Former Liberal cabinet minister Wayne Easter is calling for a federal judicial inquiry into alleged corruption and foreign interference in Prince Edward Island, warning that suspicious cash deals linked to Chinese interests have alarmed local residents.“There is only one way to get to the bottom of what is happening, and that would be a federal public inquiry,” said Easter, who represented the riding of Malpeque for nine terms before retiring in 2021. “There is no sense doing a provincial one because there are too many interconnections within Prince Edward Island. You need a federal public inquiry that can subpoena witnesses, trace bank accounts, and bring people internationally to get to the bottom of this issue.”Easter said Islanders deserve answers about whether newly registered Buddhist charities are being used to launder money for the Chinese government. “There are threads leading everywhere in terms of concerns over Chinese involvement in Canada, and I think the operation in Prince Edward Island is key to where things seem to be going,” he said. “Is that a forward operating base to move to other areas of the country?”.Blacklock's Reporter said Easter, a former solicitor general and past president of the National Farmers Union, endorsed the new book Canada Under Siege: How PEI Became A Forward Operating Base For The Chinese Communist Party, published August 8. The book alleges large-scale cash transactions and land purchases involving Buddhist organizations connected to China.Co-author Garry Clement, a former RCMP anti–money laundering director, said investigators uncovered disturbing patterns of behaviour. “There were amounts of money coming into the province, all in cash, consecutive $100 bills, brand new, in amounts on a weekend of hundreds of thousands of dollars,” he said. “This amounted to millions of dollars over the time we looked at it.”.Clement said the evidence suggests “money laundering, corruption and elite capture at the highest level,” adding that local residents provided information strong enough to justify a police probe.To date, no parliamentary committee has examined the allegations. Access To Information documents reported by Blacklock’s Reporter in July showed one Buddhist nunnery listed $85.1 million in securities, $61.7 million in land and buildings, $2.3 million in “furniture and fixtures,” and $1.1 million in vehicles. The group described itself in filings as a small community of vegetarians who “joyously engage in resource conservation.”
