CHINA'S INTERFERENCE IN CANADA

   I left the fundraiser that night and did a little digging. The card identified my new friend as John Wei-Bang Zhu, the head of the Chinese Canadian Conservative Association (CCCA), a group that is not formally associated with the Conservative party. It is a private corporation, established in 2013, with a listed address on Midland Avenue in Toronto. Over the years, CCCA directors have been active as conservative volunteers and supporters. Two of its board members, Frank Fang and Eric Wen, describe themselves as president of Mississauga riding associations of the PC Party of Ontario. The CCCA has endorsed many candidates, including Fang who ran in the 2019 federal election. Most recently, it endorsed Patrick Brown during 2022 the Conservative leadership race.
   The CCCA is also the group that called for former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole to resign over his criticism of Chinese human rights abuses. In October 2021, CCCA spokesman Joe Li, a regional councilor north of Toronto and three-time former Tory candidate, held a press conference and said that Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig had been detained after “Canada started the war,” that China had a right to fly its planes into Taiwan’s air-defense zone and that Canada should not publicly criticize Beijing’s human-rights abuses.