‘Cautiously Optimistic’: Ex-MP Who Paid the Price for Championing Foreign Agent Registry Welcomes New Legislation

Former chief of the Asia-Pacific Unit at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Michel Juneau-Katsuya waits with former member of Parliament Kenny Chiu to appear before the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics about foreign interference, in Ottawa on March 31, 2023. The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld

Former Tory MP Kenny Chiu says he welcomes the Liberal government’s proposed legislation to create a foreign agent registry, though he says it should have come sooner. Mr. Chiu, who previously introduced a similar bill, became a target of foreign interference and disinformation campaign in the 2021 election, which he lost.

“I’m cautiously optimistic because I’ve been saying the foreign influence registry is the lowest-hanging fruit. It’s the easiest [mechanism] that we could introduce without infringing on any Canadians’ freedoms and rights to engage in political activities,” Mr. Chiu, who represented Steveston—Richmond East in B.C. from 2019 to 2021, told The Epoch Times on May 7. That was a day after the Liberal government introduced Bill C-70, an Act Respecting Countering Foreign Interference.