For Cherie Wong, the threats of rape and murder she receives on social media are only a semi-constant reminder that many supporters of the Chinese Communist Party see her as an enemy.
They’re not what scares her the most.
Back in January, Wong — executive director and co-founder of Alliance Canada Hong Kong, a group pressing the Canadian government to defend the former British colony’s democracy — flew to Vancouver for events associated with the alliance’s launch. Someone had been keeping tabs on her, she said.
“My hotel room was booked by someone else as a security measure. And two days after the launch … I received a threatening phone call to my hotel room demanding that I leave immediately, that these people are coming to collect me,” she said.
“That was something that really shocked me.”
Pro-China counter-protesters, wearing red, shout down a man in a black shirt during an anti-extradition rally for Hong Kong in Vancouver on Saturday August 17, 2019. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press)
Wong said she still doesn’t know how her whereabouts were disclosed. She said she reported the call to the police but was told there was little they could do.
Wong’s experience is one of a number of disturbing incidents reported to a new parliamentary committee tasked with looking into Canada’s fraught relationship with China. The committee’s proceedings were interrupted by the Trudeau government’s decision to prorogue Parliament until later this month.
Doxxed in the diaspora
Wong said activists in her group had a foretaste of the impotence of Canadian police in the face of such harassment on August 17, 2019, when members of the Hong Kong diaspora rallied in 30 cities around the world to back Hong Kong’s anti-extradition protests. They were met by counter-protesters waving Chinese flags.
Wong said she was one of a number of protest participants who were subsequently “doxxed” by online antagonists. “They took photos of me and started digging up my personal information, my email address, where I was living, my phone number,” she said. “And [they] shared that kind of information maliciously through WeChat channels.”
Hong Kong activists point to the similarities between the counter-protests that occurred in August 2019 — in almost every city that saw pro-Hong Kong demonstrations — as evidence that they are being centrally organized.
They point to the behaviour of the counter-protesters, who often arrive and leave in large groups and carry brand-new Chinese flags with the ironing creases still visible. But they know that it’s hard to prove top-down coordination.
“What we saw is a pattern, whether it is in Canada, in the U.S., in Germany in Japan in Taiwan,” said Wong. “The counter-protesters show up with Chinese flags singing the Chinese national anthem. Their slogans are similar: ‘Hong Kong is a part of China’, ‘Say no to violence, say no to riots.’
“We have seen evidence of these counter-protesters being paid. We saw large scale coordination on WeChat and Weibo and I think there’s more to be seen than just angry individuals.”
A Hong Kong anti-extradition bill protester holds up a sign in front of pro-China counter-protesters during opposing rallies in Vancouver, on August 17, 2019. (Darryl Dyck/Canadian press)
While CBC News has not seen conclusive evidence that Hong Kong counter-protesters are being paid, it has spoken to Canadians who received cash payments to appear at another pro-Beijing demonstration in support of detained Huawei executive Meng Wangzhou.
Wong said that while she doesn’t object to counter-protesters exercising their right to free expression, she’s alarmed by the fact that some of them have been spotted photographing pro-Hong Kong demonstrators.
“These individuals who show up to protest are also saying that they are part of the Chinese Communist Party, that they are sending this information back to the consulate, to the embassy,” she said. “And coming from an authoritarian regime like the Chinese Communist Party, [which] has been known to conduct surveillance operations, suppression tactics, we can’t just dismiss this as just counter-protesters.”
A history of harassment
Phil Gurski heads Borealis Threat and Risk Consulting in Ottawa. Before joining the private sector he spent three decades as a security intelligence analyst, much of it at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).
He said Chinese-Canadian dissidents have been harassed in Canada by organs of the Chinese state “since Adam and Eve” — but the Chinese embassy would take care to avoid the appearance of direct involvement in the most provocative activities.
“Obviously the people in the embassy have to be a little more careful because they are here in Canada,” he said. “And if it is found out that they are engaged in activities not consistent with a diplomatic posting, they could in fact be declared persona non grata and expelled from the country.”
Gurski said China can employ more subtle forms of pressure than loud aggressive counter-protests — such as threats and warnings issued directly to dissidents in person, by phone, or through social media.
That kind of pressure from diplomatic missions in Canada “is something we’ve been warning about for decades,” he added.
And critics of the regime say that the fact that many Chinese-Canadians still have family members in China gives Beijing durable leverage over them.
The embassy reacts
CBC News asked the Chinese embassy about some of the allegations of harassment that have emerged from the committee’s hearings. The embassy didn’t answer that question directly but appeared to respond to another concern that came up at the Canada-China committee: the extraterritorial nature of China’s new “national security” law, which makes no distinction between pro-democracy political activity in Hong Kong and similar protests in Canada.
The law “only targets a very narrow category of acts that seriously jeopardize national security,” the embassy said in a written statement.
“Hong Kong is under the rule of law, where no one has extra-judicial privilege. In any country, every right or freedom has its legal boundaries. In exercising rights or freedoms, one must abide by the requirements of law. Anyone who crosses the boundaries and limits of the law shall be brought to justice.
“Hong Kong is part of China and Hong Kong affairs are purely China’s internal affairs. We urge the Canadian side to have a clear understanding of the reality and the overwhelming trend, and stop interfering in the affairs and judicial independence of Hong Kong SAR [Special Administrative Region].”
Hong Kong pro-democracy movement supporters hand out T-shirts to NBA Toronto Raptors fans in Toronto Oct. 22, 2019. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press)
Hostages to fortune
“‘We know where your parents live,'” said Cheuk Kwan of the Toronto Association for Democracy in China. “This is the phrase that they use all the time.
“You know, it could be just a little kind of phone call that says, ‘Hey, by the way, I see your parents are doing well in … somewhere.’ You right away know that they know where your parents live.
“People would say, ‘OK, I better be quiet, I better shut up or I better not do something.’ And … if you talk to people, the RCMP or CSIS, they will say, well, you can’t prevent people from calling people up and saying, ‘How are your parents doing?’ Right?”
Gurski acknowledges that it’s difficult for Canadian authorities to thwart that kind of back-channel pressure.
“I absolutely agree [that] if these are people who are engaged in activity here in Canada which the government of the People’s Republic of China would see as threatening or besmirching the reputation of the PRC, they would certainly reach out to them and threaten them exactly that way,” he said.
“The problem is if I call up and say, ‘Hey, how’s Mom and Dad?’, you and I may know exactly what I’m talking about, but how do you prove that is actually a very subtle yet very direct threat against one’s family, with the intended impact that you’ll stop what you’re doing? And if you don’t … then you may have something happen to your relatives back home?
“It may be as obvious as the nose on your face [but that’s] just not the same as proving it in a court of law.”
‘In an authoritarian country, this kind of subtle threat is very deep in the sense that people have an awareness that you’re supposed to act certain way when you receive a message like that,” said Kwan.
“And I’ve seen a lot of people getting that – even people in the Chinese-language media or editors of TV or newspapers, who might get a phone call from the Chinese consulate or their proxies … saying, ‘Hey, we don’t like what you just published. Please be careful next time.'”
Kwan said Chinese authorities can deploy even more subtle forms of coercion, such as leaning on Beijing-friendly businesses to withhold advertising spending from certain outlets seen as hostile to Beijing.
Far from home, but not from fear
In the past, said Kwan, implied threats to family members were more alarming for immigrants from mainland China than for Hong Kong ex-pats — who had reason to believe their families were safer. That’s beginning to change, he added.
Davin Wong (no relation to Cherie) said he’s felt that change personally. The former acting head of the Student Union of the University of Hong Kong fled the island city last year following a targeted attack. He has no family members in mainland China.
“Canada, of course, is a society with greater freedom and at least I feel more secure here than in Hong Kong,” he said. “But at the same time, what I have witnessed is that other activists who are fighting for Hong Kong in Canada … were facing harassment or maybe intimidation as well. So I would say I do not feel entirely safe here …
“I do have family members back in Hong Kong and that is one of the concerns that has always been in the back of my mind, because what we can see is that the freedom and also autonomy of Hong Kong has been deteriorating so fast in the past two years that Hong Kong is no longer a distinctive city apart from any other cities in China.
“I think it is fair to say that having family members back in Hong Kong … feels as the same risk of having family members in China.”
Wong said he applauds the Trudeau government’s decision to end Canada’s extradition treaty with Hong Kong in response to China’s new national security law. But he said the federal government’s efforts to help Hong Kong’s pro-democracy camp would be better served by recognizing that welcoming Hong Kong’s dissidents to Canada while leaving their family members behind allows Beijing to maintain a hold over them.
“Activists like myself feel the same risk and the same pressure as if we hadn’t left Hong Kong at all.”
MONCTON, N.B. – New Brunswick RCMP say two youths have been arrested after an emergency alert was issued Monday evening about someone carrying a gun in the province’s southeast.
Caledonia Region Mounties say they were first called out to Main Street in the community of Salisbury around 7 p.m. on reports of a shooting.
A 48-year-old man was found at the scene suffering from gunshot wounds and he was rushed to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Police say in the interest of public safety, they issued an Alert Ready message at 8:15 p.m. for someone driving a silver Ford F-150 pickup truck and reportedly carrying a firearm with dangerous intent in the Salisbury and Moncton area.
Two youths were arrested without incident later in the evening in Salisbury, and the alert was cancelled just after midnight Tuesday.
Police are still looking for the silver pickup truck, covered in mud, with possible Nova Scotia licence plate HDC 958. They now confirm the truck was stolen from Central Blissville.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MISSISSAUGA, Ont. – Golf Canada has set an impressive stretch goal of having 30 professional golfers at the highest levels of the sport by 2032.
The World Junior Girls Golf Championship is a huge part of that target.
Credit Valley Golf and Country Club will host the international tournament from Sept. 30 to Oct. 5, with 24 teams representing 23 nations — Canada gets two squads — competing. Lindsay McGrath, a 17-year-old golfer from Oakville, Ont., said she’s excited to be representing Canada and continue to develop her game.
“I’m really grateful to be here,” said McGrath on Monday after a news conference in Credit Valley’s clubhouse in Mississauga, Ont. “It’s just such an awesome feeling being here and representing our country, wearing all the logos and being on Team Canada.
“I’ve always wanted to play in this tournament, so it’s really special to me.”
McGrath will be joined by Nobelle Park of Oakville, Ont., and Eileen Park of Red Deer, Alta., on Team Canada 2. All three earned their places through a qualifying tournament last month.
“I love my teammates so much,” said McGrath. “I know Nobelle and Eileen very well. I’m just so excited to be with them. We have such a great relationship.”
Shauna Liu of Maple, Ont., Calgary’s Aphrodite Deng and Clairey Lin make up Team Canada 2. Liu earned her exemption following her win at the 2024 Canadian Junior Girls Championship while Deng earned her exemption as being the low eligible Canadian on the world amateur golf ranking as of Aug. 7.
Deng was No. 175 at the time, she has since improved to No. 171 and is Canada’s lowest-ranked player.
“I think it’s a really great opportunity,” said Liu. “We don’t really get that many opportunities to play with people from across the world, so it’s really great to meet new people and play with them.
“It’s great to see maybe how they play and take parts from their game that we might also implement our own games.”
Golf Canada founded the World Junior Girls Golf Championship in 2014 to fill a void in women’s international competition and help grow its own homegrown talent. The hosts won for the first time last year when Vancouver’s Anna Huang, Toronto’s Vanessa Borovilos and Vancouver’s Vanessa Zhang won team gold and Huang earned individual silver.
Medallists who have gone on to win on the LPGA Tour include Brooke Henderson of Smiths Falls, Ont., who was fourth in the individual competition at the inaugural tournament. She was on Canada’s bronze-medal team in 2014 with Selena Costabile of Thornhill, Ont., and Calgary’s Jaclyn Lee.
Other notable competitors who went on to become LPGA Tour winners include Angel Yin and Megan Khang of the United States, as well as Yuka Saso of the Philippines, Sweden’s Linn Grant and Atthaya Thitikul of Thailand.
“It’s not if, it’s when they’re going to be on the LPGA Tour,” said Garrett Ball, Golf Canada’s chief operating officer, of how Canada’s golfers in the World Junior Girls Championship can be part of the organization’s goal to have 30 pros in the LPGA and PGA Tours by 2032.
“Events like this, like the She Plays Golf festival that we launched two years ago, and then the CPKC Women’s Open exemptions that we utilize to bring in our national team athletes and get the experience has been important in that pathway.”
The individual winner of the World Junior Girls Golf Championship will earn a berth in next year’s CPKC Women’s Open at nearby Mississaugua Golf and Country Club.
Both clubs, as well as former RBC Canadian Open host site Glen Abbey Golf Club, were devastated by heavy rains through June and July as the Greater Toronto Area had its wettest summer in recorded history.
Jason Hanna, the chief operating officer of Credit Valley Golf and Country Club, said that he has seen the Credit River flood so badly that it affected the course’s playability a handful of times over his nearly two decades with the club.
Staff and members alike came together to clean up the course after the flooding was over, with hundreds of people coming together to make the club playable again.
“You had to show up, bring your own rake, bring your own shovel, bring your own gloves, and then we’d take them down to the golf course, assign them to areas where they would work, and then we would do a big barbecue down at the halfway house,” said Hanna. “We got guys, like, 80 years old, putting in eight-hour days down there, working away.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
NEW YORK (AP) — Fenway Park has the Ted Williams seat. And now Citi Field has the Grimace seat.
The kid-friendly McDonald’s character made another appearance at the ballpark Monday, when the New York Mets unveiled a commemorative purple seat in section 302 to honor “his special connection to Mets fans.”
Wearing his pear-shaped purple costume and a baseball glove on backwards, Grimace threw out a funny-looking first pitch — as best he could with those furry fingers and short arms — before New York beat the Miami Marlins at Citi Field on June 12.
That victory began a seven-game winning streak, and Grimace the Mets’ good-luck charm soon went viral, taking on a life of its own online.
New York is 53-31 since June 12, the best record in the majors during that span. The Mets were tied with rival Atlanta for the last National League playoff spot as they opened their final homestand of the season Monday night against Washington.
The new Grimace seat in the second deck in right field — located in row 6, seat 12 to signify 6/12 on the calendar — was brought into the Shannon Forde press conference room Monday afternoon. The character posed next to the chair and with fans who strolled into the room.
The seat is available for purchase for each of the Mets’ remaining home games.
“It’s been great to see how our fanbase created the Grimace phenomenon following his first pitch in June and in the months since,” Mets senior vice president of partnerships Brenden Mallette said in a news release. “As we explored how to further capture the magic of this moment and celebrate our new celebrity fan, installing a commemorative seat ahead of fan appreciation weekend felt like the perfect way to give something back to the fans in a fun and unique way.”
Up in Boston, the famous Ted Williams seat is painted bright red among rows of green chairs deep in the right-field stands at Fenway Park to mark where a reported 502-foot homer hit by the Hall of Fame slugger landed in June 1946.
So, does this catapult Grimace into Splendid Splinter territory?
“I don’t know if we put him on the same level,” Mets executive vice president and chief marketing officer Andy Goldberg said with a grin.
“It’s just been a fun year, and at the same time, we’ve been playing great ball. Ever since the end of May, we have been crushing it,” he explained. “So I think that added to the mystique.”
