Intimidation of MP found to be contempt of Parliament

Committee calls for better sharing of intelligence

A House of Commons committee has ruled that an “intimidation campaign” targeting Ontario MP Michael Chong “unequivocally” constitutes a contempt of Parliament — and called for changes to ensure Canada’s spy agency is more forthcoming about its foreign meddling intelligence.

“In carrying out their parliamentary duties and functions, no member is to be threatened, challenged, intimidated, or otherwise obstructed. Such behaviours can impede members in carrying out their parliamentary duties and functions, and therefore, could constitute contempt of Parliament,” a report from the Commons Procedure and House Affairs Committee said Wednesday.

“This Committee condemns in the strongest possible terms the actions of those involved,” the report concluded.

Chong, the Conservative MP for Wellington-Halton Hills, asked the committee last year to study the matter after it emerged that a nowexpelled Chinese diplomat had been targeting him and his family.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) informed Chong last May, following a report in the Globe and Mail, that Chong and his relatives in Hong Kong has been targeted by Beijing due to a 2021 motion from the MP urging Canada to label China’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims a genocide.

Days later Ottawa expelled Zhao Wei, a consular official posted in the Chinese consulate in Toronto, with Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly stating that Canada would not “tolerate any form of foreign interference in our internal affairs.”

Chief among Chong’s concerns at the time was how the MP learned of the alleged campaign from a media report and not from the government or CSIS. He said the spy agency had previously briefed him about foreign interference matters, but had not told him he was the subject of specific threats, which Chong has not publicly disclosed.

Wednesday’s report — an entirely separate probing of foreign meddling from the inquiry led by Quebec Justice Marie-Josée Hogue currently studying the scope and handling of interference in Canadian elections — also considered other allegations of targeting experienced by former Conservative leader and Durham MP Erin O’Toole and NDP MP Jenny Kwan.

All three were briefed by security officials about their respective situations years after the reported interference attempts occurred.

“The scope of the threats carried out by Mr. Zhao and others in the (People’s Republic of China), were not limited to Mr. Chong and Mr. O’Toole, but were aimed at all members of the House of Commons, and by doing so, took aim at Canada’s democracy,” the committee report noted. “As such, the Committee can only conclude, unequivocally, that the co-ordinated campaign carried out by Mr. Zhao constitutes a contempt of Parliament.”

If the Commons adopts a committee’s findings on contempt, such a ruling could, in theory, lead to various punishments including admonishment, reprimand and or even imprisonment. However, the consular official in question has already been expelled, making it unlikely he’d face further action.

The committee also issued 29 recommendations, several of which call for greater transparency and information sharing between security and intelligence agencies and parliamentarians.

A handful of the recommendations have already been enacted or are in progress.

CSIS, for one, is now required to advise MPs of any threats they are facing as quickly as possible. The federal government is also already considering the creation of a registry of foreign agents, which the report said required the urgent introduction of legislation to establish.

Other recommendations call for updating several pieces of legislation, including laws that govern secret and classified evidence, the operations and mandate of CSIS, the work of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians and the independent watchdog called the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency that oversees CSIS and the RCMP.

Some of those reviews have been held off as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government crafts its response to last year’s report on the Emergencies Act inquiry and as it awaits the work of the Hogue inquiry.

Chong testified at the Hogue commission last week about his recollections of the 2021 federal election, but did not discuss his targeting due to the inquiry’s focus on elections meddling.

Conservative MP Michael Chong asked the committee last year to study the matter after it emerged that a now-expelled Chinese diplomat had been targeting him and his family