A citizen petition in opposition to a overseas agent registry that was sponsored by Liberal MP Chandra Arya within the Home of Commons in April was drafted by Sen. Yuen Pau Woo, The Epoch Instances has confirmed.
“On the request of organizers throughout the nation, I helped to draft the petition,” Woo instructed The Epoch Instances in an electronic mail.
The petition, initiated by Coquitlam, B.C., resident Li Wang, says “a overseas affect registry poses a critical harassment and stigmatization threat for racialized communities.”
It provides: “A registry is a deceptive approach to determine sources of overseas affect.”
Opposition events and diaspora teams have been calling for Canada to enact a overseas agent registration act to fight the difficulty of the Chinese language Communist Occasion’s affect actions in Canada. America and Australia have already enacted legal guidelines for this function.
Whereas Canada has but to create such laws, the Liberal authorities mentioned late final 12 months that it’s going to start consultations on establishing a registry.
Wang, who’s listed because the initiator of the petition, has revealed a number of articles in Chinese language-language media in opposition to the proposed laws. In certainly one of her articles, dated April 27, she wrote that the petition “acquired steering” from Woo. She additionally famous that Woo, together with MP Arya and Conservative Sen. Victor Oh, have accepted interviews and recorded promotion movies for the petition.
Woo additional instructed The Epoch Instances that he “offered enter to the drafting course of,” whereas working with “a gaggle of involved residents.”
“Petitions should be sponsored by an MP earlier than they are often posted, therefore parliamentarians are very a lot a part of the method,” he mentioned. “Additionally, in my capability as a senator, I’m responding to a BC resident in search of my recommendation.”
The Epoch Instances reached out to Wang, Arya, and Oh for remark, however didn’t hear again by publication time.
International Agent Registry
Parliamentary efforts to create a overseas agent registry have been happening for over two years in Canada.
Within the present session of Parliament, Conservative Sen. Leo Housakos offered Senate Invoice S-237 in search of to create a registry, however up to now the invoice has not acquired authorities help. Earlier than that, in 2021, then-Conservative MP Kenny Chiu launched a personal member’s invoice, C-282, in search of to ascertain a overseas agent registry act, however the invoice wasn’t handed earlier than an election was referred to as in August that 12 months.
Chiu misplaced his seat within the B.C. using of Steveston–Richmond East within the 2021 federal election. He has mentioned he was the goal of a widespread misinformation marketing campaign in Chinese language media claiming that Invoice C-282 was anti-Chinese language.
Housakos and Chiu have emphasised that the proposed laws is focused at authoritarian regimes, and is supposed to guard members of the diaspora in Canada from such regimes’ harassment and persecution.
Woo has been against makes an attempt to ascertain a overseas agent registry, talking out in opposition to it within the Senate and within the media.
“100 years in the past, as a part of the #ChineseExclusionAct, Canada compelled all Chinese language folks within the nation to register or face deportation. How can we forestall this registry from changing into a contemporary type of Chinese language exclusion? S-237 & the previous C-282 will not be the reply. Time to talk out,” he mentioned on Twitter on March 10.
Woo, who was appointed to the Senate by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2016 and is a member of the Impartial Senator’s Group, has been a robust advocate for nearer ties between Canada and China. In his first speech within the Senate, he spoke in opposition to a movement crucial of China’s aggressive behaviour within the South China Sea. He has additionally spoken out in opposition to Canada criticizing China’s human rights report, citing the difficulty of residential colleges for indigenous folks in Canada.
Sen. Oh, who has additionally been crucial of the proposed laws calling for a overseas agent registry, has adopted the same argument as Woo on the difficulty.
In an interview with a Chinese language-language media revealed on Might 1, Oh urged Chinese language Canadians to help the petition initiated by Wang, saying in Chinese language {that a} overseas agent registry would “stigmatize” ethnic Chinese language and trigger discrimination. He additionally mentioned the regulation would forestall parliamentarians from participating organizations akin to Chinese language hometown associations.
On March 29, 2022, Oh mentioned within the Senate that he had instructed Chiu that claims that “Chinese language agent affect” sabotaged Chiu’s re-election marketing campaign will not be true, and instructed Housakos Chiu is “mendacity to you” on the difficulty. Oh later issued an apology to Chiu and Housakos for his remarks.
Oh has voiced help for some Chinese language associations in Canada which have a historical past of taking positions aligned with Beijing. In 2020, he signed a letter issued by an Ontario-based affiliation to a Chinese language Communist Occasion official saying that the affiliation had been selling China’s picture in combating COVID-19 and pledged to proceed help of the “nice motherland.”
Oh signed as an honorary president of the Richmond Hill-based Chinese language enterprise affiliation, the Jiangsu Commerce Council of Canada, and as a Canadian senator and member of the parliamentary discussion board Canada-China Legislative Affiliation.
Isaac Teo and Justina Wheale contributed to this report