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Breaking: Hogue Commission Will Hear From New Safety-Protected Witnesses On PRC Targeting of Chinese Candidates

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Hogue Finds Witnesses Face Credible Threats, Records Will Be Sealed for 99 Years

In an extraordinary move, Canada’s foreign interference inquiry will hear testimony from two new secret witnesses with firsthand knowledge of the People’s Republic of China’s influence operations targeting electoral candidates and community associations in Canada. Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue announced the decision today, weeks after the public testimony phase concluded, revealing that the witnesses—identified only as Person B and Person C—face credible threats to their safety and that of their families due to their insights into how Beijing’s United Front Work Department (UFWD) targets Chinese Canadian politicians and community associations.

The witnesses’ identities and testimonies will be closely guarded, with only sanitized summaries made available to the public and participants. According to Hogue’s decision, Person B has provided critical insight into the UFWD’s tactics, describing how Beijing’s agents “co-opt and leverage some Chinese Canadian community associations and politicians of Chinese origin” to advance PRC interests. Much of Person B’s information is firsthand, Hogue’s decision states, suggesting the witness could produce explosive evidence relevant to high-profile cases under examination for Hogue’s final report in December.

Both witnesses expressed profound concerns about the consequences they could face if Beijing discovered their identities. Person C, in particular, described the likelihood of “threats to their physical safety, intimidation and harassment by PRC officials or sympathetic community members in Canada, and the potential loss of their employment” should their cooperation with the Commission become known. Person B similarly voiced fears of “serious repercussions,” including community ostracization and job loss, if their identity were disclosed. “This fear is based, in part, on the fact that the PRC and its United Front Work Department has infiltrated some Chinese Canadian community associations,” Hogue’s decision states.

In light of the witnesses’ statements and intelligence on PRC activities, Commission counsel deemed the witnesses’ concerns “credible.” Commissioner Hogue emphasized the necessity of these safety measures, stating, “I am satisfied by the information contained in the application that the fears expressed by Person B and Person C are not only credible, but also compelling. In light of other information that the Commission has received about the tactics of the PRC, including transnational repression, I am satisfied that the concerns expressed by Person B and Person C are reasonable.”

The extraordinary protective measures will allow the witnesses to provide their statements confidentially via affidavits, sealed for 99 years, marking an exceptional step to protect those revealing sensitive information on state actors. Commissioner Hogue further elaborated that the witnesses’ evidence is crucial to understanding the extent of Beijing’s operations in Canada but could not be accessed without protective guarantees.

Hogue’s decision marks a rare departure from standard inquiry practices, reflecting what she described as Canada’s duty to protect those who risk their safety to expose foreign influence.

Duff Conacher of Democracy Watch, which has made submissions seeking the disclosure of cabinet-protected documents in the Commission, said he welcomes the Inquiry’s decision to hear from important new witnesses.

“It’s good to see the Inquiry continue to gather evidence about foreign interference activities, especially given that its hearings in the spring and fall left many questions unanswered, mainly because the Inquiry called witnesses mostly from government and political parties who have an interest in covering up interference, loopholes, and weak enforcement,” he said.

But Conacher reiterated his reservations about the overall lack of transparency in the Commission’s proceedings and what he calls loopholes in Canada’s laws against foreign influence.

“The only way to stop foreign interference is to effectively prevent it, and it will only be prevented by closing huge loopholes in laws across Canada that allow for secret, undemocratic and unethical spending, fundraising, donations, loans, lobbying, and disinformation campaigns by foreign ‘proxies,’ and by strengthening enforcement and penalties,” he said. “Hopefully, the Hogue Inquiry will strongly recommend closing all these loopholes and strengthening enforcement and penalties.”

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Catherine Herridge

FBI imposed Hunter Biden laptop ‘gag order’ after employee accidentally confirmed authenticity: report

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From LifeSiteNews

By Doug Mainwaring

Two independent journalists found that the FBI could have set the record straight by confirming the laptop was real and the subject of an ongoing criminal probe. Instead, FBI leadership allowed the false narrative about the laptop to gain momentum.

In a shocking report published on X, independent journalists Catherine Herridge and Michael Shellenberger revealed that an FBI agent accidentally confirmed to Twitter (now known as “X”) that the Hunter Biden laptop story was real less than three weeks before the 2020 election.

“For the first time, and with a change of administration, the FBI has now turned over to GOP House investigators the internal chat messages that show Bureau leadership actively silenced its employees,” Herridge and Shellenberger wrote on X.

“The FBI, which had a special task force to counter foreign election interference, could have set the record straight by confirming the laptop was real and the subject of an ongoing criminal probe,” the journalists explained. “Instead, FBI leadership allowed the false narrative about the laptop to gain momentum.”

“In 2024, an FBI official admitted to House investigators that an FBI employee had inadvertently confirmed the authenticity of Hunter Biden’s laptop to Twitter on a conference call the morning of October 14, 2020, the day the New York Post published a story about it,” Shellenberger wrote.

“I recall that when the question came up, an intelligence analyst assigned to the Criminal Investigative Division said something to the effect of, ‘Yes, the laptop is real,’” testified the then-Russia Unit Chief of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force in a closed-door transcribed interview,” according to Herridge and Shellenberger. “I believe it was an (Office of General Counsel) attorney assigned to the (Foreign Influence Task Force) stepped in and said, ‘We will not comment further on this topic.’”

They recounted this exchange:

An individual whose name is blacked out, tells Elvis M. Chan, the San Francisco-based FBI special agent tasked with interacting with social media companies, there was a “gag order” on discussion of Hunter Biden’s laptop. In a separate exchange, Chan is told “official response no commen(t).”

In the chat, the FBI officials showed awareness that the laptop may have contained evidence of criminal activity.

Asked Chan, “actually what kind of case is the laptop thing? corruption? campaign financing?”

Another FBI employee responds, “CLOSE HOLD —” after which the response is redacted.

To which Chan responds, “oh crap,” appearing to underscore the serious nature of the probe, which included felony tax charges. Chan adds, “ok. It ends here.”

In the same conversation, Chan is asked if “anyone discussing that NYPost article on the Biden’s?”  Chan responds, “yes we are. c d confirmed an active investigation. No further comment.”  “C D” is likely shorthand for the FBI’s Criminal Division.

Said another FBI employee, whose name was redacted by the Bureau, “please do not discuss biden matter.”

It’s now common knowledge that national security agencies — including the FBI and CIA, Big Tech, and much of corporate media — colluded in suppressing truth and manufacturing lies in order to drag their preferred candidate, Joe Biden, across the finish line in the 2020 presidential election.

Incriminating evidence discovered on the laptop that Hunter Biden had long ago abandoned at a computer repair shop — reported on in two devastating pieces by the New York Post at the time — was ignored by mainstream media, fraudulently dismissed by former national intelligence officials, and essentially made inaccessible to the public by Big Tech social media sites Twitter and Facebook.

The computer contained emails showing that then-Vice President Biden had come under the influence of bad actors in Ukraine and Communist China and had used his powerful position in the Obama administration to pressure government Ukrainian officials into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the energy firm, Burisma, which was paying the younger Biden $50,000 per month to sit on its board of directors.

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2025 Federal Election

Liberal MP resigns after promoting Chinese government bounty on Conservative rival

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From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

“I find it incredible that Mark Carney would allow someone to run for his party that called for a Canadian citizen to be handed over to a foreign government on a bounty,” he said at a recent rally. “What does that say about whether Mark Carney would protect Canadians?”

Liberal MP candidate Paul Chiang has dropped out of the running after being exposed for suggesting Canadians turn in a Conservative Party candidate to the Chinese consulate to collect a bounty placed on the man by the communist regime.

In an March 31 statement, Chiang, the Liberal candidate for the Markham-Unionville riding, announced his departure from the race after a video of him suggesting a bounty could be claimed for Conservative candidate Joe Tay by handing him over to Chinese authorities circulated on social media. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have announced they are “probing” the comments.

“I am proud of what we have achieved together and I remain deeply grateful for the trust placed in me,” he said. “This is a uniquely important election with so much at stake for Canadians. As the Prime Minister and Team Canada work to stand up to President Trump and protect our economy, I do not want any distractions in this critical moment.”

 

“That’s why I’m standing aside as our 2025 candidate in our community of Markham-Unionville,” he announced.

Chiang’s resignation follows backlash from Conservatives and Canadians alike when a January video from a news conference with Chinese-language media in Toronto resurfaced.

In the video, Chiang jokingly suggested that Tay, his then-Conservative rival for the Markham–Unionville riding, could be turned over to the Chinese Consulate General in Toronto in return for $1-million Hong Kong dollar bounty, about $183,000 CAD.

 

Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre was quick to call out Chiang’s suggestion and blasted Prime Minister Mark Carney for keeping him on the ballot.

Chiang has since apologized for his suggestion on both social media and personally to Tay.

“Today, I spoke with Joseph Tay, the Conservative candidate for Don Valley North, to personally apologize for the comments that I made this past January,” he wrote in a March 30 X post.

 

“It was a terrible lapse of judgement. I recognize the severity of the statement and I am deeply disappointed in myself,” he continued.

Carney has said remarkably little regarding the situation. First, he refused to fire the Liberal candidate, referring to Chiang’s statement as a “terrible lapse of judgment.”

“He’s made his apology. He’s made it to the public, he’s made it to the individual concerned, he’s made it directly to me, and he’s going to continue with his candidacy,” Carney said. “He has my confidence.”

Then, following the announcement of Chaing’s resignation, Carney told reporters that it was time to “move on” and that he would “leave it at that.”

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