[opendoor]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Can you quote that part? I either did not see that or interpreted it differently.

There's this:

CSIS also explained how Chinese diplomats conduct foreign interference operations in support of political candidates and elected officials. Tactics include undeclared cash donations to political campaigns or having business owners hire international Chinese students and “assign them to volunteer in electoral campaigns on a full-time basis.”

Sympathetic donors are also encouraged to provide campaign contributions to candidates favoured by China – donations for which they receive a tax credit from the federal government. Then, the CSIS report from Dec. 20, 2021 says, political campaigns quietly, and illegally, return part of the contribution – “the difference between the original donation and the government’s refund” – back to the donors.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/poli...sis-documents/

But based on the language, it's not really clear whether that actually happened. For most things, they use the past tense (e.g. "Chinese diplomats were instructed to...", "China employed disinformation campaigns...", etc.) which clearly states that x or y happened in Canada.

But for the campaign donation stuff, they switch to present tense which is a softer, more general way to talk about actions. Things like "CSIS also explained how Chinese diplomats conduct foreign service interference...", "tactics include...", and "sympathetic donors are also encouraged..." make it unclear whether they're talking about something that actually happened, or just general tactics that China uses all over the world.

I would think if there was clear evidence of that happening in Canada, it would have been written in the past tense:

"CSIS also explained how Chinese diplomats conducted foreign interference operations in support of political candidates and elected officials. Tactics included undeclared cash donations to political campaigns or having business owners hire international Chinese students and “assign them to volunteer in electoral campaigns on a full-time basis.”

Sympathetic donors were also encouraged to provide campaign contributions to candidates favoured by China – donations for which they received a tax credit from the federal government. Then, the CSIS report from Dec. 20, 2021 says, political campaigns quietly, and illegally, returned part of the contribution – “the difference between the original donation and the government’s refund” – back to the donors."