Liberal candidate accepted invitation from China to celebrate People’s Liberation Army event
Robert Fife Ottawa Bureau Chief
Steven Chase Senior parliamentary reporter
Ottawa
Published April 11, 2025
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Peter Yuen, Liberal candidate for Markham-Unionville, attends a campaign event at Kennedy subway station in Scarborough, Ont., on Jan. 31.
Laura Proctor/The Canadian Press
A Liberal candidate running in a Greater Toronto Area riding, whose candidacy has come under scrutiny for ties to pro-Beijing groups, accepted an invitation from China to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army victory over Japan in the Second World War.
Peter Yuen, who has also been linked to Toronto’s Chinese consulate, joined a group of about 70 Chinese Canadians for the Tiananmen Square celebration in September, 2015.
The centrepiece of the event was a military parade featuring marching soldiers and 27 columns of weaponry and equipment from tanks to missile launchers.
The PLA celebrations, attended by President Xi Jinping, took place in the vicinity of where army tanks rolled over prodemocracy students in 1989.
At the time in 2015, Mr. Yuen was a superintendent with the Toronto Police. He later rose to deputy chief. The year before the trip to Beijing, China’s consulate in Toronto held an event to mark Mr. Yuen’s promotion to superintendent.
A source, who was also invited and attended the 2015 event, said the Chinese consulate in Toronto picked which Canadians would be invited and its government paid for their Beijing accommodation but not air flights. The trip was arranged by the overseas arm of the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department (UFWD), the source said.
The Globe and Mail is not identifying the source, who fears repercussion for speaking out.
Mr. Yuen was parachuted into the riding of Markham-Unionville in early April after Liberal MP Paul Chiang dropped out when it was revealed that he had suggested a Conservative politician and human-rights activist could be turned over to the Chinese consulate for a bounty. Mr. Chiang served with the York Regional Police before his election to the House of Commons in 2021.
Liberal Leader Mark Carney denounced Mr. Chiang’s comments but stood by the candidate before he ultimately bowed out earlier this month. Mr. Carney also backed Mr. Yuen’s candidacy despite his connections to Beijing-friendly groups that have endorsed annexation of Taiwan and played down China’s repression of its Muslim Uyghur minority in Xinjiang province.
Mr. Yuen said in a statement, provided through the Liberal Party Friday, that his attendance at the PLA celebration was greenlit by the Toronto police department. Canada did not send any political ministers but was represented by then-Canadian ambassador to China Guy Saint-Jacques.
“My participation was expressly approved by the Toronto Police Service, as part of a broader effort to recognize the role of Canada and other allies in World War II,” Mr. Yuen said.
He declined to say if accommodation expenses were picked up. Nor did he respond to questions about why he was associating with organizations tied to the UFWD, which is responsible for propaganda, espionage and interference operations abroad, particularly in diaspora communities.
CSIS has said that China’s targeting of Canada’s democratic institutions is “primarily motivated by a desire to cultivate relationships with or support political candidates and incumbents who seem receptive or actively promote PRC viewpoints,” referring to the People’s Republic of China. The Hogue public inquiry into foreign interference said in its final report that Beijing tries to ”control and influence Chinese diaspora communities, shape international opinions and influence politicians to support PRC policies.”
As The Globe reported earlier this week, Mr. Yuen has also spoken at and attended events of the Toronto branch of Chinese Freemasons, which has advocated for what it calls the “peaceful reunification of China and Taiwan,” a phrase rejected by the Taiwanese government, which contends that only the self-governing island can decide its own future. Ottawa’s position is that it opposes the use of coercion or force to unilaterally change the status quo of Taiwan.
In his statement Friday, Mr. Yuen said he believes in a “strong Canada that stands firm in its defence of democracy, human rights and the rule of law.”
As recently as April 10, Mr. Yuen was listed as honorary director on the website of the Jiangsu Commerce Council of Canada (JCCC), a Toronto-headquartered organization founded in 2002 with clear ties to China’s UFWD.
Mr. Yuen said in a statement Wednesday that his role with JCCC ended a decade ago. He declined to answer e-mailed questions from The Globe on whether he supports Taiwan’s self-determination, condemns China’s crimes against its Uyghur minority or disapproves of UFWD activities.
Instead, he pointed to his career with the Toronto Police as his qualification to seek election to Parliament.
“I have built a great career committed to public service and have a track record of maintaining the health, safety and well-being of those in our community as Toronto’s former Deputy Police Chief,” he said in the e-mailed response sent by the Liberal Party.
During the Liberal leadership race, Mr. Carney met executives of the JCCC, according to its website, which described the former central banker’s entry into politics as “an important turning point in the upgrading of China-Canada relations.” The Jiangsu council says on its website that “in an in-depth exchange” with two of its leaders, Mr. Carney “highly praised the pioneering role of the Chinese business community in emerging fields such as clean technology, digital trade and financial technology.”
Mr. Carney said Thursday he had never heard of this group, adding that he meets hundreds or thousands of people a day. The Liberal campaign sent a legal notice to the JCCC to remove information on its website about meeting with the Liberal Leader, saying this is incorrect.
In December, 2021, then-JCCC president Jiang Rui travelled to Nanjing and met Li Guohua, an executive deputy director of the UFWD. A year later, Mr. Rui and another colleague participated in the Central Conference of the UFWD in Beijing, attended by the Chinese President. The Department of Public Safety in Canada says the UFWD attempts to “stifle criticism, infiltrate foreign political parties, diaspora communities, universities and multinational corporations.”
The JCCC’s stated aim is to promote trade, business co-operation and “friendly relations” between Ontario and the Chinese province of Jiangsu and between Canada and China. Statements and actions by JCCC echo narratives pushed by Beijing that, according to Human Rights Watch, has deepened repression of its citizens under Mr. Xi’s rule.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-liberal-candidate-accepted-invitation-from-china-to-celebrate-peoples/
