Tory MP Calls for Expulsion of Chinese Diplomats Involved in Repression After Vancouver Consulate Tried to Stop Shen Yun

Conservative MP James Bezan says Chinese diplomats involved in acts of transnational repression should be expelled from Canada, following reporting that the Chinese Consulate in Vancouver met with City of Vancouver staff to prevent Shen Yun Performing Arts from performing in that city.

Chinese diplomats who use their position in Canada to intimidate Canadian businesses are undermining Canadians’ freedom of expression, Bezan told NTD, a sister media of The Epoch Times, in an interview on May 5.

“It’s abuse of authority as well as the license that’s given to them as a diplomat,” he said. “Let’s make sure that they’re all held to account for creating these crimes against the people of Canada.”

Bezan’s comments come after a report by Global News earlier this week revealed that Chinese Consulate officials met with a City of Vancouver employee in an effort to stop the Shen Yun dance company from performing at the city-owned Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver from April 8 to 12. The meeting in early April with consulate officials was confirmed to The Epoch Times by a city spokesperson.

Shen Yun Performing Arts is a New York-based classical Chinese dance and music company that aims to revive traditional Chinese culture, which was diminished under communist rule in China. Shen Yun artists are practitioners of Falun Dafa, also known as Falun Gong, a spiritual meditation practice with moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance.

Falun Dafa practitioners have been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since 1999 when the regime vowed to eliminate the practice, deeming the discipline’s growing popularity as a threat to its power.

Joel Chipkar, a spokesperson with the Falun Dafa Association of Canada, said the Chinese Consulate’s attempt to interfere with Shen Yun in Vancouver is “part of a blatant interference campaign in a host state by a foreign regime to silence critics here in Canada.” He said the association applauds the Vancouver Civic Theatres, a City of Vancouver entity which operates the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, for not caving in to the CCP’s pressure tactics.

Chipkar also called on Canadian officials to publicly condemn the CCP’s transnational repression against Shen Yun and Falun Dafa in Canada, and to declare the Chinese Consulate officials responsible for the interference efforts as persona non grata and have them expelled.

Bezan said he agrees that Chinese Consulate officials involved in the interference attempt should be expelled from Canada.

“I agree with them 100 percent—expulsion for practicing foreign intimidation and transnational repression right here,” Bezan said.

Bezan introduced a private member’s bill in the House of Commons last September to address transnational repression. Bill C-219 would provide a definition for transnational repression and prisoners of conscience for the first time, and would allow the government to hold to account those carrying out transnational repression on behalf of foreign regimes like the CCP, Bezan said. The bill passed second reading in the House of Commons in February and is currently being studied by the foreign affairs committee.

Bezan said the case of the Chinese Consulate in Vancouver pressuring the City of Vancouver to not allow Shen Yun to perform is a “perfect example” of why Bill C-219 is needed.

The VPD’s Cybercrime Unit determined that the phone number associated with the email account from which the threats were sent is based in China.

The same email account also sent threats to the Toronto venue hosting Shen Yun in late March. However, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, the Toronto venue, cancelled six of Shen Yun’s scheduled performances from March 29 to April 5 after receiving the threats, despite a police investigation confirming the threats were unfounded.

Conservative MP and Deputy Leader Melissa Lantsman said Canada will not stand for such incidents of transnational repression, noting it is “incumbent on the prime minister to make it clear where he stands.”

“There’s no foreign government or foreign embassy or foreign ambassador who’s going to tell Canada how to conduct business,” Lantsman told NTD in an interview. “They certainly don’t have the right to tell Canadian politicians how to conduct business, and we certainly have to be free of the foreign interference that we are consistently seeing from the regime in Beijing.”

Tory MP Dan Muys said the federal government needs to investigate the incident in Vancouver, noting the attempt at interference by the Chinese Consulate should be an “eye opener” for all Canadians that this type of transnational repression is taking place in the country.

“We can’t have that in Canada, and nor would we expect Canadian embassies and consulates in other lands to be subject to the same intimidation,” Muys said in an interview.

Fellow Conservative MP Roman Baber called it “unacceptable” for a foreign official to pressure the City of Vancouver to cancel Shen Yun performances.

“The idea that Canadians should not be free to watch and listen and enjoy what they want to listen to and enjoy, is an unacceptable situation,” Baber said in an interview.

“I have never been told by a foreign authority or anyone in Canada to stop saying what I believe is true,” said Prue, who previously served as an Ontario MPP for 13 years and has spoken out on several occasions against the Chinese regime’s persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners in China.

He said he informed law enforcement about the incident and told them he would “continue to support [Falun Dafa] and the freedom that Falun Dafa brings to many people around the world.”

“For 27 years, I have stated my hope that one day the Chinese government will come to its senses and recognize what a wonderful organization Falun Dafa is and will stop the persecution,” Prue said.