Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly has designated persona non grata Chinese official Zhao Wei, who is accused of targeting Conservative MP Michael Chong and threatening his family members in Hong Kong.
“I have been clear: we will not tolerate any form of foreign interference in our internal affairs. Diplomats in Canada have been warned that if they engage in this type of behaviour, they will be sent home,” Joly said in a statement on May 8.
Joly said the decision has been made after a “careful consideration of all factors at play.”
On May 4, the minister told the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee that her administration was weighing the implications of such a move, particularly in light of Beijing's earlier actions in the case of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou.
The Chinese dictatorship unlawfully held Canadian nationals Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor for nearly 1,000 days, from December 2018 to September 2021, in punishment for Canada honoring its legal responsibility to the US by keeping Meng, who was being accused of fraud, under house arrest.
On May 4, Joly informed the committee that Global Affairs Canada summoned Chinese ambassador Cong Peiwu to discuss MP Chong's matter.
The Chinese Embassy said in a statement published in reaction to Joly's decision on May 8 that it would retaliate against "provocations" and that Beijing would "play along every step of the way until the very end."
According to a national security source, a Chinese espionage service and Chinese ambassador Zhao Wei had targeted MP Chong in 2021 for his support for human rights in China, according to The Globe and Mail on May 1.
Zhao, a consulate official in Toronto, was identified as a "suspected intelligence actor" by a national security source in a previous Globe piece published on Feb. 13.
Chong and his party have pressured the Liberal government to expel Zhao in recent days, and a vote to that effect was carried in the House of Commons on May 8 with backing from the NDP and the Bloc Québécois.
Along with examining the effects of Zhao's expulsion, the federal government spent last week working to identify who knew what and when about the Chinese regime's threats to MPs.
The Globe and Mail's May 1 report quoted a 2021 assessment of Chinese meddling in Canada made by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). It claimed that the Ministry of State Security (MSS), one of the People's Republic of China's intelligence services, had "taken specific actions to target Canadian MPs."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau first stated that he was never informed on this material, that he learnt about it via the media on May 1, and that the evaluation never left CSIS.
This was later disputed when it was discovered that the evaluation had been shared outside of CSIS, including at the prime minister's department, the Privy Council Office (PCO).
