Is this senior Ontario cabinet minister a foreign agent?
[url=http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-making-of-michael-chan/... Making of Michael Chan (Globe & Mail, Wednesday June 17, 2015)[/url]
Michael Chan is a rare politician. Ontario’s minister of Citizenship, Immigration and International Trade considers himself a middleman between domestic and foreign interests, a commercial conduit between his province and the Middle Kingdom.“For me, it is how I am able to bridge Canada and China,” he told The Globe and Mail in an interview in his Queen’s Park office. “I can be in a position to promote both jurisdictions for the benefit of the people. I think that’s important.”
But Mr. Chan’s bridge-building mission once troubled the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. As [url=http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/csis-warned-this-cabinet-mi... Globe reported on Tuesday,[/url] CSIS was concerned the minister was too close to the Chinese consulate, prompting a senior official to formally caution the province about the minister’s alleged conduct in a briefing that took place in the weeks around August, 2010.
The focus on Mr. Chan comes as Canada moves closer to populous, powerful China, needing its economic muscle but wary of its strong-arm tactics on domestic and overseas opponents. The country’s largest province craves those business links to China, and Mr. Chan is its man. But in this delicate environment, CSIS officials were not the only ones expressing leeriness about Mr. Chan’s ties to China.