A government panel on foreign interference on Monday said Liberal MP Paul Chiang’s call for the kidnapping of a Tory candidate to hand him over to Beijing was not in their purview.
Chiang on Chinese-language media earlier this year suggested Conservative candidate Joe Tay, who has a YouTube channel that advocates for democracy in Hong Kong, should be handed over to the Chinese embassy in Toronto.
“The panel has not found any incidents that have impacted Canada’s ability to have a free and fair election,” said Laurie-Anne Kempton, assistant secretary to the cabinet for communications at the Privy Council Office.
Global Affairs Canada and the Privy Council Office held a press conference introducing the work of the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force, which will be monitoring foreign interference threats to the general election. Canadians will head to the polls on April 28.
The Western Standard’s request to attend the media event was not acknowledged.
There was widespread anticipation the foreign interference press conference would address the instance of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) issuing a bounty for a Canadian politician, which could even lead to execution — as Tory leader Pierre Poilievre pointed out on Sunday, the CCP recently admitted the regime has executed at least four Canadians so far in 2025.
The Chiang case was not mentioned at all during the press conference, until multiple reporters pushed the panel to condemn the Liberal-CCP entanglement and state how they would prevent anything like it from transpiring in the future.
Panelists, however, said little on the matter — the CCP bounty on the Conservative politician isn’t in the purview of their mandate, they said.
When asked about the mounting calls for the Liberals to drop Chiang, Kempton replied, “We are aware of the comments made, and I would say the comments don't fall under low the mandate of the panel.”
Kempton, however, did confirm “the bounty against the person [Tay] is an example of transnational repression.”
“The panel and SITE are monitoring as it relates to the bounty,” she added.
Kempton noted Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly in Decemeber 2024 “issued a statement deploring Hong Kong's decision to to place bounties on the heads of democratic activists, including two Canadians, and GAC {Global Affairs Canada] remains in touch with the two Canadians to provide them updates and offer support.”
The media event itself was focused on warning politicians, and the Canadian public in general, about potential election interference through AI, social media bots, “misinformation” and deep fake images.
On Friday, Chiang publicly admitted and apologized that he called for Tay to be handed over to the authoritarian regime in exchange for a bounty of HK$1 million, or about CA$100,000.
Liberal leader and Prime Minister Mark Carney on Monday morning said he still “has confidence” in Chiang, and he will continue to run for the Liberal party in the general election.
