Trish Wood is Critical

Trish Wood

This clip of Andrew Coyne represents journalistic malpractice but represents what many of our “elites” are thinking. They hate ordinary Canadians and populism. They have no clue what many voters are actually upset about.

I was awake part of the night thinking about how awful this election campaign is. And not just because I am terrified that Mark Carney will win. No — it feels like we’ve crossed a threshold and there is no turning back. Ten years of Trudeau’s division, his utilizing of the culture and woke wars to make us hate each other. Ten years of Conservatives either firing back and keeping the war going or pretending to go along to maintain popularity with a propagandized population. This is the definition of a sick society. As I said, I will vote Conservative but I’m not going to exhale after I do it.

There are virtually no sincere appeals to reuniting the country after the COVID-19 debacle, Freedom Convoy, or any of the other politicized events that encircle our tribes. I’ve told you many stories about this reality.

Dinner parties have become almost impossible to navigate with important topics off-limits. What’s left? Movies, streaming series and sports. In between bursts of conversation there are heavy silences between people who love each other but reside in different conversational realities. This is the fault of pols and media. Full stop.

This clip of Andrew Coyne represents journalistic malpractice but represents what many of our “elites” are thinking. They hate ordinary Canadians and populism. They have no clue what many voters are actually upset about. Carney himself said he was returning to Canada to “end populism.”

I just want my country back. Let me tell you a story.

In 1989, I was dispatched to Kuujjuaq, a tiny, freezing and somewhat desolate town in Northern Quebec. Scientists had just published a shocking study showing that Inuit mothers were testing positive for PCBs in their breast milk. How could this be in such a remote, non-industrialized village?

The Inuit mothers had been chosen as a pristine control group to study against PCB presence in mothers residing in Southern Quebec, near industry. The findings were completely unexpected and I was sent to report on them by the great James Cullingham, my boss at As It Happens.

I arrived at the tiny airport with my recording gear and was welcomed by the locals who set me up at a lodge. We couldn’t have been more different but I was treated kindly as someone who’d come from the CBC to help publicize their plight.

How did they become contaminated, way up there? It turns out PCBs travel in the blubber of animals that swim through polluted waters. Seal fat, which was a mainstay of the local diet is riddled with PCB’s dumped into the St. Lawrence hundreds of miles away.

Here is where it gets interesting — a day I will never forget. The local chiefs were meeting to choose a brand new word in Inuktitut to describe what they were dealing with. It seems the concept of PCB contamination was so foreign, they had to add to their lexicon to even discuss it and I was invited to attend.

I felt like an intruder from the rapacious south witnessing a tragedy that we’d inflicted on these sturdy, welcoming people. But they were gracious and open as they struggled to find a solution.

I left feeling grateful to be Canadian; to work at CBC and to have experienced the lives of others who shared this once-great land. I am nostalgic for a Canada, full of good will, even in times of tragedy — that no longer exists.

Meanwhile — the Liberal campaign and its supporters are reduced to looking for MAGA “dog whistles” at Poilievre events while at the same time being outed for “finding” MAGA buttons at a Conservative gathering in Ottawa.

We aren’t talking about Big Things or Inspiring Things. Or what we share as a people. We have been deceived. Pitted against each other and fleeced of our natural affinity for other Canadians, no matter how different. Canadian voters are victims of a home invasion robbery — perpetrated by legacy media and our gutless political class who play along for what some of them wrongly believe are high-minded reasons.

In the meantime, Mark Carney is clearly fixing to ban X and other websites that threaten his temple of deceit. For this reason alone, he must not win. But we are all losers regardless of the outcome.

This is perhaps the scariest clip of the campaign. They have failed at everything. The economy, COVID-19, retaining a semblance of democracy….but they have successfully brought us to the brink of collapse and separation. And their solution is to not fix it, but prevent us from talking about it.

Stay critical.

Thanks #truthovertribe

Howard Shen, a senior Liberal organizer and former president of the Jiangsu Commerce Council of Canada—now under scrutiny after Prime Minister Mark Carney falsely denied meeting the group during his January leadership campaign—is seen in a pandemic-era video delivering PPE alongside Liberal MP Majid Jowhari to the council’s president, Rui Jiang, in what appears to be a Chinese Communist Party–coordinated operation.

It is one of many concrete pieces of evidence emerging from a years-long investigation by The Bureau into the JCCC’s structure and leadership, exposing a significant overlap between this pro-Beijing business group and the Liberal Party of Canada itself.

After The Bureau first revealed that Peter Yuen, Mark Carney’s handpicked Liberal candidate to replace Paul Chiang in Markham–Unionville, had ties to pro-Beijing networks in Toronto, The Globe and Mail confirmed that Yuen held the title of honorary director of the JCCC, a group with documented links to Beijing’s United Front Work Department. The Bureau’s review of the JCCC’s activities suggests it functions as an elite platform for the Chinese Communist Party’s overseas trade messaging inside Canada.

While campaigning to replace scandal-weakened Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Carney met with JCCC leaders during a high-profile Lunar New Year event in Toronto. The group’s website described Carney’s entry into politics as “an important turning point in the upgrading of China–Canada relations.”

But when confronted by The Globe with web posts documenting the meeting, Carney flatly denied it occurred. “I’ve never heard of this group,” he said. “Certainly didn’t have a meeting with them—I’m sorry, you can’t believe everything you read in The Globe.”

Yet internal documents, public records, Chinese-language media, and event photographs confirm that the JCCC and Liberal Party networks in the Greater Toronto Area have long shared operatives and strategic objectives—even collaborating to send PPE to United Front Work Department officials in China during the pandemic.

The Bureau, along with diaspora researchers, has assessed that the Carney meeting was significant and included JCCC leaders involved in that same United Front–coordinated PPE operation that included Liberal riding boss Howard Shen.

Perhaps most significantly, while the JCCC has listed Carney’s Markham–Unionville candidate Peter Yuen as an honorary board chair, the same riding’s senior federal executive has been Howard Shen, also the past president of the JCCC.

The Bureau has sent detailed questions to Carney, the Liberal Party of Canada, and Howard Shen. As of publication, none have responded.

Shen has fundraised for Justin Trudeau since the 2015 federal campaign in Markham, appearing with then–cabinet minister John McCallum and many Toronto-area Liberal MPs. As a riding boss, he aligned with the rise of Mary Ng, who succeeded McCallum in a 2017 by-election and was subsequently appointed to Trudeau’s cabinet.

By 2017, Shen remained a Markham-area Liberal executive while simultaneously serving as JCCC president.

That year, JCCC held the Canada–China Free Trade Agreement Forum—one of the Trudeau era’s most consequential Chinese Canadian business gatherings—advancing JCCC’s calls for deeper trade with Beijing and alignment with the Belt and Road Initiative. The forum promoted reduced reliance on the United States and featured greetings from three Liberal MPs—Mary Ng, Majid Jowhari, and Shaun Chen—alongside Chinese officials including Consul General He Wei.

Also during the pandemic, Shen and the JCCC exchanged letters with Chinese Communist Party and United Front authorities. A 2020 letter from the Jiangsu Provincial Committee of the CCP, co-signed by Party Secretary Lou Qinjian and Governor Wu Zhenglong, praised the JCCC’s donations to China.

“In these difficult times, we thank the Jiangsu Commerce Council of Canada for their support in sending protective equipment and funds to help the people of Jiangsu,” the letter stated. “We also express our deep sympathy to overseas Chinese compatriots in Canada as the pandemic situation worsens.”

The JCCC’s reply—co-signed by president Rui Jiang and Howard Shen—acknowledged that its COVID relief effort was “organized under the guidance” of Chinese Communist Party bodies including the Jiangsu Overseas Friendship Association, United Front Work Department, and Overseas Chinese Affairs Office.

“The Canadian Jiangsu Commerce Council of Canada (JCCC) is one of the most influential associations in Canada,” that letter said, adding the group had “quickly raised funds and PPEs whose combined value amounts to nearly two million yuan.”

The letter was signed by Liberal riding boss Howard Shen, as “Past President of the JCCC.”

Photographs from this period show MP Jowhari assisting with PPE deliveries at a JCCC-organized event, carrying boxes from a Toronto residence to a vehicle.

In video footage dated February 17, 2020, Shen is seen passing a fluorescent-labelled PPE box from the front door of a mansion to Jowhari, who then hands it to Rui Jiang for loading into an SUV.

The sequence—featuring three figures tied to both Liberal politics and Beijing-linked organizations—visually underscores the JCCC’s declared coordination with Chinese state bodies.

In another video filmed inside the same mansion, Shen and Jowhari—wearing the same outfits—sit beneath a Chinese flag in a wood-paneled room alongside Rui Jiang, who appears in flowered slippers. MP Jowhari discusses his government’s eagerness to provide aid to China.

“Mr. Shen is the former president of our council,” Jiang tells Jowhari. Chuckling, Jowhari replies: “Howard is the president of everyone. Howard is the glue. He’s very well connected. He understands the community, and the government.”

By this point, Shen had transitioned to Vice Chair of the Markham–Thornhill Federal Liberal Association—a position he still holds.

A separate 2020 video shows Chinese Consul General Han Tao thanking Jowhari for “his support to the Chinese community, as well as to the work of the Chinese Consul General in Toronto.” These filmed moments further reinforce Shen’s dual role as a Liberal organizer and community leader acknowledged by Chinese state officials.

Corporate records reviewed by The Bureau show that in 2012, Shen and Rui Jiang were listed as directors of a similar entity: the Jiangsu International Business Association of Canada.

In perhaps the clearest example of JCCC–Liberal Party integration, in 2017—while serving as both JCCC president and Markham riding chair—Shen led the Canada–China Free Trade Forum. The event’s final report urged Ottawa to move quickly on trade with China, avoid human rights issues, and model Canada’s approach on Australia’s FTA with Beijing.

The document positioned Chinese Canadian leaders as “go-betweens” to guide Canadian officials and framed the U.S. as a liability. “Catch the China high-speed train,” the report said, calling the Belt and Road Initiative “the new global path.”

At the time, Shen’s name appeared on both Liberal electoral filings and Chinese-language United Front publications.

Further documents link Howard Shen to the Chinese Professionals Association of Canada. On February 15, 2014, Qiu Yuanping—then Deputy Secretary-General of the CCP’s International Liaison Department—met with CPAC. Around the same time, the Markham–Unionville Federal Liberal Association was formally established, and Howard Shen became a boss of the riding for the Liberals.

Shen’s ties extended beyond Liberal Party politics. In 2011, he joined the executive board of the Canada Hefei Friendship Association alongside Wei Wei, a Markham real estate developer whose luxury mansion was later raided as an underground casino.

Peter Yuen was named the Liberal candidate in Markham–Unionville in March 2025, following the resignation of incumbent MP Paul Chiang amid controversy over foreign interference. Chiang faced mounting scrutiny after The Bureau and other outlets reported on his comments suggesting that Joe Tay—a Conservative candidate and Canadian citizen facing an illegitimate national security charge in Hong Kong—could be turned over to Chinese consular officials in Toronto. The Liberal Party’s decision to tap Yuen—a longtime Toronto police official with prior affiliations to the JCCC and events linked to the United Front Work Department—has only intensified questions, especially as Prime Minister Mark Carney attempts to distance himself from the JCCC during the ongoing federal election campaign.

The Bureau will update this breaking story with any responses from Prime Minister Carney.