Column in the Ottawa Citizen - Foreign influence a fact in Canada

July 10, 2010

As victims of the Chinese Communist regime's interference and influence in Canada, Falun Gong practitioners' experience in the past 11 years corroborate the comments about foreign influence made by CSIS director Richard Fadden, and also match the patterns and tactics described by Chen Yonglin, a former Chinese diplomat.

In 2005, Chen Yonglin, first secretary and consul for political affairs, defected from the Chinese consulate in Sydney and exposed the Chinese regime's mandate for all Chinese embassies and consulates worldwide to influence government officials, mobilize Chinese students and the Chinese community, and control the Chinese media to influence public policy. Chen revealed that the tactics include putting pressure on western government officials and exchanging political benefits by economic means. He stated that one of the most effective methods used to influence political leaders is to provide them with all-expenses-paid travel to China and lavish entertainment.

He stated they also regularly promoted the private business ties of some Australian political leaders.
He also said, "The control of the overseas Chinese community has been a consistent strategic objective of the Chinese Communist Party as a way to penetrate into the mainstream of the host country. It's not just in Australia." It is done this way in countries such as the U.S. and Canada, too.
Some examples in Canada are as follows:

• In May this year, media reported that Ottawa Mayor Larry O'Brien, upon return from a business trip to China, refused to proclaim Falun Dafa Day as he had done in previous years because he said he "made a commitment."

It was construed that he made a commitment to Chinese officials during his trip to China. City council later bypassed the mayor to proclaim Falun Dafa Day.

• In 2009, at the Montreal Caribbean festival, Falun Dafa's Tian Guo Marching Band was invited to join the parade. However, then-Montreal city councillor Marcel Tremblay asked the president of the festival to kick out the band.

  The president refused. Tremblay had been an active participant of Chinese embassy-organized events.

• In 2005 the Globe and Mail detailed extensively how the City of Toronto and many councillors were being targeted by the Chinese consulate and its agents to follow the party line on how Falun Gong and other groups unfavoured by the communist regime should be treated in Toronto.

  Chen Xiaoling, the Chinese consul general in Toronto, wrote to city councillors, and the mayor asking the city not to hold a Falun Dafa Day. She wrote that if the motion is passed it "will have a very negative effect on our future beneficial exchanges and cooperation." The motion did not pass.

• To call for an end to the persecution in China, Vancouver Falun Gong practitioners set up a vigil in front of the Chinese consulate in 2001. Since then, the City of Vancouver has been under pressure to remove the vigil. Sam Sullivan, elected mayor in 2005, after being "treated like an emperor" on a visit to China, took on as his responsibility to have the display board removed.

  Sullivan admitted that he had never even read the bylaw which he sought to invoke as the vehicle to remove this thorn in the side of the Chinese Communist Party.

• These examples show there is cause for alarm for Canadian citizens that our democratic values, freedom and principles can be eroded by foreign influence.

• When Fadden exposed this issue he, in fact, raised awareness of a threat that could seriously harm Canadian sovereignty and democracy if left unchecked.

Canadian democracy is under subtle invasion from a totalitarian regime. This is the core issue deserving attention.

Source: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/Foreign+influence+fact+Canada/3259798/story.html#ixzz0tKeKdiVE