Sunday, June 9, 2024

Communist China has been directly interfering in Canadian media via journalists, execs: int’l report

 Communist China has been directly interfering in Canadian media via journalists, execs: int’l report

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According to a National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) report tabled June 3, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been interfering with Canadian media outlets by pressuring them to write favorably about the communist regime.   

The report found that China has been “interfering with Canadian media content via direct engagement with Canadian media executives and journalists.” 

A summary of six redacted sentences, which “were deleted to remove injurious or privileged information,” described how the PRC interfered with Canadian news.   

Examples included “paying to publish media articles without attribution, sponsoring media travel to the PRC, pressuring journalists to withdraw articles and creating false accounts on social media to spread disinformation.”  

This is hardly the first time China’s meddling in mainstream media has been exposed. In 2021, Canadian Security Intelligence Service Director David Vigneault warned that foreign interference in media had “become normalized,” especially with ethnic media outlets.    

“In particular, PRC media influence activities in Canada have become normalized,” the briefing memo stated.   

The report followed a March survey which revealed that the majority of Canadians believe that legacy media journalists and government officials are not trustworthy and are “lying to them” regularly.  

In 2013, Trudeau praised China for its “basic dictatorship” and has labeled the authoritarian nation as his favorite country other than his own. 

Beyond influencing the media, China is also alleged to be directly involved in the Canadian electoral process.

In April, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) confirmed that China was working to help elect regime-friendly Canadian MPs.  

Later that same month, CSIS director David Vigneault testified that he gave Trudeau multiple warnings that agents of the Communist Chinese Party were going after Conservative MPs, with Trudeau denying he ever got such warnings. 

As LifeSiteNews previously reported, details from a “top secret” memo have shown that Trudeau’s office was giving explicit warnings by Canadian intelligence that agents of the CCP were an “existential threat to Canadian democracy.”  

As a consequence of these allegations, the Foreign Interference Commission was convened 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 being headed by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, who had earlier said that she and her lawyers will remain “impartial” and will not be influenced by politics and began January 29. 

In January, Hogue said that she would “uncover the truth whatever it may be.” 

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