Canadian Intelligence Commission Finds China Interfered in Last Two Elections
A Canadian intelligence commission concluded on Monday that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) “clandestinely and deceptively interfered in both the 2019 and 2021 elections,” both of which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party won.
Trudeau established the commission in January under intense pressure to do more about foreign interference in Canadian elections, especially from China.
The most glaring example of such interference was the downfall of Kenny Chiu, a Conservative Member of Parliament explicitly told by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) that his re-election campaign was undermined by foreign interference. Chiu lost his seat in 2021 to a member of Trudeau’s Liberal Party.
On Monday, the commission reviewed a February 2023 CSIS briefing for Trudeau in which the spy agency made it clear that China clandestinely interfered in the previous two elections. The public disclosure of this document was a bombshell that demolished earlier claims by Trudeau officials that the evidence of Chinese interference was not firm enough to merit government action.
Even more embarrassing was the conclusion CSIS reached in the February briefing that China worked to undermine Conservative candidates in 2021 because Beijing felt the party was running on an “anti-China” platform. Among other issues, the Conservatives were vocal about China’s genocide of the Uyghur Muslims and the security threat posed by Huawei 5G networking equipment.
The briefing presented to Trudeau described “online and media activities aimed at discouraging Canadians, particularly of Chinese heritage, from supporting the Conservative Party, leader Erin O’Toole, and particularly Steveston-Richmond East Candidate Kenny Chiu.”
Newly elected Conservative Leader Erin OToole delivers his winning speech following the Conservative party of Canada 2020 Leadership Election in Ottawa on early August 24, 2020. (SEAN KILPATRICK/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
“The timing of these efforts to align with Conservative polling improvements; the similarities in language with articles published by PRC state media; and the partnership agreements between these Canada-based outlets and PRC entities all suggest that these efforts were orchestrated or directed by the PRC,” the bombshell briefing document said.
Former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole testified that Chinese interference may have cost his party up to nine seats, a setback that may have led to his ouster as party leader.
“In the immediate aftermath of the election loss, a petition and public relations campaign against Mr. O’Toole was initiated within 48 hours by a high-profile CPC party member who had served on the national council of the party,” CSIS said.
“A trusted source in a diaspora group and a journalist have advised Mr. O’Toole in confidence that this specific party member had unusual ties to the PRC government. Mr. O’Toole has no information to corroborate these claims, but he trusts the sources,” the briefing added.
O’Toole’s sources included campaign workers in British Columbia fluent in Chinese. Those workers told him that Chinese-language social media groups were spreading disinformation about the Conservative Party and its candidates in 2021. Kenny Chiu was a prime target of these disinformation attacks.
“The level and volume and tone of misinformation towards Mr. Chiu was horrendous. He was fearful for his own well being and that of his family and it was a personal attack of a racially motivated nature, suggesting he was a race traitor,” O’Toole told the intelligence commission.
O’Toole survived that suspiciously-timed attempt to knock him out of party leadership, but he was forced out in February 2022 by a revolt within his caucus. The originator of the petition scrutinized by CSIS, Bert Chen, insisted last week that he was merely a Taiwanese-born Canadian who honestly believed “Mr. O’Toole was not fit to lead our country or our party.”
Investigators found China has various ways of helping candidates it prefers, ranging from suspicious get-out-the-vote efforts to ostracizing “anti-China” politicians from the Chinese-Canadian community so that only China-friendly candidates can effectively organize and fundraise there.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, left, poses with Chinese President Xi Jinping for photographers before a group photo session for the G20 Summit held at the Hangzhou International Expo Center in Hangzhou in eastern China’s Zhejiang province, Sunday, Sept. 4, 2016. (Ng Han Guan/AP)
China’s influence is particularly strong in Toronto, Vancouver, and a few other cities with large Chinese populations. CSIS said the Chinese government supported 11 candidates in the Toronto area during the 2019 elections, most of them members of Trudeau’s party.
The commission on foreign interference looked at a few other sources of suspected overseas influence, including Russia, Iran, Pakistan, and India. The Times of India (TOI) reported on Tuesday that no evidence of Indian interference in Canadian politics was presented to the commission.
The commission’s hearings are still in progress. Trudeau himself is scheduled to testify on Wednesday, an appearance that might become a little more uncomfortable after Tuesday’s revelations.
Joe Biden’s America: Wealthiest 1% Set Record with $44 Trillion Total Net Worth
The wealthiest one percent in President Joe Biden’s America set a record with a net worth of $44 trillion at the end of the fourth quarter, U.S. Federal Reserve data revealed.
Biden casts his administration as opposed to the widening wealth gap, even though a majority of Americans still live paycheck to paycheck, a recent LendingClub study found, raising concerns that so-called “Bidenomics” failed to help average Americans.
A majority of voters are “worse off financially” under Biden, up 25 points since he assumed office in 2021, a Fox News poll found Wednesday.
The fourth quarter gains resulted from stock holdings, thanks to an end-of-year rally, CNBC reported:
The total net worth of the top 1%, defined by the Fed as those with wealth over $11 million, increased by $2 trillion in the fourth quarter. All of the gains came from their stock holdings. The value of corporate equities and mutual fund shares held by the top 1% surged to $19.7 trillion from $17.65 trillion the previous quarter.
While their real estate values went up slightly, the value of their privately held businesses declined, essentially canceling out all other gains outside of stocks.
The quarterly gain marked the latest addition to an unprecedented wealth boom that began in 2020 with the Covid-19 pandemic market surge. Since 2020, the wealth of the top 1% has increased by nearly $15 trillion, or 49%. Middle-class Americans have also seen a rising wealth tide, with the middle 50% to 90% of Americans seeing their wealth increase 50%.
A U.S. Federal Reserve chart shows the wealth of the top one percent in America.
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former GOP War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
World’s Leading Banker: The U.S. Establishment Has Failed
Americans have “legitimate frustration” over migration and economic opportunities, “and I agree with them,” said Jamie Dimon, the billionaire chairman and chief executive officer of the world’s biggest bank, JPMorgan Chase.
In his 2024 annual letter to shareholders. Dimon condemned the nation’s establishment for failing to protect the American dream, economic dynamism, and economic opportunities for ordinary Americans:
From my point of view, our highly charged, emotional and political domestic issues are centered around 1) immigration and lack of border security and 2) the fraying of the American dream, particularly for low-income and rural Americans who feel left behind amid the growing wealth and prosperity of others around them …
I believe that many affected Americans are not angry at hardworking, law-abiding immigrants and, in fact, acknowledge the critical role immigrants continue to play in building this wonderful country. Rather, they are angry that America has not implemented proper border control and immigration policies. It is astounding that many in Congress know what to do and want to do it but are simply unable to pass legislation because of partisan politics. Congress did come close on a few occasions — and I hope they keep trying.
But Dimon does not call for the popular migration cuts and curbs that would incentivize politicians and investors to raise Americans’ wages, boost U.S. innovation, grow worker productivity, and expand corporate trade. Instead, Dimon mumbles about vague “immigration … reforms,” while saying migrants play a “critical role immigrants in building this wonderful country.”
Some so-called reforms — such as the establishment’s 2024 border bill — are intended to worsen the government-delivered inflow of wage-cutting migrants into Americans’ workplaces, communities, and politics.
President Joe Biden speaks at the Washoe Democratic Party Office in Reno, NV, March 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
President Joe Biden’s maximum-migration strategy is enormously profitable in the short run to Dimon and his peers on Wall Street because it force-feeds the economy with more foreign workers, consumers, and renters — even as it also flushes away the wage gains, trade opportunities, productivity, innovation, and prosperity needed by blue collar and white collar Americans and their children.
“If you opened America’s borders to the rest of the world, I have little doubt that hundreds of millions of people would want to move here,” Dimon said.
Regardless of this silence about migration policy, Dimon’s admissions mark a rare moment when establishment leaders are willing to criticize the failed policies pushed by their peers — and to consider why President Donald Trump’s voters beat them in 2016 — and may do so again in 2024.
In January, Dimon told CNBC that Trump’s supporters are not “voting for Trump because of his family values.” He added:
Be honest: He’s kind of right about NATO. Kind of right about immigration. He grew the economy quite well. Tax reform worked. He was right about some of China … The Democrats have done a pretty good [PR] job with the deplorables hugging onto their Bibles and their beer and their guns. I mean, really like, can we just stop that stuff and actually grow up, and treat other people with respect, and listen to them a little bit?
Dimon’s recognition of elite failure may be intended to position him for a top job in a future Trump White House.
In his recent letter, Dimon wrote:
For over two decades, since 2000, America has grown at an anemic rate of 2%. We should have strived for and achieved 3% growth. Had we done so, GDP per person today would be $16,000 higher, which would, in turn, have paid for better healthcare, childcare, education and other services. Importantly, the best way to handle our excess deficit and debt issues is to maximize economic growth.
“The federal government, regardless of which party is in charge, needs to earn back trust through competence and effective policymaking,” he wrote:
We should be brutally honest about the staggering number of policies, systems and operations that are underperforming: Too many ineffective public schools do not give students the skills they need to land a well-paying job; we have over 25 million uninsured Americans, soaring healthcare costs and too many bad outcomes; we are unable to plan, permit and build infrastructure efficiently; our litigation system is capricious and wasteful; progress on immigration policies and reform is frustrating; lack of efficient mortgage markets and an affordable housing policy keep housing out of reach for many Americans … we have unfunded pension plans and no action on deficit spending, Social Security and Medicare. I’ll stop here. This should be unacceptable to all of us.
Dimon does include some obvious digs at Biden’s combination of political payoffs to progressives and economic giveaways to favored business interests.
JPMorgan Chase & Company Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon testifies at a Senate Banking Committee annual Wall Street oversight hearing, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
“To fix problems, we must first acknowledge them,” he wrote, adding:
Despite decades of government programs and all the moralizing that surrounds them, we have not done a particularly good job lifting up our low-income fellow citizens … this is tearing at the social fabric of America and is among the root causes of the fraying of the American dream.
Dimon’s letter seems to be pushing back against Biden’s progressive takeover of commerce, culture, and capitalism, saying:
The heart and soul of the dynamism of America is human freedom — freedom of speech, freedom of religion, free enterprise (capitalism), and the freedom and empowerment brought to us by our democracy through the right to elect our leaders. Free people are at liberty to move around as they see fit, work as they see fit, dream as they see fit, and invest in themselves and in the pursuit of happiness as they see fit. This freedom that people enjoy, accompanied by the freedom of capital, is what drives the dynamism — economic and social — of this great country. … But even in some countries that have some of these rights, a lack of dynamism — often due to bureaucracy, weak institutions and government, and corruption — is palpable and has clearly led to less innovation, lower growth and, in general, a lower standard of living.
Dimon called for reforms of the education sector and urged more taxpayer support for low-income Americans:
The free one is so blindingly obvious that it’s almost embarrassing to propose. Our schools (high schools, community colleges and perhaps even four-year colleges) should take responsibility for outcomes — they should be judged on the quality and income level of the jobs that their graduates and even non-graduates attain.
The second step is related to the first: Get more income to low-paid workers. While this one would cost money, it is to me a complete no-brainer since it is an expansion of an existing program, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which many Democrats and Republicans already agree upon. Today, the EITC supplements low- to moderate-income working individuals and couples, particularly with children and people living in rural areas. For example, a single mother with two children earning $9 an hour (approximately $20,000 a year) could receive a tax credit of more than $6,000 at year-end.
Amid his criticism of the establishment, Dimon also endorses many globalist policies, saying:
Ukraine is the front line of democracy. If the war goes badly for Ukraine, you may see the splintering of Pax Americana, which would be a disaster for the whole free world. Ukraine’s struggle is our struggle, and ensuring their victory is ensuring America first.
…
We should also immediately re-enter, if possible, the prior negotiated Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. Not only is it good for the economy, but it also could be a brilliant, strategic, economic security move — an economic alliance that binds us with 11 other important countries (including Australia, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore and Vietnam). [Emphasis added.]
Dimon did not mention Trump’s popular decision to kill the partnership, which would have moved more jobs out of the United States while moving more foreign workers into the United States.
The globalist-leaning Axios.com site described the document: “JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon uses his annual shareholder letter, out Monday morning, to set out a global agenda for what might be called Pugnacious Hegemonic Neoliberalism: Pro-America, pro-military, pro-trade, pro-capitalism, pro-DEI, anti-China.”
Watch — Dimon: Dems Should Be “More Respectful” of Trump Supporters, Negative MAGA Talk Will Hurt Biden
Extraction Migration
Since at least 1990, the federal government has relied on Extraction Migration to grow the economy after allowing investors to move the high-wage manufacturing sector to lower-wage countries.
The migration policy extracts vast amounts of human resources from needy countries. The additional workers, consumers, and renters push up stock values by shrinking Americans‘ wages, subsidizing low-productivity companies, boosting rents, and spiking real estate prices.
The economic policy has pushed many native-born Americans out of careers in a wide variety of business sectors, reduced Americans’ productivity and political clout, slowed high-tech innovation, shrunk trade, crippled civic solidarity, and incentivized government officials and progressives to ignore the rising death rate of discarded Americans.
The policy also sucks jobs and wealth from heartland states by subsidizing coastal investors and government agencies with a flood of low-wage workers, high-occupancy renters, and government-aided consumers. Similar policies have damaged citizens in Canada and the United Kingdom.
The colonialism-like policy has damaged small countries, and has killed hundreds of Americans and thousands of migrants, including many on the taxpayer-funded jungle trail through the Darien Gap in Panama.
The paid agent behind the Oval Office desk
Via John Hinderaker of Power Line, Andy McCarthy at National Review has a stunning piece outlining the depths of Joe Biden's involvement as China's little agent, tying together details which will make you wanting to take a shower afterward.
Tuesday’s revelation emerged from the committee’s recent subpoena of financial records related to a specific bank account that received two wires from China linked to BHR Partners associates. “Joe Biden’s abuse of public office for his family’s financial gain threatens our national security. What did the Bidens do with this money from Beijing?” Comer asked.
In 2018 and 2020, Breitbart Senior Contributor and Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer published Secret Empires and Profiles in Corruption. Each book hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and exposed how Hunter Biden and Joe Biden flew aboard Air Force Two in 2013 to China before Hunter’s firm inked a $1.5 billion deal with a subsidiary of the Chinese government’s Bank of China less than two weeks after the trip. Schweizer’s work also uncovered the Biden family’s other vast and lucrative foreign deals and cronyism. Breitbart Political Editor Emma-Jo Morris’ investigative work at the New York Post on the Hunter Biden “laptop from hell” also captured international headlines when she, along with Miranda Devine, revealed that Joe Biden was intimately involved in Hunter’s businesses, appearing to even have a 10 percent stake in a company the scion formed with officials at the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party. PAM KEY
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
Yellen Tells China the U.S. Will ‘Not Accept’ Flood of Cheap Chinese Exports
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen concluded four days of meetings in Beijing on Monday by declaring that the Biden administration would “not accept” the People’s Republic of China (PRC) destroying American industries with a flood of cheap exported goods. She was rather vague about exactly how the administration would stop it.
“We’ve seen this story before. Over a decade ago, massive PRC government support led to below-cost Chinese steel that flooded the global market and decimated industries across the world and in the United States,” Yellen said at a press conference as she prepared to leave Beijing.
“When the global market is flooded by artificially cheap Chinese products, the viability of American and other foreign firms is put into question,” she explained.
“I’ve made it clear that President Biden and I will not accept that reality again,” she said.
Chinese Vice Finance Minister Liao Min airily blew off Yellen’s warning, insisting that his government has “fully responded” to the Biden administration’s concerns, and, in fact, has some “grave concerns” of its own with American trade restrictions — especially the “escalation of green protectionist measures.”
“China will not sit idly and ignore it,” Liao said, precisely echoing Yellen’s insistence that the Biden administration will not accept a new “China shock” of cheap government-subsidized exports.
At roughly the same time Yellen and Liao were exchanging warning shots, Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao declared from a meeting in Paris that “accusations from the US and EU about China’s overcapacity are groundless.”
Wang was talking about the electric vehicle (EV) industry, which could be the most interesting one to watch as the saga of “China Shock 2.0” unfolds. Wang rejected allegations of government-subsidized product dumping, insisting that China’s EV industry is flourishing due to “constant innovations.”
China is poised to dramatically undercut prices on American-made EVs, which the public is not much interested in buying anyway, potentially wiping out a nascent industry that has devoured billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies over the past two decades.
Americans were forced to lavishly subsidize EVs, and they are increasingly being pressured to buy them, but Chinese companies, like the titanic BYD, could easily flood the U.S. market with electric cars at prices that would drive every American automaker into bankruptcy. Electric car sales are slowing in China, too, and that could only make the problem worse because China would be left with a vast inventory of vehicles it could dump at fire-sale prices.
BYD electric cars waiting to be loaded on a ship are stacked at the international container terminal of Taicang Port at Suzhou Port in China’s eastern Jiangsu Province on September 11, 2023. (AFP via Getty Images)
The auto industry, and its politically powerful unionized workforce, probably have enough clout to keep American markets closed to Chinese electric vehicles. Yellen also said she “wouldn’t rule out” heavy tariffs to protect “green” industries, such as solar panels. Other industries might not be so lucky.
“I’m not thinking so much of export restrictions, as some shifts in their macroeconomic policy, and a reduction in the amount of, particularly local government subsidies, to firms,” Yellen said in a CNBC interview on Monday.
“We just want to make sure that we’re not driven out of business, and that our firms and workers have opportunities in these industries which will be important ones in our future,” she insisted.
Yellen said she had some “difficult conversations” in Beijing, especially about China’s industrial overcapacity — its ability to crank out mountains of merchandise at unbeatable prices thanks to huge government-subsidized factories, cheap labor, and low regulatory costs.
Yellen also said her Chinese hosts were displeased with the U.S. position on Chinese electronics and software products posing a “national security” risk.
The Chinese government and corporate officials resolutely insist their products are absolutely safe and would not be abused for espionage by the authoritarian regime in Beijing, assurances that no one outside of China believes for an instant. The latest flashpoint in this conversation is the electric vehicle industry since the latest generation of cars is heavily “connected” with electronics and online connections that could be abused for espionage.
Yellen’s meetings concluded with boilerplate from both sides about a steadily improving relationship between the U.S. and China, but the only concrete issue the two sides seemed to agree on was the need to combat money laundering — and even that seemed like an initiative cobbled together to show “some kind of deliverables to the media and to the public” from Yellen’s China trip, as Hong Kong Baptist University professor emeritus Jean-Pierre Cabestan put it.
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