanks.
“Self-censorship, which is a daily necessity for journalists in China, also occurs in diluted form among American editors, academics, and others dealing with China. Folk worry about their next visa, their access to a sensitive area like Xinjiang for research, or take a Beijing point of view because of largesse available for their project from the Chinese side,” he said.
The commission’s report that year echoed Canada’s former intelligence chief Jim Judd, who called China the most aggressive country conducting espionage.
The U.S. report also cited the Chinese regime’s efforts to influence commentary about China and U.S.-China relations from U.S. academics and think tanks through offering rewards, like special access to interviews and documents, and punishments, like denying visas.
“These rewards and punishments offer the Chinese government leverage over the careers of foreign scholars and thereby encourage a culture of academic self-censorship.”
That’s the opinion of a former chief of strategic planning at Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)—the Canadian equivalent of the CIA—following a parliamentary committee that grilled CSIS Director Richard Fadden over comments he made in a controversial interview where he said some Canadian elected officials are under foreign influence.
Former chief, David Harris, is also one of Canada’s leading experts on terrorism. Harris watched the committee on Monday and left with concerns over why politicians barely touched the substance of Fadden’s remarks, instead focusing almost exclusively on the political implications of what he said.
Harris said the lack of interest in whether foreign regimes were infiltrating Canada’s basic democratic institutions was a sad commentary on the state of some parliamentarians.
“Are we finding our basic public policy, political, foreign policy, trade, economics subject to manipulation by foreign agents? That should be the big question. It wasn’t especially addressed at this meeting and Canadians should be concerned about the reasons for that.”
Fadden faced tough questions and calls for his resignation on Monday over comments he made in an interview with the nation’s public broadcaster on the eve of Chinese leader Hu Jintao’s visit to Canada. In his comments, the spy boss said some politicians, including two provincial Cabinet members, were suspected of being under the influence of a foreign regime.
He also said Canadians of various ethnicities could be used in such efforts and singled out China as the country most aggressive in recruiting political prospects starting at the university level.
Fadden also said some politicians and public servants have a long-standing relationship with Chinese operatives and have no idea they are being used to advance Beijing’s interests.
When asked if he thought he owed an apology to the Chinese community, Fadden replied “no” saying cases were extremely rare and those people being used to gather intel were the victims.
“I don’t think they are the problem, I think the foreign power is the problem.”
Some members of Parliament from the Bloc Quebecois, a separatists party that aims for the political secession of Quebec from Canada, expressed particular outrage at Fadden, accusing him of sullying the reputation of Canada’s entire political class, a statement Fadden said was exaggerated.
While a motion to call for Fadden’s dismissal was rejected because it required debate, the chair suggested the committee would reconvene for that discussion. It is not clear if they will undertake a detailed review of foreign influence.
In the United States, two congressional commissions examine China and issue an annual report to Congress. No such equivalent exists in Canada.
It was only toward the end of the hearing, and in a few rare moments, that parliamentarians directed themselves toward the issue of foreign influence.
MPs from the governing Conservatives and official opposition Liberals, the two dominate parties in Canada, both brought up the example of the Russian ring recently broken up in the United States.
That spy ring included undercover Russian agents posing as Canadians. The U.S. Justice Department says the group was instructed to “search and develop ties in policymaking circles in [the] U.S.”
The group worked to ingratiate itself with former politicians, financiers, government officials, and others in positions of power and influence, a phenomena remarkably similar to that laid out by Fadden.
Fadden said the intelligence agency decided to voice concerns over foreign influence because the issue is too often overlooked. He told MPs that if not for his most controversial remarks, his warning would not have brought them back from summer break for a hearing.
“We do not as a country often reflect on threats relative to espionage, terrorism, and foreign interference. I would argue it is good public policy for Canadians to be more attuned to the threats the country faces.”
In a press conference following the hearing, Chinese dissidents commended Fadden for speaking out on the issue.
“Falun Gong practitioners have been the target of the Chinese regime’s interference and influence for over 10 years,” said Lucy Zhou of the Falun Dafa Association of Canada (also known as Falun Gong). Zhou listed a string of occurrences where politicians seemed to advocate on the Chinese regime’s behalf after returning from a trip to China.
Wenzhuo Hou, a one-time visiting fellow at Harvard Law School who has testified as an expert witness before the U.S. Congressional Executive Commission on China, said that the regime recalculated its foreign policy strategies following the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, using an often hidden and multifaceted approach to establish long-term infiltration program in countries around the world.
“This is a long-term project called ’transforming by raindrops,' meaning change the West by subtle and imperceptible means,” she said.
Before leaving China, Hou founded an NGO called Internal Migrant Workers Legal Aid and Research Center (IMW) and was a researcher and consultant for UNICEF in Beijing. She says Beijing has spent billions of dollars in its effort to infiltrate and influence Western democracies. Both Hou and previous CSIS reports have identified Chinese state news agency, Xinhua, as a leading component of that effort.
In 2009, Dr. Ross Terrill, a China specialist and Research Associate at Harvard’s Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, told the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission of other efforts the Chinese regime used to influence U.S. foreign policy, including making “healthy donations” to Western think tanks.
“Self-censorship, which is a daily necessity for journalists in China, also occurs in diluted form among American editors, academics, and others dealing with China. Folk worry about their next visa, their access to a sensitive area like Xinjiang for research, or take a Beijing point of view because of largesse available for their project from the Chinese side,” he said.
The commission’s report that year echoed Canada’s former intelligence chief Jim Judd, who called China the most aggressive country conducting espionage.
The U.S. report also cited the Chinese regime’s efforts to influence commentary about China and U.S.-China relations from U.S. academics and think tanks through offering rewards, like special access to interviews and documents, and punishments, like denying visas.
“These rewards and punishments offer the Chinese government leverage over the careers of foreign scholars and thereby encourage a culture of academic self-censorship.”
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