Carney standing by candidate Paul Chiang, who suggested Conservative be turned over to China for bounty
Liberal Leader Mark Carney says Paul Chiang will remain a candidate under his banner, despite calls to ouster the Markham-Unionville incumbent for suggesting people turn in a Conservative candidate to the Chinese consulate and collect a bounty.
"I view this a teachable moment," Carney said during a campaign stop in Vaughan, Ont., Monday.
Carney is facing external pressure to drop Chiang after he told a Chinese-language media news conference in January that people they could cash in if they turned Joe Tay in to the Chinese consulate in Toronto. Tay is running for the Conservatives in the GTA battleground riding of Don Valley North.
In December, Hong Kong police issued a bounty and arrest warrant for Tay — worth $1 million HK, roughly $184,000 — and other China democracy advocates. Tay is a co-founder of Canada-based NGO HongKonger Station and runs a YouTube channel that promotes democracy and free speech.
The warrants are largely seen as a way for authorities in Beijing-controlled Hong Kong to target vocal critics based abroad. At the time, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly denounced the bounties.
Carney called the comments "deeply offensive," but defended Chiang as a veteran police officer "with more than a quarter-century of service to his community."
Tay is one of the voices urging Carney to turf Chiang, calling his comments "insidious" and saying he fears for his safety.
"His threatening public comments were intended to intimidate me, and they must not be tolerated," Tay said in a statement Monday, weighing in for the first time since the story broke before the weekend.
"They are intended to send a chilling signal to the entire community in order to force compliance to Beijing's political goals."
Tay said even before Chiang's comments, he had been in touch with the RCMP about personal protection.
"Suggesting that people collect a bounty from the Chinese Communist Party to deliver a political opponent to the Chinese Consulate is disgusting and must never be condoned," he wrote.
Chiang's apology rejected
Chiang, a former police officer, issued an apology Friday, saying his comments "were deplorable and a complete lapse of judgment on the seriousness of the matter."
Carney said Chiang has apologized directly to Tay, who has made it clear he rejected the apology.
Tay said Chiang made an "unsolicited attempt to contact me to discuss this matter" and apologize over the weekend.
"I want to be clear: No apology is sufficient," said Tay.
WATCH | Poilievre says Liberal MP must be disqualified following China bounty comments
A coalition of 13 community groups representing Canadians of Hong Kong descent are also calling on Carney to revoke Chiang's candidacy.
"The comments were widely seen as legitimizing foreign interference and potentially threatening Tay's safety," wrote the groups in a statement Sunday.
"They stress that intimidation or threats against political candidates will not be tolerated and reaffirm Canada's commitment to protecting its democratic processes from foreign interference."
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said it's "incredible" that Carney would allow someone to run for his party who had called for a Canadian citizen to be handed over to a foreign government.
NDP candidate Jenny Kwan, who has been vocal about herself being a target of Chinese interference, called the comments "absolutely astounding."
"That is intimidation at its worst, and yet he played right into it," she told reporters Sunday while campaigning with NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh in Port Moody, B.C.
"In what universe is this normal?"
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
19 minutes ago
What does the Trump-Musk feud mean for Tesla stock? Experts weigh in.
A feud between President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk hammered shares of the electric carmaker on Thursday, before a lull in the acrimony on Friday prompted a recovery of some losses. Still, as of midday Friday, shares had dropped nearly 10%, wiping out tens of billions of dollars in company value. The falling out between Trump and Musk raises serious concern for Tesla, threatening crucial regulatory approvals and government subsidies, while risking ire from conservative car buyers who may otherwise have eased sales woes suffered as liberals turned elsewhere, some industry analysts told ABC News. The outcome remains unclear, however, leaving open the possibility the two sides may patch up the relationship or Tesla could navigate fraught ties with the White House, they added. The feud 'puts massive pressure on Tesla shares with fears that Trump will turn from friend to foe and create a tough regulatory environment for Musk in the Beltway,' Dan Ives, a managing director of equity research at the investment firm Wedbush and a longtime Tesla bull, said in a memo to clients on Friday. The president and the world's richest person volleyed tit-for-tat barbs on rival social media platforms Thursday in a public clash that Ives described as 'one of the strangest Twilight Zone days we have seen.' Tesla shares sank as much as 18% on Thursday, before closing down 14%. In early trading on Friday, Tesla climbed nearly 6% as tensions appeared to thaw. Overall, the stock is down nearly a third from an all-time high in December, which resulted from a sharp rise after the election of Trump. Tesla remains a top electric carmaker but the company faces growing competition, especially from Chinese firms such as BYD. Tesla's profits fell 71% over the first three months of this year, a company earnings release in April showed. The decline coincided with a sales slump at Tesla and came amid worldwide protests against Musk over his role in Trump's administration. As car sales slowed, Musk touted a future autonomous car service, dubbed robotaxis, as a growth area for the business. The company plans to roll out its robotaxi test program in Austin, Texas, later this month. Trump could threaten those aspirations, however, if he pressures federal regulators to deny necessary approvals for the company's autonomous driving program or renews investigations into the safety of the company's full self-driving software, analysts said. 'If full self-driving were to be invalidated, that would be a huge hit to Tesla stock and to Musk,' Gordon Johnson, CEO and founder of data firm GLJ Research, who is bearish on Tesla, told ABC News. Tesla also generates significant revenue from the sale of carbon emissions credits to other car manufacturers, which helps the firms comply with environmental standards set by a range of government entities. Tesla earned nearly $2.8 billion last year on the collection of such government subsidies while incurring few costs in this area of its business, the firm said in its 2024 annual report. In theory, Trump could seek to erode state-level emissions standards in a manner that alleviates much of the need for rival carmakers to purchase them. If California were to do away with its emissions credit system, it could cost Tesla roughly $2 billion, a JPMorgan report last month found. 'I can't stress enough the risk of these credits going away,' Johnson said. For now, the outcome of the fallout remains unknown and could prove minimal, some analysts told ABC News. They pointed to the likelihood of at least partial reconciliation between Trump and Musk, who as recently as last week exchanged effusive praise in the Oval Office. All-out government attacks on Tesla would incite a prolonged, combative relationship, analysts said, which may not benefit either side. The company still offers longstanding, affordable EV models and an extensive battery-charging network. Observers who focus on the headlines and stock gyrations risk overstating Trump's role in the fortunes of Tesla anyway, Seth Goldstein, an analyst at research firm Morningstar who studies the EV sector, told ABC News. 'While political fallout and potential retribution will move the stock, I don't think this is as big an event as Tesla's other events coming up this year,' Goldstein said, pointing to the robotaxi testing. Ives, of Wedbush, voiced similar optimism about the possibility of moving past the feud. 'We believe cooler heads will prevail today and into the weekend,' Ives said. 'Hopefully.'
Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump says fresh US-China trade talks in London next week
US President Donald Trump announced Friday a new round of trade talks with China in London next week, a day after calling Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in a bid to end a bitter battle over tariffs. The talks in the British capital on Monday will mark the second round of such negotiations between the world's two biggest economies since Trump launched his trade war this year. "The meeting should go very well," said Trump in a post on his Truth Social platform. The president added that US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer would meet the Chinese team. The first talks between Washington and Beijing since Trump slapped levies on allies and adversaries alike took place in Geneva last month. While Trump had imposed a sweeping 10 percent duty on imports from most trading partners, rates on Chinese goods rocketed as both countries engaged in an escalating tariffs battle. In April, additional US tariffs on many Chinese products hit 145 percent while China hit back with countermeasures of 125 percent. Following the talks last month, both sides agreed to temporarily bring down the levels, with US tariffs cooling to 30 percent and China's levies at 10 percent. But this temporary halt is expected to expire in early August and Trump last week accused China of violating the pact, underscoring deeper differences on both sides. US officials have accused China of slow-walking export approvals of critical minerals and rare earth magnets, a key issue behind Trump's recent remarks. While Trump's long-awaited phone call with Xi this week likely paved the way for further high-level trade talks, a swift resolution to the tariffs impasse remains uncertain. dk-bys/acb
Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Yahoo
What Washington can learn from a legendary London meltdown
In a city where allegiance and proximity to power is everything, the leader's closest adviser portrayed himself as an outsider. He began the year by hiring a bunch of 'weirdos and misfits' and ordering them to rip up the entire 'rotten' system of government. The adviser loved to put noses out of joint and 'own the libs,' while building up his profile in the media as the real power behind the throne. Then, having realized that his easily-distracted and impulsive politician boss wasn't actually committed to building a tech-heavy, libertarian future, the disillusioned adviser quit — dedicating himself to publicly destroying his former employer. If you're British, watching the collapse of Donald Trump and Elon Musk's uncomfortable marriage has echoes of the end of the relationship between Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Chief Adviser Dominic Cummings in 2020. How that psychodrama played out in the UK could have lessons for the US — not least because Cummings eventually succeeded in undermining Johnson's political career, ultimately defenestrating the prime minister through relentless briefings and leaks. When someone who was inside the room and was perceived to be central to a political project says it's all a sham, the damage can be significant. For those who don't know, Cummings was the chief strategist of the successful Brexit campaign in 2016 but then largely disappeared from view when it came to actually defining what Brexit should look like. Unlike Musk, Cummings was a lifelong political operative, albeit one who cultivated a reputation for actually reading books. Three years later, with his political standing inflated by a film in which he was portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch as an insane genius, Cummings returned to maneuver Johnson into Downing Street. Once inside government, Cummings broke all the standard operating procedures of the British state to finally 'get Brexit done' and sever the UK's relationship with the EU in January 2020. When I look back at my occasional text exchanges with Cummings from that era, usually while trying to check stories about the funding of the Brexit campaign or his desire to defund the BBC, they mirror what he said in public. He held a seemingly sincere belief that most of the British media was fake news, that the British state was not fit for purpose, and that the political party he was nominally working for, the Conservatives, was little more than a helpful vehicle for an insurrection. One ally approvingly described the chief of staff of a Conservative government to the BBC as a 'Leninist.' Ultimately, both Musk and Cummings believed that you can run the government as a high-performance start-up and that the defining failure of past civil service reforms was that they hadn't smashed enough things quickly enough. Both also have the fatal flaws of being undisciplined, delighting in picking public fights and getting bored easily. Their independent means also meant they were not as beholden to their political masters as other advisers. Cummings might not have Musk levels of money but he was wealthy in British terms (his father-in-law Sir Humphry Tyrrell Wakefield, owner of a 13th century castle, would write letters in support of his proto-DOGE policies) and connected (his wife was deputy editor of the right-wing Spectator magazine). The overwhelming impression Cummings gave was that politicians were the useful idiots who should give him the runway to remake the state. Iconoclasm was the point. When Cummings quit he took to publishing lengthy Substack posts portraying Johnson as a broken supermarket 'trolley' who veered all over the place based on the last thing someone said to him. Even more effectively, Cummings helped to leak stories about Johnson's pandemic lockdown-busting in a scandal known as Partygate. In an echo of what's happened with Musk, left-wingers who previously thought Cummings was the devil incarnate began cheering him on as he stuck the knife into Johnson. The attacks rang true among Tory MPs and Johnson's ratings never recovered, ultimately leading to his early departure from politics. Many people leaked against Johnson and his circle, but when Cummings did, the pair's previous closeness gave it the ring of truth. Musk and Cummings got opportunities because they went in to bat for fundamentally untrustworthy but opportunistic politicians, in the hope that they would be given the freedom to enact policies with limited scrutiny. The two men have even exchanged notes and acknowledged the similarity of their programs. Ultimately, these were political shotgun marriages — the very thing that made the attachments so powerful at a particular moment in time was ultimately their undoing: In each case, the leader learned that there was no real love there. As Cummings and Musk found, if you hitch yourself to an anti-establishment hero who eschews patronage and loyalty then it's only a matter of time before you find yourself the target. There is a case that a less bellicose, less in-your-face flavour of DOGE could work better — and that such changes are easier when they're not associated with a controversial figure. In the UK, Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Labour government, elected last year, is pinning its hopes on widespread use of AI technology to improve productivity, for person. And there are even people in Downing Street who quite envies the idea of taking a Musk-style wrecking ball to parts of the state; Health Secretary Wes Streeting recently abolished one of the main administrative levels of the National Health Service in an overnight raid. Attempts by the insurgent, right-wing populist Reform party — headed by Nigel Farage, who has courted Musk's funds — to launch a 'British DOGE' and find excess spending in local government have hit the rocks. Announced on Monday, the program's first leader had quit by Thursday. Cummings said in November that he was hopeful Musk could make the US government operate like Silicon Valley. Cummings was long on diagnosis but short on prescription, the London-based Institute for Government think tank wrote in November 2021. It sought to fill the gap with ideas of its own for civil service reform.
