2025 Federal Election
RCMP Confirms It Is ‘Looking Into’ Alleged Foreign Threat Following Liberal Candidate Paul Chiang Comments

Sam Cooper
The confirmation followed a day of escalating pressure on Canadian law enforcement after The Bureau revealed that the UK-based human rights organization Hong Kong Watch sent a formal letter to RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme, calling for a criminal investigation into Chiang’s reported remarks.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police confirmed late Monday it is actively reviewing the controversy surrounding Liberal MP Paul Chiang’s alleged remarks that appeared to endorse delivering a political rival to a foreign government in exchange for a bounty.
In a statement sent to The Bureau, the RCMP said: “Foreign actor interference, including instances of transnational repression, continues to be a pervasive threat in Canada. The RCMP takes all such reports and allegations seriously and — in close partnership with intelligence, law enforcement and regulatory agencies — dedicates significant resources to combatting and investigating criminal activity related to foreign interference in Canada’s democratic processes.”
“The RCMP is looking into the matter,” the statement continued, “however no specific details can be provided at this time.”
The confirmation followed a day of escalating pressure on Canadian law enforcement after The Bureau revealed that the UK-based human rights organization Hong Kong Watch sent a formal letter to RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme, calling for a criminal investigation into Chiang’s reported remarks. The comments, made during a January meeting with Chinese-language journalists, suggested that Conservative candidate Joe Tay could be brought to the Chinese Consulate in Toronto to claim a bounty placed on him by the Hong Kong police under Beijing’s National Security Law.
The organization alleged the remarks could constitute “counselling to commit kidnapping” under Canada’s Criminal Code. In their letter, Hong Kong Watch also referenced the Foreign Interference and Security of Information Act, which prohibits attempts to coerce or intimidate individuals for the benefit of a foreign state.
While the RCMP’s statement did not confirm the launch of a formal investigation, it emphasized that if “criminal or illegal activities occurring in Canada [are] found to be backed by a foreign state, it is within the RCMP’s mandate to investigate this activity.”
The RCMP said it does not typically disclose information related to ongoing investigations unless charges are laid. Nor will it confirm which individuals may be under protective watch.
Earlier Monday, Tay confirmed that he contacted the RCMP over concerns for his personal safety even before Chiang’s comments became public. Chiang, a former police officer and Liberal candidate in Markham–Unionville, has apologized for the remarks, calling them a “terrible lapse in judgment.”
Meanwhile, more than 40 Hong Kong diaspora organizations based in Canada and abroad issued a joint statement condemning Chiang’s remarks and calling on Prime Minister Mark Carney to remove him as a candidate. Carney told reporters in Toronto that Chiang still has his “confidence,” and described the incident as a “teachable moment.”
The RCMP said its “overarching priority is the safety and security of the public,” and encouraged anyone who feels threatened online or in person to report such incidents to their local police. In cases of immediate danger, individuals are urged to call 911.
The statement also pointed to the existence of protective mechanisms for election candidates, including through Elections Canada and the federal government.
More to come
2025 Federal Election
Study links B.C.’s drug policies to more overdoses, but researchers urge caution

By Alexandra Keeler
A study links B.C.’s safer supply and decriminalization to more opioid hospitalizations, but experts note its limitations
A new study says B.C.’s safer supply and decriminalization policies may have failed to reduce overdoses. Furthermore, the very policies designed to help drug users may have actually increased hospitalizations.
“Neither the safer opioid supply policy nor the decriminalization of drug possession appeared to mitigate the opioid crisis, and both were associated with an increase in opioid overdose hospitalizations,” the study says.
The study has sparked debate, with some pointing to it as proof that B.C.’s drug policies failed. Others have questioned the study’s methodology and conclusions.
“The question we want to know the answer to [but cannot] is how many opioid hospitalizations would have occurred had the policy not have been implemented,” said Michael Wallace, a biostatistician and associate professor at the University of Waterloo.
“We can never come up with truly definitive conclusions in cases such as this, no matter what data we have, short of being able to magically duplicate B.C.”
Jumping to conclusions
B.C.’s controversial safer supply policies provide drug users with prescription opioids as an alternative to toxic street drugs. Its decriminalization policy permitted drug users to possess otherwise illegal substances for personal use.
The peer-reviewed study was led by health economist Hai Nguyen and conducted by researchers from Memorial University in Newfoundland, the University of Manitoba and Weill Cornell Medicine, a medical school in New York City. It was published in the medical journal JAMA Health Forum on March 21.
The researchers used a statistical method to create a “synthetic” comparison group, since there is no ideal control group. The researchers then compared B.C. to other provinces to assess the impact of certain drug policies.
Examining data from 2016 to 2023, the study links B.C.’s safer supply policies to a 33 per cent rise in opioid hospitalizations.
The study says the province’s decriminalization policies further drove up hospitalizations by 58 per cent.
“Neither the safer supply policy nor the subsequent decriminalization of drug possession appeared to alleviate the opioid crisis,” the study concludes. “Instead, both were associated with an increase in opioid overdose hospitalizations.”
The B.C. government rolled back decriminalization in April 2024 in response to widespread concerns over public drug use. This February, the province also officially acknowledged that diversion of safer supply drugs does occur.
The study did not conclusively determine whether the increase in hospital visits was due to diverted safer supply opioids, the toxic illicit supply, or other factors.
“There was insufficient evidence to conclusively attribute an increase in opioid overdose deaths to these policy changes,” the study says.
Nguyen’s team had published an earlier, 2024 study in JAMA Internal Medicine that also linked safer supply to increased hospitalizations. However, it failed to control for key confounders such as employment rates and naloxone access. Their 2025 study better accounts for these variables using the synthetic comparison group method.
The study’s authors did not respond to Canadian Affairs’ requests for comment.
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Correlation vs. causation
Chris Perlman, a health data and addiction expert at the University of Waterloo, says more studies are needed.
He believes the findings are weak, as they show correlation but not causation.
“The study provides a small signal that the rates of hospitalization have changed, but I wouldn’t conclude that it can be solely attributed to the safer supply and decrim[inalization] policy decisions,” said Perlman.
He also noted the rise in hospitalizations doesn’t necessarily mean more overdoses. Rather, more people may be reaching hospitals in time for treatment.
“Given that the [overdose] rate may have gone down, I wonder if we’re simply seeing an effect where more persons survive an overdose and actually receive treatment in hospital where they would have died in the pre-policy time period,” he said.
The Nguyen study acknowledges this possibility.
“The observed increase in opioid hospitalizations, without a corresponding increase in opioid deaths, may reflect greater willingness to seek medical assistance because decriminalization could reduce the stigma associated with drug use,” it says.
“However, it is also possible that reduced stigma and removal of criminal penalties facilitated the diversion of safer opioids, contributing to increased hospitalizations.”
Karen Urbanoski, an associate professor in the Public Health and Social Policy department at the University of Victoria, is more critical.
“The [study’s] findings do not warrant the conclusion that these policies are causally associated with increased hospitalization or overdose,” said Urbanoski, who also holds the Canada Research Chair in Substance Use, Addictions and Health Services.
Her team published a study in November 2023 that measured safer supply’s impact on mortality and acute care visits. It found safer supply opioids did reduce overdose deaths.
Critics, however, raised concerns that her study misrepresented its underlying data and showed no statistically significant reduction in deaths after accounting for confounding factors.
The Nguyen study differs from Urbanoski’s. While Urbanoski’s team focused on individual-level outcomes, the Nguyen study analyzed broader, population-level effects, including diversion.
Wallace, the biostatistician, agrees more individual-level data could strengthen analysis, but does not believe it undermines the study’s conclusions. Wallace thinks the researchers did their best with the available data they had.
“We do not have a ‘copy’ of B.C. where the policies weren’t implemented to compare with,” said Wallace.
B.C.’s overdose rate of 775 per 100,000 is well above the national average of 533.
Elenore Sturko, a Conservative MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale, has been a vocal critic of B.C.’s decriminalization and safer supply policies.
“If the government doesn’t want to believe this study, well then I invite them to do a similar study,” she told reporters on March 27.
“Show us the evidence that they have failed to show us since 2020,” she added, referring to the year B.C. implemented safer supply.
This article was produced through the Breaking Needles Fellowship Program, which provided a grant to Canadian Affairs, a digital media outlet, to fund journalism exploring addiction and crime in Canada. Articles produced through the Fellowship are co-published by Break The Needle and Canadian Affairs.
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2025 Federal Election
When it comes to pipelines, Carney’s words flow both ways

Dan McTeague
Well, you’ve got to hand it to Mark Carney. Though he’s only just entered politics — after years of flirting with the idea, while serving on Team Trudeau behind-the-scenes — and despite the fact that he hasn’t been elected to anything yet, he’s become well versed in the ancient political art of speaking out of both sides of his mouth. Like many men seeking high office before him, Carney is happy to say to whoever happens to be in front of him whatever he thinks they want to hear, even if it contradicts what he said to someone else the day before.
Of course, that isn’t so easy to pull off these days. Nowadays pretty much everything a politician says in public is going to pop up on the internet within hours. Which is why it’s been so easy to keep tabs on Carney’s policy flip-flopping.
For just the latest example, last week in Calgary Carney opened his pitch to a sceptical province by saying, “You don’t need to tell me what Alberta is like. I’m from Alberta!” He proclaimed that “Canada has a tremendous opportunity to be the world’s leading energy superpower,” and that “we must invest in our natural strengths and ensure our economic sovereignty!” He promised to “identify projects of national interest,” and fast-track them, while acknowledging that “any major energy project that comes from this great province is going to pass the boundaries of other provinces.”
The implication was that voting for a Carney-led Liberal government would mean a major course correction from the ‘Lost Decade” of Liberal governance, that oil and gas from Alberta should be harnessed to power Canada to prosperity, with pipeline projects (maybe a revived Energy East) spanning every province (presumably over the objections of the government of Quebec, these being projects in the “national interest” and all), and the construction of terminals — of the type for which Trudeau previously said there was no “business case” — enabling us to get Canadian Natural Gas onto tankers bound for Europe and Asia. What else could he have meant by ‘global energy superpower,’ ‘self-sufficiency,’ and the promise to invest in Alberta’s energy infrastructure?
But then Carney found himself being interviewed in Montreal, and his approach was quite different. After his interviewer poked some fun at Carney’s tendency to crib policy proposals from the Conservatives — “do you find Mr. Poilievre has good ideas?” — Carney was asked about his “energy superpower” comments, and he hedged, saying that Canada should work to develop its own resources “if there is social acceptability.” Asked about pipelines specifically, Carney said “We must choose a few projects, a few big projects. Not necessarily pipelines, but maybe pipelines, we’ll see.”
Now, if you think that all of this sounds strangely familiar, you’re not crazy. Carney has been doing this dance since he first stepped out from behind the curtain, saying one thing out west and another back east.
Speaking in B.C. in February he aped a Donald Trump line by saying he wanted Canada to “build, baby, build,” and promised to use “the emergency powers of the federal government to accelerate the major projects that we need in order to build this economy and take on the Americans,” clarifying to CBC that those major projects included pipelines. But then, in a French-language interview, he was asked if he planned to force Quebec to accept a pipeline, and he answered, “I would never impose [a pipeline] on Quebec.”
These examples should be enough to demonstrate that Mark Carney is a Con Man. But who, exactly, is his mark? Is he telling the truth in Quebec, where he’s looking to syphon off support from the Bloc Québécois? Or is he telling the truth in Alberta, where he’d love to snatch a few more urban ridings from the Conservatives?
The answer is that, actually, we’re all his mark. Carney doesn’t really care about Quebec’s sovereignty, or any contentious constitutional question like that. And he certainly has no desire to build pipelines and LNG terminals in order to turn Canada into a global energy superpower. A glance at his long career, as both a public and private sector Net-Zero activist, pressuring both individual corporations and national governments to adopt his environmentalist ideology, will tell you as much.
Once you accept that, you start to notice Carney’s sleight-of-hand on questions of energy and affordability. He’s taking credit for “Axing the Carbon Tax,” when in reality he merely zeroed out part of it, while doubling down on the other half. He’s set it up so that he can bring the Consumer Carbon Tax back whenever he likes, without a vote. Meanwhile, our economy will be slowly strangled by the Industrial Carbon Tax, and our everyday lives will get more expensive as businesses pass the cost down to us.
He remains committed to Bill C-69, the “No More Pipelines Act,” which the Supreme Court said overstepped the federal government’s constitutional authority, which itself shows that his mealy-mouthed talking points on pipelines and energy infrastructure don’t amount to a real commitment to anything. And he still supports the Trudeau government’s emissions caps, which target our Natural Resource Sector, the beating heart of Canada’s economy.
And of course he does, because long ago Mark Carney pledged allegiance to the destructive Net-Zero ideology, and it is that, more than anything else, which is the groundwork for how he will actually govern.
So, whatever you do, don’t buy the con. Mark Carney has spent an entire career, before the start of this campaign, telling us exactly who he is. Don’t let him pull the wool over your eyes now.
Dan McTeague is President of Canadians for Affordable Energy.
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