Deputy mayor suing CSIS over alleged 'typecasting' of Chinese immigrants (2024)

A former Ontario cabinet minister who has been the focus of intelligence leaks related to Chinese interference in Canada is suing CSIS, saying the spy agency publicly humiliated him because of a “stereotypical typecasting of immigrants born in China as being somehow untrustworthy.”

Liberal Michael Chan, who’s currently deputy mayor of the Toronto-area city of Markham, says persecution by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service began in 2010 and has continued recently with disclosure of what he called unreliable and “frail” intelligence reports.

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Chan said unnamed CSIS employees not only broke federal secrecy laws when they gave media such information, they caused him real harm.

“Chan is justifiably proud of his Chinese heritage. But he is first and foremost a Canadian,” says his statement of claim, filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. “He has devoted a good portion of his working life to public service to his country.”

Due to the “misfeasance” of the CSIS leakers working with news outlets, “Chan has suffered pain, embarrassment, humiliation, stress and damage to his reputation, as well as threats to his personal well-being and that of his family,” alleges the document. “It has particularly pained him to know that his family members have had to deal with this matter.”

His lawsuit, filed Thursday, does not specify the amount of compensation he is requesting the Ontario Superior Court of Justice award him.

As well as suing CSIS itself, Chan has named service director David Vigneault, CSIS leakers identified by the pseudonyms John Doe and Jane Smith, Globe and Mail reporter Bob Fife and Global News reporter Sam Cooper. The two journalists were behind the bulk of news reports on the leaked material.

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No statements of defence have yet been filed and Chan’s allegations have not been proven in court.

CSIS was unable to provide comment by deadline.

The Globe and Mail and Global have both strongly defended their reports, saying the use of leaked intelligence documents was justified by the grave issues of public interest involved in the material.

Chan spent 11 years in provincial politics, retiring in 2018, then ran for the York Region council north of Toronto. As the candidate with the most votes in Markham he automatically became deputy mayor of the city.

In recent news reports quoting intelligence briefings on Beijing’s interference, Chan was frequently mentioned as allegedly acting in the interests of China and at one point even being the subject of a CSIS wiretap request.

Chan’s lawsuit says the accusations of disloyalty are all erroneous, charging that the intelligence was based on rumour, innuendo and political biases. Because of its unreliability and potential to harm reputations, it was especially important for CSIS and Vigneault to ensure such leaks didn’t happen, the claim says.

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“Doe and Smith shared CSIS intelligence information with the intent that such information would be re-published by the press and that this would both personally and reputationally harm Chan — a person they (incorrectly) were of the view was somehow disloyal to or a threat to Canada,” it says. “More broadly, their actions were influenced by a stereotypical typecasting of immigrants born in China as being somehow untrustworthy.”

As Ontario’s premier in 2015, Kathleen Wynne acknowledged that her government had been warned by CSIS that cabinet-member Chan might be under the sway of Chinese diplomats, but said she had no concern about his loyalties. He sued the Globe for libel then over its coverage of the affair.

Nonetheless, Chan has repeatedly backed the Chinese government on controversial issues, from Hong Kong’s now-crushed democracy movement to the arrest of a Huawei executive that led to the detention of two Canadians.

At a 2019 rally in Toronto, he defended attempts to suppress mass pro-democracy protests in the city, saying, “We support Hong Kong’s police strictly handling unrest, Hong Kong’s government carefully defending the rule of law, China’s government carefully observing Hong Kong.”

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Days after Beijing imposed a harsh new national security law on Hong Kong in 2020, the China News Agency quoted Chan as praising the widely condemned legislation, saying it would bring stability and other benefits to the city.

He was quoted by China’s news.sina.cn website as saying Canada was drawn into arresting Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou on a U.S. extradition request largely because of a dispute over technology and trade between two world powers.

Chan worked to bring the Chinese government’s controversial Confucius Institute to the Toronto public school board, before the board’s tentative alliance with the organization was voted down by trustees.

And he was quoted by the official Xinhua news agency in 2009 as being moved by celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, saying “Great is my motherland, and great are the people of my motherland.”

When a Chinese-language newspaper ran a column by local Chinese-Canadian commentator Jonathan Fon critical of Chan in the midst of the controversy in 2015, its editor was fired. She said the Chinese consulate had complained about the article, while the paper’s owner was Wei Chengyi, honorary chair of the Confederation of Toronto Chinese Canadian Organizations, a longtime Beijing ally.

National Post

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