Connect with us
[bsa_pro_ad_space id=12]

espionage

The Latest Biden/Harris ‘Lawful Pathways’ Scheme: Declare Latin American Migrants to Be ‘Refugees’

Published

20 minute read

From the Center For Immigration Studies

By Todd Bensman

Thousands flying in who would not have qualified as refugees in the past

Almost sight unseen and scarcely noticed by the American public, the Biden/Harris administration’s Department of Homeland Security has super-charged yet another “Lawful Pathways” program to admit tens of thousands of people from Latin America who they claim would otherwise have crossed the border illegally.

It’s called the Safe Mobility Office Initiative (SMO), Movilidad Segura in Spanish, jump-started in May 2023 and its capacity expanded this spring. The SMO initiative uses the U.S. refugee resettlement system in a historically atypical way that some critics see as abusive to fly in tens of thousands of people from nationalities the United States has very rarely regarded as warranting refugee resettlement in recent decades — in record numbers and in record-fast time, a CIS examination and analysis of the new program shows.

(See my colleague Nayla Rush’s discussion of the SMO initiative in the context the Biden/Harris administration’s broader remaking of the refugee resettlement program.)

From storefront “offices” set up in Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Guatemala, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) personnel and United Nations proxies have granted refugee status to at least 21,000 people from seven Latin America countries in the first year of the program, as of May 2024, some half of them having already arrived, a White House fact sheet reports. (Canada and Spain also take part in the SMO initiative, and several thousand additional people were approved for resettlement in those countries.) The newly minted refugees were Haitians, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Cubans, Guatemalans, Ecuadorians, and Colombians. Data not yet in will likely show greater numbers through June and July because, in May, the Biden administration expanded the SMO program to add Hondurans and Salvadorans for a total of nine nations whose citizens can now be considered for U.S. refugee status.

Historically, the U.S. bestows the highly desired refugee status on grounds that recipients credibly claim they cannot return home due to a “well-founded fear” of persecution on the basis of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group, according to USCIS, whose personnel are staffing the SMO foreign offices in partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other UN agencies.

The offer of refugee resettlement brings with it an interest- and penalty-free flight loan backed by U.S. taxpayers, followed by a broad assortment of U.S. resettlement aid and welfare benefits, and a quick path to permanent residence and U.S. citizenship, all very difficult to legally reverse.

March 2024 Mixed Migration Centre survey of SMO users shows the vast majority, 90 percent, want to travel to the United States for economic opportunities and better living standards rather than to flee war or persecution.

The 21,000 approved for resettlement as of May are a harbinger of even greater number of “refugee” classifications of essentially economic immigrants in Latin America. Tens of thousands more were in the pipeline to fill the administration’s historically high refugee allocation for the Latin America region, from less than 5,000 to an unprecedented 50,000 in 2024. More than 190,000 had registered for those 50,000 slots by the end of May, although many may be declined and referred by the SMO offices to other “lawful pathways”, such as family reunification visas, labor programs, or the legally dubious parole programs.

“Working closely with international organization partners, we are building capacity, running extensive messaging campaigns, and exponentially increasing the number of people who receive information or services via the SMOs,” Marta Youth, the principal deputy assistant secretary for the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugee and Migration testified before a congressional committee in March: “In the refugee pathway, we aim to resettle between 35,000 and 50,000 individuals in Fiscal Year 2024, an historic and ambitious goal that would amount to an increase in refugee resettlement from the Western Hemisphere of over 450 percent from last year.”

This sharp departure from traditional operation of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) — essentially handing out of refugee approvals to those usually regarded as economic migrants looking to work in the U.S. — is explained by the administration’s public justification: to divert the recipients from planned travel on dangerous migrant trails en route to illegal U.S. Southwest border crossings from Mexico.

That rationale for the expansion of “refugee” resettlement from Latin America comes in an election year in which a mass illegal immigration border crisis figures as a top problem among voters.

“The Safe Mobility initiative is one of the many ways the United States is facilitating access to safe and lawful pathways from partner countries in the region at no cost, so refugees and vulnerable migrants don’t have to undertake dangerous journeys in search of safety and better opportunities,” one State Department release explained last year.

The administration’s justifications for its newfound generosity of refugee status handouts strikes some familiar with USRAP as one of several deviations from operational norms, for short-term political purposes, indicating misuse or even abuse.

Elizabeth Jacobs, a former USCIS attorney and now the Center for Immigration Studies’ director of regulatory affairs and policy, told me the Biden administration’s goal is to serve the short-term political purpose of reducing the appearance of border congestion in an election year. That comes at a steep price, she said.

“This new program is consistent with the Biden administration’s overall strategy to obscure the border crisis from the American public, but not actually reduce the entries of inadmissible aliens to the United States,” Jacobs said. “There are winners and losers to nearly all immigration policies. The losers, here, are the aliens abroad who meet the statutory criteria for refugee status and are in actual need of resettlement.”

One of a Trio of Programs Enabling Invisible Immigration

The Safe Mobility Offices program is actually the third initiative in a broader Biden administration policy strategy of addressing the bad publicity caused by mass illegal border crossings that surpassed nine million in just the first three years of the Biden administration.

The SMO works in concert with two other major “lawful pathways” programs that, between the pair, have paroled into the country on “humanitarian” protection grounds more than one million inadmissible economic immigrants since 2022 who otherwise would supposedly have staged the politically problematic illegal border crossings the administration now wants to reduce.

One of those programs has admitted more than 500,000 inadmissible aliens from 100 countries on two-year renewable but legally challenged “humanitarian parole” permits granted through the “CBP One” mobile phone app. These hundreds of thousands were admitted into the United States at eight U.S.-Mexico land border ports of entry. (See: “New Records Unveil Surprising Scope of Secretive ‘CBP One’ Entry Scheme”.)

The other humanitarian parole program has rechanneled from presumed border crossings another half-million inadmissible aliens by pre-authorizing mostly Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans to fly commercial from 77 countries into 45 international U.S. airports, ostensibly as humanitarian rescues. (See “New Data: Many Migrants in Biden’s ‘Humanitarian’ Flights Scheme Coming in from Safe Countries and Vacation Wonderlands”.)

At least 75,000 per month are still entering through just these two ad hoc, congressionally unauthorized, and politically controversial admission programs.

Those two cousin programs have drawn some controversyopposition, and calls by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to end at least the flights program after the Center for Immigration Studies forced the Biden administration to reveal details through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

But the SMO program is far less known and, probably as a result, has yet to draw similar critiques. Those rejected for refugee status might well be referred to the land and air parole programs.

Nayla Rush, senior researcher for the Center and its refugee policy expert, told me current approvals for refugee status warrant questioning as to whether recipients are eligible.

“They want to bring people from Central America as refugees to decrease illegal entry when we are supposed to be bringing people in who are the most vulnerable,” Rush said. “Are we admitting the most vulnerable, those in real need of resettlement, or is it another policy or diplomatic move undertaken by the Biden administration to address the ‘root causes’ of immigration in the region?”

Deviations from the Norm

Historically, the U.S. State Department and USCIS have reserved refugee resettlement mainly for those fleeing active war zones or violent political upheavals in home countries.

Top nationalities over the two decades have featured people from war-torn Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Iraq, Bhutan, Syria, Somalia, and some republics of the former Soviet Union, according to published government data. In the last 10 years, Burma, DRC, and Iraq were the nationalities most often granted refugee status.

By contrast, refugee grants in Latin America have long been scant or even nonexistent for decades right up until this year.

From 2002 to 2022, for example, the U.S. has granted refugee status to comparatively tiny numbers of Haitians (49), Nicaraguans (7), Venezuelans (183), Colombians (3,638), and Guatemalans (1,322), albeit sometimes more to Cubans (46,600, due to unique diplomatic considerations).

Most are already safely resettled in third nations, such as Haitians in Chile and Brazil, and were long regarded as not warranting special U.S. protection. Only four Haitians, for instance, were granted refugee status between 2012 and 2022. The U.S. granted only 173 Venezuelans refugee status during that time, few even in the years following that country’s 2017 economic collapse that sent more than seven million of them into 15 nearby countries.

Now, a seemingly great urgency powers approvals of Venezuelans in unprecedented numbers and in record time.

Most SMO applicants are Venezuelans who have been living for years safely and often prosperously in Colombia and Ecuador, hardly refugee material. (See Video: “U.S. Enabling Mass Asylum and Humanitarian Permit Fraud”).

UNHCR screens them all and makes referrals to USCIS adjudicators in the SMO storefronts. On average, the offices were processing some 8,000 cases monthly, including 3,000 at just one local SMO office in Bogota, Colombia, according to a University of Wisconsin policy brief titled “Year One of Safe Mobility Offices in Colombia”.

Of the 3,000 a month whom UNHCR refers to the local SMO office in Colombia, the U.S. government approves 95 percent for refugee resettlement, the university’s brief reported.

Many tens of thousands are Guatemalans and Nicaraguans, who have not suffered war in decades, are registering, too.

A State Department spokesman told CBS News in late May that Safe Mobility Offices in mid-May had “enabled a six-fold increase in the number of refugees resettled from the Western Hemisphere”. In the first half of FY2024, October 2023 through March 2024, more refugees from Latin America and the Caribbean were admitted (8,518) than in any previous full year.

In addition to the oddity of bestowing refugee status on those long regarded as ineligible economic migrants is the speed at which U.S. authorities are processing them. This is perhaps the fastest refugee processing in program history.

“In Just Nine Days!” Breaking Speed Records? Approvals for refugee resettlement, which include security vetting and needs assessments, often took an average of between 18-24 months or even longer. USRAP had already been using technology to reduce processing time for many to as short as six months, Nayla Rush has reported.

But the boasted “expedited” process for Latin Americans seems to be breaking all records.

“USCIS in Colombia processes refugee resettlement applications in only 9 days!” boasts a sub headline in the University of Wisconsin’s policy brief about the first year of SMO. Final arrangements for transportation afterward may require another month or two.

In Colombia and elsewhere where SMO offices are operating, the Associated Press has reported, traditional refugee screening has gone from a “yearslong effort” to “only months”.

“These refugee applicants undergo the same rigorous and multi-layered interagency screening and vetting process as all other refugees and, if eligible, most will arrive in the United States in just a matter of months,” the State Department’s Marta Youth testified.

Free Taxpayer-Backed Airfare?

The previously off-limits U.S. refugee status is especially appealing to Latin Americans because, in addition to providing beneficiaries with a bonanza of U.S. resettlement assistance and a path to U.S. citizenship, the State Department offers interest-free “travel loans” for airline tickets that can exceed $10,000 for families. There is no penalty for failure to pay.

The “loan” program was first set up in the 1950s to help people escape Eastern European Communist countries and is used to help refugees travel in from all over the world. Today, the UN’s International Organization for Migration administers the money on behalf of the State Department, and non-governmental resettlement agencies collect the payments, for commissions of up to 25 percent, according to the New York Times and other reports.

But repayment and loan default rates remain a public mystery, as the State Department under several past administrations has never willingly published this information. In response to litigation by Judicial Watch seeking the default and repayment information for 2016-2017, the State Department asserted that it did not track the information. At the time, Judicial Watch cited a private review of records provided by a whistleblower showing that from 1952 to 2002, IOM issued $1,020,803,910 in loans and had recovered only about half of it.

Under the Biden administration, the State Department has continued its resistance to releasing the information. It has ignored a Center for Immigration Studies Freedom of Information Act request for default rates and a 2022 information request by a dozen Republican members of Congress led by Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas).

The Immediate Future

The future of these programs hangs in the balance of the upcoming presidential election. Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, has promised to reverse all of Biden’s border-related immigration policies, and this one would likely not escape the Republican’s hatchet. While a Trump administration likely cannot legally reverse refugee grants, it can quickly return USRAP to its prior norm of focusing on higher-priority populations suffering actual war and persecution in their homelands.

But should another Democrat win office, such as Vice President Kamala Harris, expect further expansion of the refugee program in Latin America, as well as the other two humanitarian parole programs. I expect further increases in the Latin America refugee allocation beyond 50,000 to meet the far greater demand for its benefits, as well as more SMO offices in both existing countries and new ones in Latin America. And skyrocketing taxpayer burdens for all of it, on both sides of the American border.


The author would like to thank Eric Gordy for his research assistance.

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

espionage

Mounties Should Probe Criminal Obstruction in Bill Blair’s Office Warrant Delay, Says Former Senior CSIS and RCMP Officer

Published on

In August 2015, then-federal Liberal candidate Bill Blair (back center, tallest) joined Liberal Party officials, including candidate John McCallum and then-Ontario Minister of Citizenship, Immigration, and International Trade Michael Chan, at a ‘Team Trudeau’ federal election fundraiser in Greater Toronto Area. Source: John McCallum/Facebook.

By Sam Cooper

54 days created a big window for them to realize who was on this list, whose communications might be captured, and to go into damage control mode: Alan Treddenick, CSIS Veteran

Testimony from senior ministers and aides in Justin Trudeau’s administration at the Hogue Commission—marked by contradictions and conspicuous lapses in memory—has sparked calls for a criminal obstruction investigation into the months-long delay of a warrant targeting Michael Chan, a prominent Liberal Party fundraiser. Alan Treddenick, a former senior officer in Canadian police and intelligence services with extensive experience in domestic and international operations, warns the delay raises critical questions: Were party officials connected to the explosive warrant tipped off, as Public Safety Minister Bill Blair’s staff weighed its political fallout ahead of the Liberal Party’s election campaign?

The inquiry revealed that Blair and his top aide were briefed by CSIS around March 2021 on the pending warrant for Michael Chan. The document, which outlined a list of individuals potentially in communication with Chan, remained in Blair’s office for at least 54 days before it was approved. The prolonged delay constrained CSIS’s ability to act, leaving only about two months before the September 2021 federal election.

“The 54 days created a big window of opportunity for them to realize who was on this list, whose communications might be captured, and to go into damage control mode,” Treddenick said in an interview. “In my opinion, that would have meant quietly advising people on the list to be cautious about communications with certain individuals.”

Another expert, Duff Conacher, an ethics and transparency activist, calls the case involving Bill Blair and his chief of staff, Zita Astravas, perhaps the most serious conflict of interest matter he has ever seen in Ottawa.

“Both Blair and Astravas should have recused themselves,” Conacher said in an interview. “If a warrant targets someone affiliated with the politician’s party, there’s a clear risk of a cover-up, delay, or actions that protect the warrant’s subject.”

Emphasizing the stakes of the delay, a national security source—who cannot be identified due to ongoing leak investigations by the RCMP and CSIS—told The Bureau that CSIS officers had allegedly sought to plant surveillance devices inside a mansion Michael Chan was completing in Markham.

According to the source, CSIS officers were pushing to secure a national security warrant for Chan to allow such measures, but delays in 2021 left them frustrated. They noted that the opportunity to covertly install recorders inside Chan’s home during its construction had already passed.

In his testimony Chan acknowledged fundraising and campaigning for over 40 federal and provincial candidates, including prominent Liberal leaders such as Justin Trudeau, Paul Martin, Michael Ignatieff, Sheila Copps and John McCallum. He has vehemently denied any involvement in Chinese election interference and has publicly called himself a victim of CSIS investigations and media leaks.

Blair and Astravas strongly rejected allegations of inappropriate handling of the warrant during their testimony. Conservative MP Michael Chong’s lawyer, Gib van Ert, pressed Astravas, suggesting, “The warrant involved high-ranking members of your party and people you had known for years—isn’t that why you wanted to delay it?”

“That is false. Minister Blair has approved every warrant put before him,” Astravas replied.

Van Ert countered, “But he didn’t get it for 54 days, because of you.”

“Your accusation is false,” Astravas retorted.

The Bureau asked Treddenick for his assessment of the explosive evidence, focusing on the unprecedented delay in warrant approval and the testimony highlighting Blair’s chief of staff’s pointed interest in the so-called Van Weenen list.

This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

An image from a 2016 Globe and Mail profile on key players in PM Trudeau’s office, with points of interest for this story annotated in red lines by The Bureau.

Alan Treddenick:

“Let me start by saying I’m astonished that others in the media haven’t picked up or devoted any time to this issue. It made a bit of a splash during the commission, but then it seemed to disappear.

From Bill Blair to his chief of staff, to Katie Telford, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, even the Prime Minister’s testimony. There were memory lapses, confusion about responsibility, decision-making, and who had access to the document. This is unprecedented in my 32 years with the RCMP and CSIS—it’s unprecedented for a warrant application to sit in the minister’s office for 54 days. That’s one point.

Two, the Van Weenen lists aren’t new. They started within criminal jurisprudence and were adopted into National Security and CSIS Act warrant applications to give justices a broader picture of who might be captured in a target’s interception.

In this case, the 54-day delay is concerning—one, because as I said, it’s unprecedented; two, because of the number of people who would have had access to this in the minister’s office; and three, because during that 54-day period, that document didn’t just sit in somebody’s basket.

Typically, warrant applications with Van Weenen lists go through without issue. But this one raised questions, and Blair’s history as a Toronto police officer doesn’t suggest he would have been involved in stalling it. I put this down to his chief of staff—who is not incompetent; she’s a very savvy political operative, close to Trudeau’s chief of staff Katie Telford, from their Ontario Liberal Party days. So my concern in this whole thing is that the 54 days allowed a big window of opportunity for them once they realized who was on this list—whose communications could be captured when communicating with the target. And the damage control mode, in my opinion, would’ve been quiet conversations somehow with people that are on the Van Weenen list. To say be careful when you’re talking or communicating with so-and-so, because you never know who’s listening.

Images from YouTube videos show Michael Chan attending campaign events and a fundraising dinner with Justin Trudeau and John McCallum.

The Van Weenen list was mentioned briefly in the Commission hearings, but I haven’t seen anyone really delve into it. When the Commission releases its final report, will it be part of the classified reporting? I don’t know. Have they asked people on the list to testify? I don’t know. It definitely needs some sort of review.”

The Bureau:

Based on my understanding, high-level sources informed me from the start that this investigation related to CSIS’s belief that the warrant’s target could influence the Prime Minister’s Office regarding the replacement of a sitting MP. My sources say this could be the most concerning counterintelligence threat for CSIS at that time due to the potential influence on the Prime Minister and his staff from a key party fundraiser to fix an important riding seat. Could you comment on that?

Alan Treddenick:

“If that’s accurate, it certainly would’ve been included in the affidavit to justify the powers for CSIS to further the investigation. I don’t know the specifics, and I haven’t seen the affidavit, nor do I want to, but from what you’re telling me, it’s plausible that all of that would’ve been in the affidavit.”

An image from a Globe and Mail profile on key players in Trudeau’s office, with points of interest for this story annotated in red lines by The Bureau. 

The Bureau:

Lawyers seemed to focus on the Van Weenen list and the chief of staff’s unprecedented interest in it. This points to concerns that people on the list could have been quietly alerted to be cautious, doesn’t it?

Alan Treddenick:

“Exactly. That 54 days provided an unprecedented window. Why would it have taken that long? Blair’s chief of staff is no dummy—she’s savvy and has likely seen other applications with Van Weenen lists that didn’t raise issues. This one took 54 days before Blair signed it. So what happened in that time? I suspect there was damage control behind the scenes.”

The Bureau:

What would you say to the layperson who sees this as potential obstruction? Even The Globe and Mail wrote that time was passing with an election approaching in September 2021.

Alan Treddenick:

“Regardless of the election, the 54-day period needs examination from a criminal point of view: obstruction, breach of trust, and possibly infractions of the Security of Information Act. From a criminal perspective, that’s one aspect—but from an intelligence perspective, the last thing we as an intelligence service would have wanted was for the people on the Van Weenen list to be advised that Target X is under surveillance. If they were warned to ‘be careful with your communications,’ it would likely result in a change in behavior, which could compromise our operations.

That’s why it’s very troubling to me that the 54-day window hasn’t been examined. Start with a criminal investigation: conduct interviews with everyone on the Van Weenen list and anyone who had access to the document from the moment it entered the minister’s office. Obtain judicial production orders for all communications to and from the minister’s office and staff, and track where they went. Look for any connections to individuals on the Van Weenen list—I suspect there will be, especially since the list likely included some prominent individuals.

If there was communication between someone on the list and the minister’s office, or a staff member, shortly after the chief of staff raised concerns about the Van Weenen list, that would raise a red flag. I’d then dig deeper into the nature of that communication. Did the communication or behavior of one person toward another change? If it did, it would suggest that someone on the list was warned.”

An image from a Globe and Mail profile on key players in Trudeau’s office, with points of interest for this story annotated in red lines by The Bureau. 

The Bureau:

You mentioned production orders. Should those apply here to track communications behind the scenes?

Alan Treddenick:

“Absolutely. Production orders for all electronic communications to and from the minister’s office are essential. I’d focus on links between those communications and people on the Van Weenen list.”

The Bureau:

I have said this seems like a Watergate-type inquiry. Would you agree that the level of investigative diligence here should be that high?

Alan Treddenick:

“Yes. Given the lapses in memory and conflicting testimonies—differences in how testimony from Marco Mendicino (Blair’s successor) treated applications versus Blair’s office—there should be a criminal investigation into this period.”

The Bureau:

Any final thoughts?

Alan Treddenick:

“I think your reporting and that of a few others has been essential. It’s unfortunate that leaks were necessary to expose this—but they were. In the inquiry, I saw bureaucratic machinery in its best—or actually worst—form.”

Editor’s note: Alan Treddenick, former senior counter-terror officer for CSIS, also worked for Blackberry on national security matters after retiring.

The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

An image from a Globe and Mail profile on key players in Trudeau’s office, with points of interest for this story annotated in red lines by The Bureau.

We break international stories and this requires elite expertise, time and legal costs.  Please subscribe to The Bureau and support a public interest startup.

 

Continue Reading

espionage

Communist China interfered in BC election that saw far-left NDP re-elected by slim margin: report

Published on

B.C. NDP Premier David Eby

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Investigative journalist Sam Cooper has gone on the record to state, ‘In my journalistic assessment, assisted by Mandarin OSINT specialists, there evidently has been significant CCP-affiliated Election Interference in support of Premier David Eby.’

Canadian investigative reporter Sam Cooper says his research has led him to conclude there was “significant” interference by groups linked to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the recent provincial election of British Columbia, which saw the New Democratic Party under Premier David Eby win re-election by a tiny margin.

“In my journalistic assessment, assisted by Mandarin OSINT specialists, there evidently has been significant CCP-affiliated Election Interference in support of Premier David Eby,” wrote investigative journalist Sam Cooper on X last week. 

As reported by LifeSiteNews, Eby’s NDP squeaked out the smallest possible majority government last month in the province’s elections, beating out his up-and-coming Conservative rival John Rustad. The results from the election took weeks to finalize after multiple recounts, as well as reports of ballots going uncounted.  

Cooper, who works for The Bureau, then linked to his report, which he said, “collects documents from China and Canada.” 

According to Cooper, in 2021, then Attorney General of British Columbia, David Eby, who later became head of the B.C. NDP and premier of the province, approved a $20,000 grant to the “Canada Committee 100 Society (CCS100), a community organization led by Ding Guo, a prominent journalist from Shanghai.” 

The grant has now come under intense scrutiny, reports Cooper, from “experts and diaspora citizens due to the group’s documented links to Beijing’s United Front and political donors involved in Eby’s 2022 NDP leadership campaign.” 

At the time, a government press release stated that Ding was a personal friend and advisor to Eby.  

Ding stated that the project “will help us gather detailed, relevant data on a wide scale. It will also provide opportunities for the Chinese Canadian community, including new immigrants, to engage in the legislative process.”

Of late, Cooper has been instrumental in shedding light on the potential extent of interference from CCP-linked groups in Canada’s most recent elections. 

As noted by LifeSiteNews earlier this week, Cooper recently reported that the CCP boasted it had successfully managed to get no less than eight of some 41 preferred candidates elected in Canada’s 2019 federal election.

LifeSiteNews also recently reported about Cooper’s naming of four politicians along with one government advisor as allegedly being involved in a scheme backed by the CCP to purposely interfere in Canada’s electoral process.   

In light of multiple accusations of foreign meddling in Canadian elections, a federal Foreign Interference Commission was convened earlier this year to “examine and assess the interference by China, Russia, and other foreign states or non-state actors, including any potential impacts, to confirm the integrity of, and any impacts on, the 43rd and 44th general elections (2019 and 2021 elections) at the national and electoral district levels.”  

The commission is headed by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, who had earlier said she and her lawyers will remain “impartial” and will not be influenced by politics. In January, Hogue said that she would “uncover the truth whatever it may be.”  

A few months ago, the head of Canada’s intelligence agency testified under oath that he gave Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who in the past has said he has an affinity for China’s “basic dictatorship,”  multiple warnings that agents of the CCP were going after Conservative MPs, yet the prime minister has denied receiving these warnings.  

Continue Reading

Trending

X