A public petition aimed at opposing the creation of a foreign agent registry in Canada has closed with less than 2,500 signatures despite the strenuous efforts to promote it by some groups that have historically backed Beijing’s aggressive policies.
Petition e-4395 closed on July 13, with a total of 2,450 signatures, as first reported by Blacklock’s Reporter. The petition was launched by Coquitlam, B.C., resident Li Wang, and was sponsored in the House of Commons by Liberal MP Chandra Arya.
Sen. Yuen Pau Woo previously confirmed to The Epoch Times that he had helped draft the petition.
“A registry is a misleading way to identify sources of foreign influence. It is difficult to distinguish between positive and malign foreign influence, which goes well beyond agents who are acting for foreign governments,” the petition said.
“Also, a foreign influence registry poses a serious harassment and stigmatization risk for racialized communities.”
By comparison, other petitions related to rights garnered significantly more signatures. A petition that called for the enablement of legal Canadian voters to propose or repeal federal legislation garnered more than 40,000 signatures.
A petition that collects at least 500 signatures is certified by the clerk of petitions and introduced in the House of Commons, according to the Parliament procedure and practice. The government is required to provide a response within 45 days of the petition’s introduction.
Promotions
Sen. Victor Oh, along with Sen. Woo and Mr. Arya, actively worked with some Chinese-Canadian communities to promote petition e-4395 in the months after its launch. The two senators attended a number of events across the country and were reportedly telling Chinese diasporas that a foreign agent registry would be harmful to them and their future generations.
Conservative Sen. Victor Oh in a file photo. (Becky Zhou/The Epoch Times)
Montreal Chinese Consul General Dai Yuming spoke at one of these events on May 28, hosted by the Montreal Chinese Community United Centre (MCCUC), while the two senators attended by teleconference. The MCCUC website lists 60 Chinese groups that “co-organized” the event in Montreal. Several of these organizations helped promote petition e-4395 through their own social media channels.
Sen. Woo has been vocal against attempts to establish a foreign agent registry, speaking out against it in the Senate and on social media. He has also conflated the foreign agent registry with Canada’s history of banning Chinese immigrants through the Chinese Immigration Act, also known as the Chinese Exclusion Act, which was introduced in 1923.
“100 years ago, as part of the [Chinese Exclusion Act], 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? ... Time to speak out,” he wrote on Twitter on March 10.
Sen. Oh and Mr. Arya didn’t respond to multiple inquiries from The Epoch Times.
In response to a request for comment from The Epoch Times regarding the May 28 event in Montreal, Sen. Woo said he was “pleased” to support the organizers and looked forward to attending other similar events.
While delivering a speech at an event held in Montreal on June 12, Sen. Oh likened a foreign agent registry to a “disguised Chinese Exclusion Act.” The event aimed to promote a protest at Parliament Hill to mark the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Exclusion Act while highlighting the need to push back against a foreign agent registry.
The two senators led the demonstration on June 24 to oppose “anti-Chinese sentiment.” However, after media reported on Sen. Oh pledging to rent 50 buses to transport protesters from the Toronto area, and that participants would be offered a $15 “lunch subsidy,” the organizers told participants to say they didn’t receive any money to attend the event. The participants were also instructed to say that they were not supporting petition e-4395 and to avoid displaying Chinese flags or saying any “red slogans” during the demonstration.
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.
The organizer of the demonstration at Parliament Hill on June 24 also promoted petition e-4395 on its website.
Legislation
E-4395 came in response to the federal government’s public consultation on creating a foreign influence transparency registry. Ottawa launched the public consultation in March, after months of media reports about Beijing’s meddling in Canadian federal elections and its operation of secret police stations on Canadian soil, among other activities of foreign influence.
In a May 16 commentary, published in Policy Options magazine, Sen. Woo claimed that there was a “frenzy of innuendo against Chinese Canadian politicians.”
“The recent media reporting of anonymous and unsubstantiated ‘intelligence’ reports has created a frenzy of innuendo against Chinese Canadian politicians, scholars and community leaders all in the name of national security,” he wrote. “A combination of ignorance, ideological zeal, fear, group think and political cowardice has created the very conditions under which a foreign influence registry is most dangerous, and why we need to warn against it.”
Sen.Yuen Pau Woo denounces RCMP allegations of Chinese government interference in Canada as community organizer May Chiu looks on during a news conference at the Chinese Family Service center in Montreal, on May 5, 2023. (The Canadian Press/Ryan Remiorz)
Sen. Woo published his article after Ottawa expelled a Chinese diplomat in Toronto for targeting Michael Chong, a Conservative MP of Chinese ancestry, by threatening his family members in Hong Kong. Mr. Chong was targeted by Beijing due to his opposition to the regime’s abuse of Uyghur Muslims. Another MP of Chinese ancestry, NDP Jenny Kwan, also revealed in May that the intelligence department had informed her that she has been a CCP target for many years due to her criticism of the regime.
Parliamentary efforts to create a foreign agent registry in Canada have been ongoing for over two years. Legislations proposed have not targeted any specific ethnicity or people of a certain ancestry.
In the current session of Parliament, Conservative Sen. Leo Housakos presented Senate Bill S-237 seeking to create the registry, but so far the bill has not received government support. In 2021, then-Conservative MP Kenny Chiu introduced a private member’s bill, C-282, seeking to establish a foreign agent registry act, but the bill never reached second reading before summer break, and an election was called in August that year.
Should a foreign agent registry be enacted, individuals advocating for a foreign state will be required to register their activities or face fines or jail time.
