Hundreds in Toronto’s Chinese community are being offered money and a free bus ride to Ottawa to join a protest on Parliament Hill “to protect our legal rights and interests.” While the event is advertised as marking the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Exclusion Act, some organizers have talked about the issue as part of a larger movement to oppose measures such as the proposed foreign agent registry act.
According to one of the organizers, about 28 buses will be transporting protesters from the Toronto area to the nation’s capital on Saturday, June 24, in the morning, and organizers are offering each participant a $15 “lunch subsidy” in the form of a Walmart gift card, The Epoch Times has learned.
One of the buses taking protest participants to Ottawa, preparing to take off from the Richmond Hill, Ont., area on the morning of June 24, 2023. (The Epoch Times)
One of the buses taking protest participants to Ottawa, preparing to take off from the North York area of Toronto on the morning of June 24, 2023. (The Epoch Times)
Buses arrive with protest participants in Ottawa on June 24, 2023. (The Epoch Times)
Some details about the arrangements have been posted on WeChat, including the bus coordinators’ phone numbers and the meeting places for taking the bus.
Shortly after The Epoch Times first reported on this issue, the organizers told participants to say they didn’t receive any money to attend the event, and that they’re not supporting petition e-4395, which opposes the creation of a foreign agent registry. The organizers also told participants not to display Chinese flags or say any “red slogans.”
A section dedicated to the “624” (June 24) event on the main website advertised on the poster of the event includes posts encouraging people to sign petition e-4395.
A woman named Yao Zhang, who runs an “anti-communist” channel on YouTube, interviewed one of the participants while livestreaming the event. The participant told Zhang on video that they received a $15 gift card while on the bus coming from Toronto to Ottawa, as well as food and water.
At one point in the video Zhang said she wants Canada to enact a foreign agent registry, at which point a man appeared to hit her in the arm area and Zhang’s phone dropped from her hand.
A screenshot from the website advertised on the poster of the event. The section of the website, dedicated to the June 24 event, asks people to sign petition e-4395 against the creation of a foreign agent registry.
Poster of the June 24 event, showing the website they want participants to visit.
Protest
Sen. Victor Oh said at a June 12 event in Montreal that he and Sen. Yuen Pau Woo will be leading the demonstration in Ottawa to oppose “anti-Chinese sentiment” as they commemorate the 100th anniversary of Canada’s introduction of the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923. The act is commonly known as the Chinese Exclusion Act because it resulted from an effort to stop Chinese immigration.
As reported by The Epoch Times, Oh said he is planning to rent 50 buses to take 3,000 people from the Toronto area to the protest in Ottawa. He also called on Montreal residents to actively join the effort to oppose the creation of a foreign agent registry.
Oh told the audience that they should “stand up” for the sake of the next generation. In the same speech, he said that a foreign agent registry is a “disguised Chinese Exclusion Act” that will be used to suppress future generations.
Oh and Woo were also featured at a May 28 event in Montreal in which the Chinese consul general delivered a speech. The event featured talks about the Chinese Immigration Act as well as the need to oppose the creation of a foreign registry act.
In a Twitter post on March 10, Woo also said it’s time to “speak out” against any proposed foreign registration act.
“100 years ago, as part of the #ChineseExclusionAct, Canada forced all Chinese people in the country to register or face deportation. How can we prevent this registry from becoming a modern form of Chinese exclusion?” Woo wrote. “Time to speak out.”
The two senators are active in promoting petition e-4395 which says that a foreign agent registry “poses a serious harassment and stigmatization risk for racialized communities.” Woo confirmed to The Epoch Times that he drafted the petition.
Foreign Agent Registry
The federal government recently held public consultations on establishing a foreign influence transparency registry to tackle foreign interference activities on Canadian soil. Allegations have increasingly come to light in recent months, which include meddling by Beijing in the past two federal elections and the operation of at least seven covert Chinese police stations in Canada.
Canadian parliamentarians have proposed at least two pieces of legislation to counter foreign interference. Bill S-237, introduced in February 2022 by Sen. Leo Housakos, is at second reading in the Senate but hasn’t received government support. An earlier bill, C-282, was introduced in the House by former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu in April 2021, in the previous Parliament.
Neither bill mentions any specific country to be targeted. Chiu told The Epoch Times in a previous interview that neither mentions “China” or “Chinese” since a foreign influence registry is meant to comprehensively address interference attempts by all authoritarian regimes.
“The communist Chinese regime has been weaponizing nationalism and hijacking the anti-Asian racism topics,” Chiu said previously.
Chiu, who was defeated in his B.C. riding of Steveston–Richmond East in the September 2021 election, told the House ethics committee in March that he was the target of a disinformation campaign by Beijing during the election due to his support of the foreign agent registry.
Busing People to Ottawa
Buses used to transport Hu Jintao supporters to a rally on Parliament Hill in 2010 sit parked in downtown Ottawa. A driver with Transport St. Leonard bus company said his company had sent 26 buses, each loaded with 72 passengers. (The Epoch Times)
In 2010 when then-Chinese leader Hu Jintao was visiting Canada, the Chinese Embassy and pro-Beijing groups organized a rally in Ottawa to welcome him and also to block dissidents and human rights organizers protesting the Chinese regime.
As reported exclusively by The Epoch Times at the time, the organizers arranged dozens of buses to bring members of the Chinese community from the Toronto area and Montreal to Ottawa, covering the cost of hotel, travel, and food.
Toronto Area Bus Pickup
In total, 11 bus pickup locations in the Toronto Area were arranged.
Notably, one of the coordinators named Mary Zhang uses a phone number that’s identical to one that had been used earlier by Amanda Yeung Collucci, Ward 6 city councillor of the City of Markham—a connection first reported by Twitter user Laura Love.
Collucci used the number as part of her contact information when she launched a “personal protection equipment donation campaign” as city councillor during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a March 2020 report by Chinese-language media ccpeople.ca.
Zhang declined to respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.
Councillor Collucci says the phone number belongs to a resident in her ward named Mali Zhang who had reached out and “asked my support as her ward councillor” in launching the donation campaign.
“[Mali Zhang] has moved out from my ward and we have no contact with each other since last year,” Collucci told The Epoch Times in an email statement on June 22.
Editor’s note: This article was updated on June 24 with additional updates.
