As polls tighten in Canada’s pivotal federal election, a Chinese-language website has published multiple editorials suggesting that a Pierre Poilievre government could threaten Chinese Canadian interests with so-called “anti-China” policy clauses—claiming it could bring “inconvenience to the lives of Chinese people, such as restrictions on the use of social media, reductions in return air tickets, etc.”

During the 2021 federal election, then-Conservative leader Erin O’Toole and MP Kenny Chiu were widely attacked with similar arguments across Chinese-language news and social media. CSIS reporting from 2022, cited exclusively by The Bureau, warned that Chinese-language media in Canada is effectively controlled by Beijing and weaponized during election periods to spread Chinese Communist Party-aligned narratives.

One of the new articles also criticizes Prime Minister Mark Carney’s debate remark that Beijing poses the greatest threat to Canada’s national security—a comment that prompted the Chinese-language editorial to question whether Carney’s statement was “a gimmick to attract attention.”

The articles, published Thursday and Friday by 51.ca, have raised deep concern among some community members. One longtime Chinese Canadian journalist, who requested anonymity due to fear of retaliation, told The Bureau they were alarmed by the messaging and suspected the coverage was driven by election-interference motives.

One of the pieces claimed that “the Conservative Party has written anti-China clauses into the party platform,” referencing a prior story that quickly circulated on Chinese-language social media and triggered fearful discussion.

Citing WeChat commentary on the same article, the journalist pointed specifically to a politically connected figure previously associated with CSIS investigations into election interference networks in the Greater Toronto Area—allegedly tied to clandestine funding channels linked to the Chinese Consulate in Toronto.

Sharing a WeChat forum screen-picture, the diaspora journalist noted:

The journalist said the messaging is not only inflammatory, but dangerously manipulative—casting the Conservative Party as a threat to the civil rights and safety of Chinese Canadians, while exploiting historical trauma to provoke fear.

The same 51.ca article—while quoting from the Conservative Party’s platform documents—shifts sharply into misleading commentary. It contrasts the party’s current positions with historical discrimination enacted by the Liberal government of the 1920s.

One of the recent 51.ca articles warns that the Conservative Party’s stance “can easily cause ethnic tensions and even exacerbate anti-China sentiment.”

A second article delivers a similar critique of Conservative policy while also taking aim at Prime Minister Mark Carney, who, in last night’s nationally televised debate, stated:

“I think the biggest security threat to Canada is China.”

That comment, consistent with assessments from Canadian intelligence services and allied Five Eyes partners, was immediately seized upon by 51.ca’s editorial board.

“Carney blurted out that China is Canada’s biggest threat. Is this a deep-rooted idea or a gimmick to attract attention? It is not known yet. But what is certain is that when other party leaders are talking about how to deal with the problems facing Canada itself, Carney is talking about China being the enemy. I really don’t know what’s going on in his mind.”

Both 51.ca articles strategically focus their sharpest criticism on the Conservative Party, portraying its platform as existentially dangerous, while the second treats Carney’s one-line debate comment as a moment of rhetorical overreach.

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Emily Kopp

President Donald Trump could sign a sweeping executive order banning gain-of-function research — research that makes viruses more dangerous in the lab — as soon as May 6, according to a source who has worked with the National Security Council on the issue.

The executive order will take a broad strokes approach, banning research amplifying the infectivity or pathogenicity of any virulent and replicable pathogen, according to the source, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the anticipated executive action. But significant unresolved issues remain, according to the source, including whether violators will be subject to criminal penalties as bioweaponeers.

The executive order is being steered by Gerald Parker, head of the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, which has been incorporated into the NSC. Parker did not respond to requests for comment.

In the process of drafting the executive order, Parker has frozen out the federal agencies that have for years championed gain-of-function research and staved off regulation — chiefly Anthony Fauci’s former institute, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.

The latest policy guidance on gain-of-function research, unveiled under the Biden administration in 2024, was previously expected to go into effect May 6. According to a March 25 letter cosigned by the American Society for Microbiology, the Association for Biosafety and Biosecurity International, and Council on Governmental Relations, organizations that conduct pathogen research have not received direction from the NIH on that guidance — suggesting the executive order would supersede the May 6 deadline.

The 2024 guidance altered the scope of experiments subject to more rigorous review, but charged researchers, universities and funding agencies like NIH with its implementation, which critics say disincentivizes reporting. Many scientists say that researchers and NIH should not be the primary entities conducting cost–benefit analyses of pandemic virus studies. 

Parker previously served as the head of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), a group of outside experts that advises NIH on biosecurity matters, and in that role recommended that Congress stand up a new government agency to advise on gain-of-function research. Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield has also endorsed moving gain-of-function research decision making out of the NIH to an independent commission.

“Given the well documented lapses in the NIH review process, policymakers should … remove final approval of any gain-of function research grants from NIH,” Redfield said in a February op-ed.

It remains to be seen whether the executive order will articulate carveouts for gain-of-function research without risks of harm such as research on non-replicative pseudoviruses, which can be used to study viral evolution without generating pandemic viruses.

It also remains to be seen whether the executive order will define “gain-of-function research” tightly enough to stand up to legal scrutiny should a violator be charged with a crime.

Risky research on coronaviruses funded by the NIH at the Wuhan Institute of Virology through the U.S. nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance typifies the loopholes in NIH’s existing regulatory framework, some biosecurity experts say.

Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act in 2023 indicated that EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak submitted a proposal to the Pentagon in 2018 called “DEFUSE” describing gain-of-function experiments on viruses similar to SARS-CoV-2 but downplayed to his intended funder the fact that many of the tests would occur in Wuhan, China.

Daszak and EcoHealth were both debarred from federal funding in January 2025 but have faced no criminal charges.

“I don’t know that criminal penalties are necessary. But we do need more sticks in biosafety as well as carrots,” said a biosecurity expert who requested anonymity to avoid retribution from his employer for weighing in on the expected policy. “For instance, biosafety should be a part of tenure review and whether you get funding for future work.”

Some experts say that it is likely that the COVID-19 crisis was a lab-generated pandemic, and that without major policy changes it might not be the last one.

“Gain-of-function research on potential pandemic pathogens caused the COVID-19 pandemic, killing 20 million and costing $25 trillion,” said Richard Ebright, a Rutgers University microbiologist and longtime critic of high-risk virology, to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “If not stopped, gain-of-function research on potential pandemic pathogens likely will cause future lab-generated pandemics.”