Prince Edward Island Premier Requests Inquiry Into Buddhist Groups Linked to China

A Cana­da Chi­na influ­ence inquiry is urgent­ly need­ed at the nation­al lev­el fol­low­ing Prince Edward Island’s unprece­dent­ed call for inves­ti­ga­tion into Bei­jing’s inter­fer­ence oper­a­tions. On 5 Novem­ber 2025, The Hill Times report­ed that for­mer Lib­er­al MP Wayne East­er and for­mer RCMP pro­ceeds of crime direc­tor Gar­ry Clement argued that Pre­mier Rob Lantz’s request to inves­ti­gate P.E.I.-based Bud­dhist groups with sus­pect­ed Unit­ed Front links demon­strates even provinces removed from geopo­lit­i­cal epi­cen­tres are feel­ing for­eign influ­ence rip­ple effects. The arti­cle begins:

On Oct. 8, Opti­mum Pub­lish­ing held a press con­fer­ence at the Nation­al Press The­atre in Ottawa. Those who appeared all stressed the urgent need for our politi­cians to start tak­ing seri­ous­ly the issue of for­eign influ­ence in Canada’s affairs. Just 10 days lat­er, Prince Edward Island Pre­mier Rob Lantz wrote to the fed­er­al min­is­ters of finance and pub­lic safe­ty to request an inves­ti­ga­tion into the activ­i­ties of some P.E.I.-based Bud­dhist groups sus­pect­ed of hav­ing links to the Peo­ple’s Repub­lic of Chi­na (PRC) through the Unit­ed Fron­t’s Bud­dhist Asso­ci­a­tion of Chi­na. These activ­i­ties were exposed through a jour­nal­is­tic inves­ti­ga­tion detailed in the book Cana­da Under Siege: How PEI Became a For­ward Oper­at­ing Base for the Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty, and backed by a CBC/Ra­dio-Cana­da Inter­na­tion­al news inves­ti­ga­tion. When lead­ers take prin­ci­pled stands on issues that echo far beyond their own juris­dic­tions, they deserve recognition.

Read more: https://www.hilltimes.com/story/2025/11/05/follow-p-e-i-s-lead-canada-needs-a-national-inquiry-into-chinas-influence/480746/

Key Points

• Prince Edward Island Pre­mier Rob Lantz wrote to fed­er­al min­is­ters request­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion into P.E.I.-based Bud­dhist groups sus­pect­ed of hav­ing links to the Peo­ple’s Repub­lic of Chi­na through the Unit­ed Fron­t’s Bud­dhist Asso­ci­a­tion of China.
• The authors argue that Cana­da needs an inde­pen­dent nation­al inquiry with sub­poe­na pow­er and full trans­paren­cy along­side active crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tions to expose how PRC influ­ence is under­min­ing democ­ra­cy, sov­er­eign­ty, and governance.
• Intel­li­gence offi­cers, par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, and inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ists have repeat­ed­ly flagged inci­dents of the PRC tar­get­ing Cana­di­an Chi­nese dias­po­ra com­mu­ni­ties, attempt­ing to sway local elec­tions, and infil­trat­ing insti­tu­tions of high­er learning.
• The call comes as For­eign Affairs Min­is­ter Ani­ta Anand recent­ly announced Cana­da is pur­su­ing a strate­gic part­ner­ship with Chi­na in light of the Unit­ed States’ with­draw­al from the inter­na­tion­al stage.

Chinese Influence Operations in Canada: Election Interference and Diaspora Targeting

Chi­nese influ­ence oper­a­tions in Cana­da employ sophis­ti­cat­ed tac­tics tar­get­ing elec­toral process­es, media envi­ron­ments, and dias­po­ra com­mu­ni­ties through coor­di­nat­ed cam­paigns orches­trat­ed by the Unit­ed Front Work Depart­ment. Dur­ing the 2025 fed­er­al elec­tion, author­i­ties iden­ti­fied sys­tem­at­ic manip­u­la­tion on WeChat, where the Youli-Youmi­an account and thir­ty small­er accounts spread con­tent about Prime Min­is­ter Mark Car­ney. These dig­i­tal oper­a­tions reflect Bei­jing’s broad­er strat­e­gy of exploit­ing Chi­nese-lan­guage media and com­mu­ni­ty net­works to sup­press dis­sent while posi­tion­ing itself as an alter­na­tive to Amer­i­can influ­ence amid dete­ri­o­rat­ing Cana­da-US relations.

The oper­a­tions extend beyond social media into Canada’s polit­i­cal infra­struc­ture through finan­cial trans­fers and can­di­date cul­ti­va­tion. Cana­di­an intel­li­gence doc­u­ment­ed how Chi­nese con­sulates direct­ed clan­des­tine fund­ing net­works involv­ing at least eleven fed­er­al can­di­dates across mul­ti­ple par­ties dur­ing the 2019 and 2021 elec­tions. Accord­ing to CSIS brief­in­gs to the Prime Min­is­ter’s Office, Chi­na sought to ensure minor­i­ty Lib­er­al gov­ern­ments while tar­get­ing Con­ser­v­a­tive politi­cians crit­i­cal of Bei­jing, includ­ing MP Ken­ny Chiu who lost his seat fol­low­ing coor­di­nat­ed dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paigns on WeChat after propos­ing a for­eign agents reg­istry. The Chi­nese Min­istry of For­eign Affairs threat­ened through state-owned Glob­al Times that “Chi­na will pay back with a strong counter strike” if Con­ser­v­a­tives adopt­ed their anti-Chi­na platform.

Cana­di­an intel­li­gence agen­cies have repeat­ed­ly warned that Chi­na’s media influ­ence activ­i­ties have become nor­mal­ized and more insid­i­ous, mov­ing from crude pro­pa­gan­da to sus­tained cam­paigns tar­get­ing Chi­nese-lan­guage out­lets and dias­po­ra com­mu­ni­ties. CSIS brief­ing doc­u­ments revealed how Chi­nese con­sular offi­cials cul­ti­vate rela­tion­ships through polit­i­cal dona­tions, busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties, and threats against jour­nal­ists, while covert police sta­tions mon­i­tor and intim­i­date dias­po­ra crit­ics.

The 2024 Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment report con­firmed these activ­i­ties include estab­lish­ment of unau­tho­rized police facil­i­ties, eco­nom­ic coer­cion against Cana­di­an busi­ness­es, and co-option of com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions under cul­tur­al exchange pre­tens­es that effec­tive­ly mask state involve­ment in demo­c­ra­t­ic interference.

Exter­nal References:

• CSIS warned Prime Min­is­ter’s Office in 2023 that Chi­na ‘clan­des­tine­ly and decep­tive­ly’ inter­fered in elec­tions – CBC News
• Chi­nese gov­ern­ment inter­fer­ence in Cana­da – Wikipedia
• The par­ty speaks for you: for­eign inter­fer­ence and the Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty’s unit­ed front sys­tem – Aus­tralian Strate­gic Pol­i­cy Institute

Dis­claimer: The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) uti­lizes AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing the gen­er­a­tion of sum­maries for news items, intro­duc­tions, key points, and, often, the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, all images are gen­er­at­ed using AI and are intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.