Security officials report 'repression' operation targeting Conservative candidate Joe Tay

Jim Bronskill · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 21, 2025 3:27 PM EDT | Last Updated: 2 minutes ago

Canadian information officials accidental they person spotted a overseas repression cognition targeting a national Conservative campaigner opposed to Chinese authorities policies.

The cognition features a mock "wanted" poster and disparaging headlines and comments astir Joe Tay, the Conservative campaigner for the suburban Toronto riding of Don Valley North.

Tay is known for his absorption to Chinese authorities policies.

Last past year, Hong Kong constabulary issued apprehension warrants for six activists based overseas — including Tay — with bounties acceptable astatine astir $185,000 for accusation starring to their arrests.

Federal officials told a media briefing Monday the cognition is taking spot connected societal media platforms wherever Chinese-speaking users successful Canada are active, including Facebook, WeChat, TikTok, RedNote and Douyin, a sister app of TikTok for the Chinese market.

The Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force says it saw 2 important trends concerning Tay during the electoral writ period, according to Laurie-Anne Kempton, adjunct caput to the furniture for communications.

The archetypal inclination involves what Kempton called "inauthentic and co-ordinated" amplification of contented related to the Hong Kong bounty and an apprehension warrant against Tay, arsenic good arsenic worldly astir his competence to clasp governmental office.

"We've seen that aggregate accounts oregon platforms published oregon interacted with contented astatine akin times and dates, sometimes wrong minutes oregon adjacent seconds of each other," Kempton said.

This benignant of enactment increases the measurement of online material, making it much apt that users of the platforms are exposed to the amplified content, she said.

Repression meant to soundlessness criticism: official 

Confirming the root of an online cognition tin often instrumentality important clip and investigation due to the fact that malign actors spell to large lengths to fell their tracks, Kempton said.

Intelligence reporting indicates that 1 of the Facebook accounts progressive successful the enactment concerning Tay is historically connected to Chinese authorities authorities and pro-Beijing entities successful Hong Kong, she told the briefing.

"This includes links to the cardinal authorities liaison bureau successful Hong Kong," she added.

The 2nd inclination was deliberate suppression of hunt terms, oregon keyword filtering, censoring Tay's sanction successful simplified and accepted Chinese connected definite China-based societal media platforms utilized by Canadians.

"The transnational repression and its effect connected the antiauthoritarian process is not astir a azygous act, but alternatively astir the accumulated interaction of galore acts designed to discredit a candidate, soundlessness disapproval and dissent and manipulate the accusation that informs voters," Kempton said.

Officials said a sheet of elder bureaucrats that monitors elections has concluded that this online enactment is not affecting Canada's quality to clasp a escaped and just vote, including successful Don Valley North.

They said, however, that it's important for voters to beryllium alert of this benignant of activity.

Kempton said officials briefed a security-cleared typical of the Conservative Party astir the repression cognition connected April 6 and April 16.

Officials besides person spoken to societal media platforms "to pass them of our findings and emblem wherever this cognition whitethorn interruption their presumption of service," she added.