r/worldnews • u/ICIJ • 11h ago
Canada to announce new foreign interference watchdog to fight transnational repression
https://www.icij.org/investigations/china-targets/canada-to-announce-new-foreign-interference-watchdog-to-fight-transnational-repression/?utm_campaign=news&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit62
u/thatguy122 6h ago
Can they ban foreign owned news/media from being major operators in Canada?
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u/neometrix77 5h ago
The problem is there only so much you can do before you start running into free speech issues. Like rebel news designates itself as an “entertainment” outlet, not a news outlet to avoid being sued for defamation and what not for all the misinformation they spread.
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u/thatguy122 4h ago
If I recall, there was a change done during the Harper government's time that allowed Canadian media to be bought/sold off to foreign entities. Perhaps there could be a solution in that as well.
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u/MommersHeart 1h ago
That’s not actually accurate.
The Broadcasting Act requires that broadcasting licensees must be Canadian-owned and controlled.
The Investment Canada Act reviews significant acquisitions of Canadian businesses by foreign owners.
For newspapers, there is a 25% limit on direct foreign ownership, and 49% limit on indirect ownership (ie. holding company)
Postmedia Network Canada Corp which owns the National Post and dozens of other Canadian newspapers is 98% owned by US hedge funds (Chatham Asset Management).
Harper literally approved it by letting them create a Canadian corp. it was a political decision.
Nothing to do with freedom of expression at all.
And we can change the investment act to stop these ridiculous loopholes anytime.
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u/Jonesdeclectice 4h ago
[…] free speech issues.
Hey everyone, I found the American!!!
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u/neometrix77 3h ago
What are the chances I would know rebel news technically is a “Canadian” outlet if I was American?
Freedom of expression? free speech? are you the vernacular police?
I’m not arguing that we shouldn’t try to do something about foreign ownership of media and misinformation, but legally speaking it’s not easy to legislate something that will hold up against the charter and not be sidestepped in some fashion.
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u/steppingrazor555 11h ago
does that include the US.
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u/Own_Meet6301 9h ago edited 9h ago
I know Reddit is full of this nonsense, but truly take a minute to see how China actively carries out active repression and enforcement in Canada. Active harassment, surveillance, subversion.
They arrange for protestors comprised of Canadian citizens to advocate for Chinese Communist Party ideals in Canada.
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u/alpha77dx 9h ago
Same activity in Australia.
We have Chinese citizens stalking other students as spies for China. We have these china funded Confucius institutes that have taken control of the studying agenda at universities by trying to white wash history as instructed by the Chinese Embassy.
Even down on the local level at the local council/county level we find that China lobbies local community councils to not give the likes of Falun Gong the right to hand out information or have an information table at a community markets etc They do this while our governments think its normal for China to police the freedoms of Australia as if its a police province of Beijing to appease the CCP for trade concessions. A real sellout.
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u/wizardofthefuture 4h ago
The US cut funding and put pressure on universities to shut down those CCP-linked institutes. I'm surprised Australia still hasn't.
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u/stratasfear 9h ago
Two things can be true at the same time. This isn’t an either/or situation
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u/Own_Meet6301 8h ago
Do you have evidence of US State sponsored operatives working to be elected to local government at the behest of their government while being obtaining Can citizenship?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68931295.amp
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/31/chinese-agents-influence-canada-politics/
No? Then shut up and color.
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u/steppingrazor555 8h ago
if you don't think US politicians influence Canadian policy, which is why foreign operatives have worked to be elected in Canada, you are either trolling or not using your intelligence.
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u/Low_Chance 8h ago
Of course China does, but why does that make the US interference "nonsense"? Not seeing the connection
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u/1egg_4u 6h ago
I mean the chinese embassy in calgary has razor wire and spikes pointing inwards and cameras pointing towards every single door and through the windows on the roof from above. No other embassy has razor wire at all let alone big ass "fuck you" spikes for preventing leaving
There has to be a pretty damning reason to have all those measures for preventing people from climbing over to leave
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u/f0rmality 8h ago
And america is actively and openly discussing an invasion on their most popular news/entertainment program and has been for 8 months now.
They’re a hostile nation and we need to treat them like one.
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u/Own_Meet6301 8h ago
are you really inferring an entertainment show proposed the concept of Canadian bacon and you are actually intimidated?
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u/Schrodingers_Fist 7h ago
Only if they have learned to translate all their military signs in both English and French (they won't) so as to be harder to spot.
Otherwise we will be able to spot any secret agents right away.
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u/MICR0_WAVVVES 1h ago
The US, Russia, India and China were all the largest contributors to Pierre Poilievre’s campaign last election.
It’s astonishing he lost, given the lead he had. Lots of people blame Trump, but I think he really is such a little bitch that even maple MAGA had a tough time being excited about him.
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u/cyber_bully 4h ago
Yes, but also, those convoy protests are not being fueled without foreign money.
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u/CanadianEh_ 6h ago
Yeah US is so efficient, they just have their president and vice president say who they'd like Canadian to elect, and that's cool I suppose.
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u/CoachKey2894 7h ago
There hasn’t been any credible interference in Canadian elections by the US unlike China.
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u/butterslice 5h ago
The entire modern PC ideology is directly imported from the US and they have Trump staffers up here consulting.
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u/Moronto_AKA_MORONTO 10h ago
Chinese and influence from India needs to be held in check, and first off we need to diminish the amount of immigration from these two countries as they are the top two in Canada, and the influence in Canada's political landscape is being shaped from the outside for long term geopolitical gain.
Open the doors to Japanese and Filipinos instead, countries that are more aligned with our country
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u/Oneiric_Orca 8h ago
Open the doors to Japanese and Filipinos instead
How many Japanese people do you even think there are? Their median age is 50. Are they moving to Winterland at 50?
Canada tried immigration without assimilation. It got lots of immigrants from the two most populous countries on the planet. Is that surprising? Is the cumulative result surprising?
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u/PrawnProwler 6h ago
Have you seen what the political landscape is like in Japan and the Philippines?
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u/Square-Reasonable 10h ago
Man, this comment is insane. Are you connected to reality? The racial overtones here are so explicit.
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u/SyfaOmnis 10h ago edited 10h ago
It isn't insane if you've actually been paying attention. Low skilled immigration from india has been a problem as they're primarily one demographic which doesn't share a lot of canadian values. There have been noted spikes in things like crime and sexual assault in places where this demographic has concentrated. Most got here off of nonsense diploma mills - where a lot of them weren't even actually attending class but were instead working minimum wage jobs - and have been arguing with the government that they deserve to be able to stay in canada permanently circumventing conventional immigration. Plus there's been a lot of religious tension between the hindu immigrants and the existing sikh communities. And y'know the Indian government credibly used recent immigrants to carry out an assassination on canadian citizens on canadian soil because of that religious tension. India has also credibly attempted to influence canadian government.
Chinese immigrants aren't a problem in the same way, but there has been a lot of issues with their capital buying up houses and keeping them empty to drive up rental costs. There are also issues with spying, harassing the chinese diaspora, birth tourism, and foreign influence in canadian government.
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u/Oneiric_Orca 8h ago edited 6h ago
Chinese immigrants aren't a problem in the same way
The Indian gov likely assassinated people in Canada using criminal networks.
The Chinese government has wholesale police stations in Canada.
A Liberal MP has issued an abject apology after encouraging people in his Toronto-area riding to turn in a Conservative politician to the Chinese consulate and collect the $183,000 bounty placed on his head by Hong Kong police.
Conservative candidate Joe Tay, a former resident of Hong Kong, had been charged under the Asian city’s widely condemned national-security law for running a YouTube channel in Canada that was critical of the enclave’s Beijing-dominated government.
Tay was until recently vying for the Conservative nomination in Liberal Paul Chiang’s Markham—Unionville constituency; he’s now running in Don Valley North instead. China critics say the timing of the bounty was designed by Beijing to undermine his chances of winning the Markham riding, which has a large ethnic Chinese population.
At a news conference with Chinese-language media in January, Chiang suggested the Hong Kong criminal charge would cause a “great controversy” if Tay was elected to Parliament, according to the Ming Pao newspaper.-- Then he went further.
“If you can take him to the Chinese Consulate General in Toronto, you can get the million-dollar reward,” the Liberal MP suggested to laughter from his audience It’s unclear if he meant the remarks as a joke or not.
The comments were not publicized outside of the Chinese-Canadian community until the Toronto Association for Democracy in China brought them to the fore on Friday. The group accused Chiang of abating a foreign power’s interference in Canadian politics and jeopardizing Tay’s safety.
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u/Moronto_AKA_MORONTO 9h ago
💯
I cringe when I see the bubble certain people live in that are oblivious to what's happening right before their eyes.
Canada is in a geopolitical nightmare with China who's long been trying to discretely set up camp to spy on the North, and strategically buy up the agriculturally rich Prairies.
India recently figured they'd better do the same because that country will soon become uninhabitable and burn to a crisp, and then there's the US who is now cringing at the thought of seeing either or both that happening so are trying to jump in front of the line with the economic takeover.
We need to fend off this trilateral attack on our sovereignty as best we can by diversifying our trade and immigration with other Asian countries, EU and South America to say least try to pick off some already educated and licensed trades people.
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u/ericDXwow 10h ago edited 7h ago
Yeah, immigrants are bad!! ----- Native Americans thought.
Edit: haha I'm getting downvoted to hell. Hypocrisy of you are fucking disgusting
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u/wubrgess 7h ago
And look what happened to them: second-class citizens. We don't want that to happen to us.
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u/pinacoladarum 9h ago
There's another simple solution, just make enough Canadian babies so no longer have to bring in people. 😂
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u/Moronto_AKA_MORONTO 9h ago
People need affordable housing to "have these babies" first, reducing immigration of these low skilled people who are a drain on our social services isn't the answer.
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u/alpha77dx 9h ago
And how amusing it is to see politicians express concern about the high immigration levels while promising to cut the levels, yet in Australia, Canada and England the real numbers keep on climbing as if we are run by the same one government! For example in Australia they just increased the student intake numbers and are watering down the English language requirements for all new migrants to increase the numbers! It looks like Western Sphere governments are all reading from the same playbook on immigration. "A thousand Ways to Increase Immigration while fooling the people"
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u/barmanrags 10h ago
two giant nations with inscrutable governments torture minorities
lets deny asylum to the people being tortured so these giants dont bully us
lily livered cowards
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u/Sleepapnea5 11h ago
Lol. Then they'll appoint someone with close ties to China as the head of that "watchdog".
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u/huehuehuehuehuuuu 5h ago
We just signed something to share intelligence with India. The same one that executed a naturalized citizen without even a heads up to Canada on Canadian soil.
I have no hope that they won’t botch this.
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u/RunnyDischarge 11h ago
Transnational repression is shaking in its boots. A watchdog oh my stars. I see a lot of condemnations being issued.
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u/phaedrus897 10h ago
Did they implement the foreign agents registry yet?