Hundreds Offered Money, Bus Ride to Join Parliament Hill Protest

Hundreds in Toronto’s Chinese community are being offered money and a free bus ride to Ottawa to join a protest on Parliament Hill “to protect our legal rights and interests.” While the event is advertised as marking the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Exclusion Act, some organizers have talked about the issue as part of a larger movement to oppose measures such as the proposed foreign agent registry act.

According to one of the organizers, about 28 buses will be transporting protesters from the Toronto area to the nation’s capital on Saturday, June 24, in the morning, and organizers are offering each participant a $15 “lunch subsidy” in the form of a Walmart gift card, The Epoch Times has learned.

Some details about the arrangements have been posted on WeChat, including the bus coordinators’ phone numbers and the meeting places for taking the bus.

Protest

Sen. Victor Oh said at a June 12 event in Montreal that he and Sen. Yuen Pau Woo will be leading the demonstration in Ottawa to oppose “anti-Chinese sentiment” as they commemorate the 100th anniversary of Canada’s introduction of the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923. The act is commonly known as the Chinese Exclusion Act because it resulted from an effort to stop Chinese immigration.

As reported by The Epoch Times, Oh said he is planning to rent 50 buses to take 3,000 people from the Toronto area to the protest in Ottawa. He also called on Montreal residents to actively join the effort to oppose the creation of a foreign agent registry.

Oh told the audience that they should “stand up” for the sake of the next generation. In the same speech, he said that a foreign agent registry is a “disguised Chinese Exclusion Act” that will be used to suppress future generations.

Oh and Woo were also featured at a May 28 event in Montreal in which the Chinese consul general delivered a speech. The event featured talks about the Chinese Immigration Act as well as the need to oppose the creation of a foreign registry act.

In a Twitter post on March 10, Woo also said it’s time to “speak out” against any proposed foreign registration act.

“100 years ago, as part of the #ChineseExclusionAct, Canada forced all Chinese people in the country to register or face deportation. How can we prevent this registry from becoming a modern form of Chinese exclusion?” Woo wrote. “Time to speak out.”

The two senators are active in promoting a citizen petition, e-4395, that says a foreign agent registry “poses a serious harassment and stigmatization risk for racialized communities.” Woo confirmed to The Epoch Times that he drafted the petition.

Foreign Agent Registry

The federal government recently held public consultations on establishing a foreign influence transparency registry to tackle foreign interference activities on Canadian soil. Allegations have increasingly come to light in recent months, which include meddling by Beijing in the past two federal elections and the operation of at least seven covert Chinese police stations in Canada.

Canadian parliamentarians have proposed at least two pieces of legislation to counter foreign interference. Bill S-237, introduced in February 2022 by Sen. Leo Housakos, is at second reading in the Senate but hasn’t received government support. An earlier bill, C-282, was introduced in the House by former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu in April 2021, in the previous Parliament.

Neither bill mentions any specific country to be targeted. Chiu told The Epoch Times in a previous interview that neither mentions “China” or “Chinese” since a foreign influence registry is meant to comprehensively address interference attempts by all authoritarian regimes.

“The communist Chinese regime has been weaponizing nationalism and hijacking the anti-Asian racism topics,” Chiu said previously.

Chiu, who was defeated in his B.C. riding of Steveston–Richmond East in the September 2021 election, told the House ethics committee in March that he was the target of a disinformation campaign by Beijing during the election due to his support of the foreign agent registry.

Toronto Area Bus Pickup

The 11 bus pickup locations in the Toronto Area are as follows:

1. 447 The Bridle Walk, Markham, ON L6C 2X1
2. The McDonald’s near Young Street and 16th Avenue
3. 5555 Steeles Avenue E., Toronto, ON M9L 1S7
4. The Tim Hortons near Steeles Avenue and Don Mills Road
5. Foody Mart (northwest corner of the parking lot)
6. Finch Avenue and Warden Avenue (in front of the Royal Bank of Canada)
7. Bridlewood Mall (Finch Avenue and Warden Avenue);
8. Glen Abbey Community Centre
9. Golden Square Centre (a shopping mall in Mississauga)
10. Parking lot at the Oceans Fresh Food Market
11. South Common Mall (in front of the BMO)

All of the buses depart simultaneously at 7 a.m. on June 24.

Notably, one of the coordinators named Mary Zhang uses a phone number that’s identical to one that had been used earlier by Amanda Yeung Collucci, Ward 6 city councillor of the City of Markham—a connection first reported by cyber criminologist Laura Love.

Collucci used the number as part of her contact information when she launched a “personal protection equipment donation campaign” as city councillor during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a March 2020 report by Chinese-language media ccpeople.ca.

Zhang declined to respond to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.

Councillor Collucci says the phone number belongs to a resident in her ward named Mali Zhang who had reached out and “asked my support as her ward councillor” in launching the donation campaign.

“[Mali Zhang] has moved out from my ward and we have no contact with each other since last year,” Collucci told The Epoch Times in an email statement on June 22.