On Familiar Spirits

It would be tempting to interpret the Arthur Miller classic The Crucible as a parable about those who believe in witches and those who don’t. But, in fact, all the characters in his account of the Salem witch trials accept witchcraft as a reality and fear the spells that witches could cast.

That Abigail Williams is able to concoct her tale of demonic possession and act the part so convincingly is due to the receptivity of her audience to the idea that “the Devil may be among us.” Reverend John Hale, who was summoned to Salem to investigate the claims of sorcery, cautions against superstition yet insists, “The Devil is precise; the marks of his presence are definite as stone.” It is Hale’s arrival that triggers hysteria among the village’s residents and prompts a wide-ranging witch hunt. Deputy Governor Thomas Danforth, who presides over the trials, is an honest and scrupulous individual, but he too accepts the premise of witchcraft and places the importance of expelling such evil from the community above all else — including the liberties of the accused.

The tale doesn’t end well for anyone. It would be easy to cast Abigail Williams as the conniving villain, John Proctor as the flawed protagonist, and Thomas Danforth as the gullible magistrate, but they and the rest of the characters are doomed from the start — not by their foibles but by pervasive, suffocating, and “irrefutable” societal assumptions and beliefs.

Miller’s 1953 play was of course about the second Red Scare in the United States, a period in which he and many others (including the Canadian diplomat Herbert Norman) were persecuted because of the views they held and the people they associated with. Regardless of the damage caused by Senator Joseph McCarthy and his acolytes, the witch trials of The Crucible are sometimes derided as a crude parallel to anti-Communist fervour, which, after all, had a certain justification based on what was then seen as an existential contest between the United States and the Soviet Union.

But witch hunts always cast the problem as “existential,” whether in seventeenth-century Salem, in twentieth-century Washington, or in contemporary Ottawa. Such is the case of the foreign interference frenzy that has gripped our country and that has been the focus of four reports since last spring: from the former governor general David Johnston, from Marie-Josée Hogue of the Public Inquiry on Foreign Interference, from the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, and from the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency. We’ll have a pentalogy by December, with the expected release of the public inquiry’s final report.

The theme that runs through these many pages is the grave, indeed “existential” threat of foreign interference in Canadian democracy and, more specifically, in the conduct of our elections. This threat is deemed to come principally from the People’s Republic of China and to a lesser extent from Russia, India, Pakistan, and Iran. Presumably, threats to our democracy from sources closer at hand are not existential. Perhaps they are deemed not to exist in the first place. Or perhaps there are witches and then there are witches, and we are interested in exorcising some demons from our body politic but not all of them.

A trove of partially redacted classified documents released as part of the Public Inquiry on Foreign Interference — or PIFI — provides insight on the way our national security and intelligence agencies understand the threat, especially from the PRC. Chinese foreign interference is described as “sophisticated, persistent and pervasive”— and operating in a legal and normative “grey zone.” It is said to target “all levels of government (including provincial and municipal levels), in addition to various facets of Canadian society, including vulnerable diaspora groups, media entities, dissidents, activists, elites, elected officials and academics.”

Central to the portrayal of PRC interference is the role of the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party, which has gained prominence since Xi Jinping became president in 2013. He is credited with placing renewed emphasis on the UFWD and bringing into its ambit a wider range of civil society actors in China as well as overseas, as part of a broader, troubling drift toward totalitarianism. Xi famously referred to the UFWD as a “magic weapon”— a buzzword that our intelligence agencies underscore repeatedly in their assessments and seem to take very seriously.

There is no disputing either the existence of the UFWD, which predates the founding of the PRC, or the importance that Xi has placed on it. Dutch research suggests that UFWD operations are aimed at influencing the views of Chinese nationals or former Chinese nationals on sensitive issues in China and on the legitimacy and authority of the CCP, rather than on domestic matters in other countries. The UFWD has also put special emphasis on overseas Chinese students and scholars as a central focus of their efforts to entice talent to return home, for example through an array of Thousand Talent Programs that are akin to the Canada Research Chairs.

The problem with the idea of the UFWD as a magic weapon for the CCP, however, is that there is no such thing as a magic weapon. To assume that the targets of UFWD activities in Canada — Chinese community groups, business leaders, academics, politicians, and so forth — are automatons who are incapable of forming their own views on issues related to China and Canada-China relations is simplistic and dangerous, not to mention insulting to those who are deemed to be targets.

The point is that while Xi may indulge in magical thinking, our intelligence agencies should not. To accept that the UFWD is a magic weapon is to open the door to a sweeping definition of interference and espionage that could unfairly implicate a wide range of individuals and groups who are believed to be practising so‑called magic, resulting in — well, a witch hunt. We have already seen during the public inquiry extensive reference to Chinese “proxies” who are regarded as such because of the views they hold or the company they keep, rather than any evidence of direction from Beijing. They are the modern equivalent of “familiar spirits,” those legendary helpers of witches. (Incidentally, the original title of Miller’s play was Those Familiar Spirits.) And we heard a lot about them during the PIFI testimony.

When asked to provide an example of foreign interference during the 2021 general election, the Conservative member of Parliament Michael Chong cited a Zoom campaign event at which a person speaking in “Mandarin-accented English” asked questions about anti-Asian racism and the lack of an independent Canadian foreign policy. Chong may not enjoy being asked such questions, but to suggest that they are markers of PRC interference is both a stretch and a suppression of legitimate democratic debate — during an election, no less. If you happen to have a Mandarin accent, you should be doubly careful about raising such issues, lest you be cast as a foreign agent by someone who could conceivably be Canada’s foreign minister after the next election.

The New Democratic member of Parliament Jenny Kwan offered her own formula for identifying familiars in Vancouver. She claimed Chinese organizations that once welcomed her to events, but that no longer do so, were likely proxies for the PRC. The Chinese Canadian Museum faced special opprobrium for not inviting her to the podium for a photo op at its official opening in July 2023. For what it’s worth, I was also present that day, sitting not far from Kwan, and I did not receive the call either to be immortalized in a snapshot. I do not, however, believe in an inalienable right for politicians to be invited to community events, nor am I inclined to cast their organizers as foreign agents because of pique.

What is remarkable about the examples offered by two prominent politicians is that they seemingly were swallowed whole by the commissioner and by journalists present at the PIFI hearings. In the context of a foreign interference frenzy stoked by dodgy intelligence, anonymous leaks, craven politics, and self-serving media, it is perhaps not surprising that everyone believes “the Devil may be among us,” but I think even John Hale would have demanded more evidence.

And what of the evidence we have seen?

One of the most puzzling aspects of recently released intelligence reports is the contrast between the gravity of the PRC threat, which is described in general terms, and the specific instances of threats being shared publicly. As far as I can make out from the PIFI documents, our intelligence agencies have offered only a handful of concrete examples of interference from the elections of 2019 and 2021 — all of them tagged with the caveat of being inconclusive.

The two most discussed cases have to do with Erin O’ Toole, the former Conservative Party leader, and Kenny Chiu, a former Conservative MP. The importance of their experiences is reflected in the fact that both testified at the inquiry and have been quoted repeatedly by the media. A partially redacted intelligence report summarized the O’ Toole case this way:

The report then made this assessment, with reference to the Rapid Response Mechanism Canada, our permanent secretariat to the G7 Rapid Response Mechanism, which identifies and reacts to foreign threats to democracy:

It is bad enough that this case has been held up as a bona fide demonstration of Chinese foreign interference when the intelligence assessment does not reach such a conclusion. What is worse is the claim that the WeChat posts in question constitute disinformation. In fact, the suggestion that the Conservative platform “almost wants to break diplomatic relations with China” did not originate from Chinese state-controlled media but is from Jocelyn Coulon, a foreign policy adviser to the former Liberal leader Stéphane Dion, quoted in that most subversive of publications, the Hill Times of Ottawa, on September 8, 2021.

The intelligence report refers to posts claiming that “Chinese Canadians are scared of the Conservative’s platform” as evidence of disinformation. This assessment relies heavily on the assumption that views expressed on WeChat were fed to Canadians by a foreign source. Yet O’ Toole’s position on China was already well established through his public statements, in the Conservative Party’s election platform, and in reporting by the Hill Times and others. During the campaign, for example, O’ Toole asserted that “I am the only candidate with a plan to reset Canada’s relationship with the Chinese regime” and that the world was “on the brink of a new Cold War with another repressive communist regime, this time in China.” The Conservative Party’s 2021 election platform mentioned “China” or “Chinese” dozens of times in a negative light, including the idea that Canada should pursue “decoupling” from China in critical supply chains. And well over a year before the Global Times and WeChat posts, the Globe and Mail ran the headline “In Selecting Erin O’ Toole, Conservatives Elevate Hawkish Voice on China.”

It is puzzling that intelligence assessments did not attribute the WeChat posts to O’ Toole’s own statements, to a published election platform, or to a major newspaper. In his testimony to PIFI, O’ Toole himself propagated the notion that “there are 600,000 WeChat account users in British Columbia alone. And these are Canadians that don’t watch the evening news, and don’t read the Globe and Mail or the National Post. So they’re getting almost all of their information from channels that cannot be trusted.” In effect, he questioned the intelligence and independence of all WeChat users in the country.

Several months after the 2021 election, the Chinese Canadian Conservative Association called out their leader for what they described as a “hatred message” toward China. Did the association come to this view because of foreign interference? Surely, the more plausible explanation is that even some Tories agreed with the assertions made on WeChat, based on independent judgment of their party’s election platform and O’ Toole’s publicly stated views.

The point is not whether Erin O’ Toole’s positions on China are correct, and it is certainly not whether he has the right to take such positions. It may have been part of his calculation that a “hawkish” stance would win over more Chinese Canadian voters, but he surely would also have been aware of a possible backlash from some members of that community. That this backlash took place, as evidenced by the WeChat posts and the reaction of some Conservative Party members, should not have come as a surprise either to O’ Toole or to our security and intelligence agencies.

Because of the current fixation on foreign interference from the PRC, Canadian politicians may well choose to mimic that hawkish line on China as a winning strategy for future elections. Doing so would be part and parcel of the democratic process in Canada. However, if public acceptance of a hawkish position on China translates into the stigmatization of those who do not agree with it — and if it results in individuals and groups being branded as foreign agents with little or no evidence — our democracy will in fact have been diminished.

The case of Kenny Chiu is similarly instructive. In 2021, while still in Parliament, he proposed a private member’s bill on the creation of a foreign agent registry; WeChat posts opposed to his bill were later characterized by intelligence agencies as examples of foreign interference. The reports go further in describing the posts as “false or misleading,” referring to messages that suggested “Chiu would pass a ‘foreign power registry act’ that would designate ‘any individual or group connected with China as a spokesperson of the Chinese government.’ ”

At the heart of the issue is the registration requirement in Chiu’s bill for all “foreign principals,” including any “related entity,” which is defined, among several criteria, as one in which the leadership is “accustomed or under an obligation, whether formal or informal, to act in accordance with the directions, instructions or wishes of the foreign government or foreign political organization.”

Given that the PRC is a one-party authoritarian state, all legally constituted entities in China could fall under the definition of a foreign principal. In that case, any individual in Canada acting on behalf of such an entity would be subject to registration if they were to speak with a parliamentarian or senior official on a public policy matter. Even if one disputes this interpretation, it is surely reasonable that Canadians — taking the bill at face value — might have expressed concern that “any individual or group” connected with China could be subject to registration.

In June 2024, Parliament passed Bill C‑70, the Countering Foreign Interference Act, which includes the creation of a registry not unlike the one proposed in Chiu’s private member’s bill. It will require anyone who is in “an arrangement with a foreign principal” to register. Civil liberties organizations in Canada have raised concerns about how this amorphous term will be applied, not unlike the protestations in the 2021 WeChat posts. Is anyone suggesting that they are agents of a foreign state?

As it turns out, the “Panel of Five” deputy ministers tasked with flagging significant foreign interference in the 2021 election chose not to sound the alarm on the O’ Toole and Chiu incidents because members felt the threshold for intervention had not been met. But the fact that both incidents entered the public’s mind through sensationalist media coverage and that they have been held up by politicians as genuine cases of PRC foreign interference has been massively damaging to democratic debate in this country.

The PIFI commissioner hinted in her initial report that she is considering recommendations that would lower the threshold for public disclosure of incidents such as the O’ Toole and Chiu cases. Perhaps there is a way to do so that strengthens our defences against interference while protecting the right of Canadians to engage in vigorous political debate, but it is hard to imagine how the Panel of Five could have reached a different conclusion on those two incidents without infringing on the democratic rights of voters. In both cases, intelligence reports were unable to definitively ascribe the offending WeChat posts to the Chinese government. The best they could do was to observe that there were “indicators of potential coordination between various Canada-based Chinese language news outlets as well as PRC and CCP news outlets.”

In short, the intelligence agencies observed that the online posts had gone “viral” and jumped to the conclusion that it was due to foreign interference. The simpler and more plausible explanation is that many WeChat users agreed with what they read.

Even with their cautious language, the intelligence assessments are discriminatory and stigmatizing. There are a multitude of viral posts on numerous social media outlets, including those in English, that contain blatant misinformation and disinformation — but that are not flagged as such. Research from the Media Ecosystem Observatory at McGill University and the University of Toronto provides examples of distorted information on Western-based social media that also went viral during the 2021 election. It lists two trends in particular: misinformation from those who opposed pandemic health measures and vaccination policies, and claims of widespread voter fraud that were akin to narratives that emerged during and after the 2020 U.S. presidential election. In comparison with the WeChat posts that have generated so much attention, the much larger volume of disinformation around COVID‑19 and voter fraud would surely have had greater reach and impact on Canadians before, during, and after the general election.

Witch hunts eventually peter out, and perhaps the current zealotry will moderate as we rediscover our allegiance to fairness, the rule of law, and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But even before the PIFI commissioner could weigh in with her recommendations, due at the end of 2024, Parliament decided to jump the gun with the passing of a bill to counter foreign interference. The “rule of law” is now defined by the implementation of C‑70, including new offences related to “Political Interference for a Foreign Entity.” These breaches cover a wide range of activities, including political, legislative, policy, and governance processes at all levels of government and educational institutions.

The new law does not make it an offence to interfere in a political activity on behalf of a foreign entity as such. Rather, the offence is in interfering secretly or deceptively. Anyone who is deemed to be “in association with” a foreign entity and participates in any of the designated political activities without formally notifying the new “Foreign Influence Transparency Commissioner” could be prosecuted, with a maximum penalty of “imprisonment for life.” But what does it mean to be “in association with” a foreign entity? Agreeing with the position of a foreign government? Meeting periodically with foreign officials? Being a member of a bilateral business association? Participating in organizations that have overseas funding? Joining an alumni group of a foreign university?

Why would anyone who could be tagged as being “in association with” a foreign entity run the risk of life imprisonment for participating in Canadian democracy? Until the yet-to-be-appointed transparency commissioner clarifies how they will interpret the criteria for registration, the best course of action for Canadians, especially immigrants who maintain ties with their country of origin, is to stay away from political and civic engagement. How ironic that a law to counter foreign interference in our democracy could end up discouraging Canadians from taking part in that very democracy. Indeed, aggressive interpretation of the new law could result in voter suppression — especially for would‑be voters with the “wrong” connections. Perhaps this is the outcome that China hawks, foreign interference zealots, and some supporters of the bill are hoping for.

C‑70 also amends the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act to allow the agency to share general information on potential foreign interference threats with a broader set of stakeholders, especially those in the private sector. Insofar as it improves resilience and preparedness against foreign interference in Canadian society, this change is welcome and long overdue. But the corollary to sharing information with Canadians about foreign interference threats is that our law enforcement and intelligence agencies should also be forthcoming about foreign interference allegations that implicate Canadians.

Take the case of so‑called Chinese police stations in Canada. Based on “intelligence” from a Spanish non-governmental organization, the RCMP has named a number of Chinese community groups in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal as hosts of these police stations, causing them to be stigmatized and, in some cases, severely disrupting their community service activities. What’s happened to Service à la Famille Chinoise du Grand Montréal and Centre Sino-Québec de la Rive-Sud is especially egregious. While the Mounties have had no compunction in naming the organizations as Chinese police stations, they have refused to reveal the offending activities said to have taken place. To add insult to injury, the RCMP has more recently claimed to have “disrupted” such activities without saying what it was that they disrupted. This is tantamount to claiming to have solved a great mystery but not disclosing what the mystery was.

The impact on the two organizations has been devastating. Community services such as French-language instruction for new immigrants, legal advice, and counselling for those who do not speak an official language, as well as recreation for seniors and internships for young people have been sharply reduced due to cutbacks in government funding. And the ability of the nearly fifty-year-old SFCGM to rent out a portion of its building in Montreal’s historic Chinatown has been impeded by the stigma of supposedly being a hotbed of foreign activity. The “disruption” the RCMP has wreaked is very real indeed, but it has nothing to do with foreign interference. The organizations filed a lawsuit in late 2023, to which the RCMP has not yet provided any meaningful response.

Except this: In early July, the Mounties parked a huge trailer in the heart of Chinatown and had uniformed officers fan out to nearby stores and restaurants in some kind of information-gathering exercise. Or was it intimidation? Is the RCMP now scrambling to gather evidence to support a claim by a foreign (how ironic) NGO made against a Canadian community group that the police did not have when the accusation was first made? Enter Ezekiel Cheever, who issues the arrest warrant for John Proctor’s wife, Elizabeth, on the shakiest of evidence.

Certainly, we should not tolerate the presence of foreign police stations on Canadian soil nor interference from any foreign state. But claims of these sorts must be supported by evidence and reason, and the response to any such interference should be balanced, proportionate, and consistent. Sadly, the current debate on foreign interference resembles a rush to judgment and a betrayal of our values. The leadership class in Canada has by and large bought into groupthink, even if individuals within it, like John Hale in The Crucible, may recognize the dangers of making hasty judgments about the presence of sorcery.

Witch hunts are always about the demonization of the mundane and the pursuit of self-harm — dressed up as necessity. They are always led by ideologues and opportunists who prey on fear. The victims are always those who are vulnerable, those who find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, and those who are targeted for personal failures that are turned into grave crimes. Nobody recognizes it until everybody does. But by then, the damage has been done.