The Ben Mulroney Show - Hong Kong detains a CPC Candidate's Family... It's time our Government wakes up

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Hong Kong detains a CPC Candidate's Family... It's time our Government wakes up with Guest: Sam Cooper - Founder of the Bureau News and Author of Willful Blindness If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hey, I can upgrade my kids! You chill, Mom. I'll load the dishwasher. Awesome! Exclusions apply. See Specsavers.ca for details. Offer ends soon. Great to have you here, Alex Pearson in Fort Ben Mulry. This is a story that takes us back to the campaign trail and you might recall during the election news that one of the conservative candidates, Joe Tay, who was running in the Markham area had been targeted in a Chinese interference campaign and the

threats were so numerous that he had to suspend his campaign and you're thinking well who's Joe Tay? Well he has become a very well-known, outspoken activist against the suppression of China for Hong Kong. He's got a lot of family in Hong Kong. And you might recall that during the election, a now former liberal candidate, Paul Chang, who ultimately had to, you know, ended up resigning from the election race because he suggested that Tay maybe be turned into Hong Kong police because there's a bounty on his head. Well following the election and following all that and the fact is not much was really

done about it. We now learn Taye's family had actually been taken into questioning by Hong Kong police and now we learn through our reporting with Sam Cooper that in fact the federal government is apparently looking into this. So let's bring Sam Cooper into this to explain. Of course, you know him from founder of the Bureau News and also the author of Willful Blindness. Sam, so good to have you on. I feel like I have you on almost every day now because you've got so many stories turning. Well, these this story with Jote and other interference from China is not stopping. It's intensifying. So I'm happy to update. Okay.

So the last update we had was that his family had been taken into questioning in Hong Kong. And at that time, you said, Sam, that Ottawa really needs to look into this. And apparently they are. So where did you learn that Ottawa is now looking into it? And when you say they are, or the RCMP, how so? Well, I asked last week after I broke this story for a comment from the Prime Minister's office and CSIS, and I didn't hear from the Prime Minister's office, but CSIS did get back to me after the

weekend. Yesterday, they confirmed Ottawa has raised, quote, strong concerns directly with both Chinese and Hong Kong authorities end quote about the circumstances of Mr. Tay's relatives being taken in for questioning which clearly the government sees it as I do as a very serious situation they a strong statement from global affairs again here's a quote our foreign Affairs Office deplores the decision by Hong Kong authorities to punish people for actions that amount to nothing more than freedom of expression. Obviously, our government is concerned and looking into the circumstances. I can't update you on whether these family members have been released. You know, there are cases in Hong Kong

of relatives in a similar situation for people living abroad that had to run away, living under bounties, including the United States. We've seen parents in Hong Kong and relatives arrested and some of them still detained. I don't know the situation here, but the government confirmed it's looking into the matter. It has complained and it's in contact with Mr.

Tay. All to say, I think Alex, this is one very serious case and it's obviously much broader. This is aimed at Canada's whole parliament because what this does is it tells the political parties and the candidates, don't criticize Beijing or else. Right. Or else what though? Because it didn't really get much more than a shrug of the shoulders during the election campaign. So if I'm China and I want to do whatever I want to do and I look at the apathy in this country, why would they stop?

That's exactly right, Alex. You're following this as I am breaking these stories. And I broke another story this morning that a diaspora, quote, conservative group in the Toronto area came out with a press conference yesterday asking for Pierre Poliev to step down. They say it's undemocratic that he needs to run for a pie election after losing his seat in Ottawa. And this is the very same group that that asked Aaron O'Toole to step down after last election if you remember when similar

Types of interference against the Conservative Party So it only appears that these attacks on let's say Canadians who are being told to vote for the Liberals essentially continue Yeah, but again, we are in Canada and we are in a country where if you live in Canada and you're a Canadian citizen you should be able to run for an election if you want to, you know, flex that democratic muscle. And yet it is known that people are being, you know, pushed out. This guy had to suspend his campaign, right? And so if there's no outrage, and we know that other candidates in the past have lost their seats on the conservative side because of interference and these campaigns, and yet there is no outrage to stop it. And there just doesn't seem to be any will to stop it.

And again, it's not just China doing this. And they were working many times as you reported during the campaign to get Mark Carney in power, right? Because that worked better for them. But Mr. Carney said during the debates, and I'm sure you heard it, he says China is the biggest threat, but the actions don't fit the words. You nailed it in every sense there. I come away from this election thinking that many Canadians were essentially gaslit into sort of believing that this was all about bad President Trump and his, you know, pending attacks on Canada. We learned afterwards that essentially Mr. Carney and Trump had a

call in which Mr. Carney said he's gonna have to sort of raise a fake campaign against President Trump. And look, I think Canadians need to look in the mirror, the ones that bought that, and say, was I fooled into voting for something that didn't really matter? And am I ignoring the real threat? That is, my fellow Canadians are literally living in fear of who they can vote for. Alex, I get a little bit worked up when, you know, you're right, a lot of people will forget this, but I won't. – No, you won't because you're reminded probably more so than all of us. But having said that, then what happens because we've got these so-called institutions set up by the last government, we've got all these things put into place to protect us from it.

But when they raised the alarms during the election that there's interference going on, that's all we do with it, right? Like, is there a goal to do anything more with it after the fact or is it just that we've now instituted plans to say, oh we've got more interference just wanted you to know about it like is there actually like is there is there a next chapter to this like we actually stop it? Well I think that's exactly the state of play at the very least during this election we had public warnings which let's call that a baby step towards protecting our democracy but others have noted as I

have seen as well that that, you know, widely recognized, supposed reform of a foreign interference registry that was passed in our last parliament, as far as I know, is not implemented yet. So any of the people that were very brazenly acting for China in the past election, they're not bound by law, as far as I know, to sign their name to a register. So we indeed are still in the position where we cannot really investigate or hold people to account.

And let's hope when our parliament finally is stood up again that we'll get some clarity on whether that agent registry will in fact come into law. Well, again, this government, the Trudeau government had to be dragged kicking and screaming to bring this in. And to your point, they didn't really want to. So does it does it remain intact? Does it actually get pushed in? Does it actually do anything? But Australia, other governments, other countries that have been dealing with this, as you've

reported many times, they are seized with this, and they've been seized with it for years, and we're just so indifferent to it. You know, it's hard to not get very jaded and cynical to think like this is going to be completely out of control in the next decade. That's that is my concern. That's the concern of people that risk a lot. I'm talking about people in government agencies that came to me with, you know, information that I could break these stories. And look look I think it's on my fellow Canadians now to you know do you

want a country where people actually have the right to vote without fearing or not so you know and when we actually maybe do get another election people should ask what's really important in this country. I like yeah well you well you you'd think that that we would be seized with these things. Having said all that then, what happens to Mr. Tay now? Does he just now go on his life like others, under watch constantly? I'm sure he was watched before, but you know, what happens to him? I'm still working on my reporting that shows that there could have been a very very concerning threat in an in-person threat to campaign members. As I reported, Mr. Tay was told

to stand down from in-person meetings. As far as I know him and his wife are still politically active and you know potentially if our society is protected in the right way, he could run again because he struck me as a very firm-willed and good man. And so let's see what happens. But I do know he, I believe he's essentially still living under some form of protection. And I'm still working on proving out exactly what happened in that campaign because I do think it gets worse than anyone knows so far. We'll talk about it. Sam, very much appreciate your

time. Thanks Alex. Sam Cooper joining us of course he found the Bureau also author of Willful Blindness. Great to have you here Alex Fusing in for Mr. Ben Mulroney on the Ben Mulroney show and yeah what does today signal when it comes to change? What does change look like? Because we will be finding that finally seeing what change looks like with Mark Carney's government, certainly seeing a lot of the same familiar faces. Patty had you and I see, yeah, Mr. Stephen Giebel is there walking up all so proud of themselves. You see people like, um, Christopher Freeland.

Okay. What, what does change look like when all the people lining up behind Mara Carney seem to look an awful lot like the same people, right? But these are the people that Carney says are gonna help him solve a crisis. Whether or not that's true, I don't know, but the business communities would share like a good signal

with this cabinet today as to, are we actually going to move forward? Right does do the new faces? present like the old faces because honestly changing faces will not build this country back and So Carney's actually going to turn course And address the crises many of them in this country Then you know and by the way, none of them do involve Trump. He's his own special category. But Carney has to show this country and millions of people who did not vote for him that, yeah,

he is not the same guy as the last guy. Right? And he will actually build these big building, you know, build Canada, build promises, despite the fact that, you know, the people lining up behind him didn't do it for 10 years. So it's hard to get your head around that. So what does this signal if we go right back to the same ideological, green, clean climate projects or even just the vacuous talking points and all the promises made of the last decade?

So no one should be surprised if we get the same stuff as we got before given change is more than just saying, hey, we're gonna bring change, right? We wanna know exactly how that looks. The other thing, you know, and some things that will happen, certainly the parts already moving, you know, Mark Carney is not going to, and he certainly said during the campaign, he's not going to end industrial carbon pricing, right?

He capped and got rid of the consumer side of the cap of the tax, but he's going to have this industrial carbon price, right? And that is a big problem if you're trying to get investment in this country, which hasn't existed for years. Like you just never mind my partisan spin or anybody else's, you just have to look at the 10 years that have passed of GDP growth in this country and there is no growth, right? For the last 10 years this country has literally flatlined as far as investment. And so yeah, when you've got Mark

Carney saying, well we're're going to keep the industrial carbon pricing. You know, that's a problem. Who the hell is going to invest here if you can do business much less costly and much less regulations next door, right? When we hear headlines about Honda pausing, you know, for two years another project that they were supposed to start, right? What are they doing?

Well, they're waiting for Donald Trump to clarify what he's doing. He wants to bring investment back to the United States and people and companies might be lured over. Why would Honda stay in Canada if it can get rid of an industrial carbon tax and some of the regulations and some of the costs? That's what we're up against.

Alberta's not even waiting for Mark Carney to negotiate this. They're getting rid of it for him. Right. And Danielle Smith says we have to, we have to stay competitive. And the only way we can do that is to get all rid of all the climate regulation. And so she's frozen the industrial carbon price is effective immediately. And they'll be staying at $95 per ton on a mission. It was supposed to go up to $110 a ton in 2026 and then $170 a ton by 2030, which is nuts.

Right? It's nuts. Now, Carney did not get rid of the carbon tax because he was being a nice guy and also because he believes in it. He had to. No choice, right? Pierre Pauli have campaigned against it for two years, finally got that thing, you know, almost killed. And so the only reason Carney got rid of it

is because he had no choice. But this industrial carbon tax is going to be a very big problem. And so he's gonna have to justify how he's going to get businesses to invest here when the guy next door is not doing any of that, right? We just are not competitive. And so if he's here to solve that crisis, will he actually make us

competitive? Will he actually listen to Alberta? Will he actually talk to Alberta? Because I don't know if he wants to pick a fight with Alberta or Saskatchewan right now, but they're gonna do what they have to do. Certainly the issue of separatism is still a big, big topic of conversation. And again, what happens when in cabinet and whoever picks, Mr. Carney puts it, signals to Alberto what their future looks like. Right? But there's a separatist group on Monday, they release what they see as the referendum question about independence in this country and so they want to put a petition in front of

provincial voters but it has to get enough support from Alberta. It's got to get 600,000 signatures and that's more than the triple the number of signatures the Alberta prosperity project would need under a new united conservative party that will make it easier to force a referendum question on the ballot. But the group says that they're going to push Danielle Smith to allow a separation referendum in 2025. They want it sooner. And so they see a critical mass of separatists and US, UCP members who can persuade the premier to fast track any talk of referendum. who can persuade the premier to fast-track any talk of referendum. And so they are not waiting to see what Mark Carney does. They don't really want to

negotiate. Now I think it's important to point out polling on this thing. The majority of Albertans say, no, we're staying in Canada. But it's not the kind of issue that you can just ignore and say, well, I'm sure they'll get over it. Right? Alberta will get over it. No, Alberta will not get over it. They've been pretty angry for a long time since Pierre Elliott Trudeau. They were angry. Then along comes the sun, infuriates them, and now you've got Mark Carney for a fourth term.

So if there's no signal in cabinet that Alberta is going to be able to get projects done and energy to market, you're going to see a completely expedited talk on separation. But the other thing is, you've got all these aggravators in. And certainly, you've got people on the sidelines trying to aggravate the indigenous side of it, stirring the pot with indigenous voices saying that, you know, we can't do this. You're going to anger a lot of indigenous voices. But there are a lot of indigenous voices that actually say, know, we can't do this, you're gonna anger a lot of indigenous voices, but there are a lot of indigenous voices

that actually say, no, we would go too. So they're not a monolith of voice. John Rustad has now warned David Eby that he is actually setting back reconciliation by giving First Nations veto power when it comes to projects in British Columbia being done. So look, there are a lot of things that Mark Carney's gonna have to navigate,

certainly in trying to get projects done and built. Not only does he have to get a sign off on by the present government of the day, but also by other members like indigenous groups. A lot of indigenous groups absolutely want, they want energy projects, they want a say, and they want to be able to do things and track projects. But you know, bottom line is, you know, we've got to have people in charge that actually

can give Indigenous voices who actually do want a voice at the table. Otherwise, you're only going to get people saying that they want to cancel all these things and they're not representative of all the table. Otherwise, you're only going to get people saying that they want to cancel all these things. And they're not representative of all the voices. Right? So you got David Eby in Vancouver right now saying that First Nations should absolutely get a veto over whether projects in BC can be given priority status by the government. But again, they don't speak for all indigenous groups and it doesn't take more than one to stop a project. So I don't know how Carney's gonna get a lot of these projects done given there's so much special interest that in lobbying, and it only takes like one person in one courtroom

to muck things up. But again, all these side deals being made by premiers in Vancouver, BC, in Alberta, Saskatchewan, everyone's got their own set of rules. It's gonna be very, very difficult. Who gets a say? Who does not? On things like vetoing energy projects, vetoing things like separation, those kinds of things. But yeah, not a small amount of work has to be done. And again, a lot of it comes down to what Mark Carney signals today and who he puts into cabinet, as far as if things start to go up as they should,

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