Canada’s cybersecurity agency is investigating attacks on Canadian coronavirus research facilities.

The head of the Communications Security Establishment’s Cyber Centre (CSE) Scott Jones told the House of Commons industry, science and technology committee on Wednesday that they are aware of “suspicious” and possibly “malicious” cyber activity targeting research organizations. 

“We’ve seen some compromises in research organizations that we’ve been helping to mitigate and we’re still continuing to look through what’s the root cause of those,” Jones told the committee. 

“Yes, we’ve seen activity coming from organizations where they’ve seen malicious activity, or at least suspicious [activity], and we’re working with them to determine whether or not it was malicious, where it came from and who, and was a success or not.”

Only a week prior to Jones’ revelation, the CSE alongside the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) issued a warning that such institutions would be vulnerable to cyberespionage. 

“With regards to the specific threats, the (CSE’s) Cyber Centre has assessed that the COVID-19 pandemic presents an elevated level of risk to the cybersecurity of Canadian health organizations involved in the national response to the COVID-19 pandemic,” said CSE’s acting director-general of public affairs Christopher Williams.

“(CSIS) sees an increased risk of foreign interference and espionage due to the extraordinary effort of our businesses and research centres … (CSIS’) focus is on protecting Canadian intellectual property from these threats — and jobs and economic interests with it.”

This month, the US detected similar breaches in its own coronavirus research organizations. In response to the attacks, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency accused the People’s Republic of China of conducting cyberespionage. 

“The United States condemns attempts by cyber actors and non-traditional collectors affiliated with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to steal U.S. intellectual property and data related to COVID-19 research,” said US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. 

“The potential theft of this information jeopardizes the delivery of secure, effective and efficient treatment options.”

Canada has recently partnered up with organizations being directed by the Chinese government to work towards a vaccine. 

Prim Minister Justin Trudeau announced earlier this week that researchers will begin human testing on Canadians in the coming weeks. 

Conservative leadership candidate Peter MacKay was cited in a new study coming out of the UK which calls on Canada and its Five Eyes allies to break away from dependence on Chinese goods and materials. 

In the report, MacKay accuses the Chinese government of “suppressing critical data” and “sanctioning Chinese whistleblowers” in its coronavirus response. 

“Canada and its allies must hold the Chinese government to account. We must diversify trade away from non-democratic, authoritarian states that do not respect the rule of law or basic human rights,” writes MacKay. 

“Rather than rely on China for critical goods, Canada’s strategic interests require us to shift towards partners that align and conform with our rules-based system, the values of freedom and human rights, and that pose no threat to our national security and that of our allies in NATO, the G7, Five Eyes, and beyond.”

The 52-page report titled Breaking the China Supply Chain: How the Five Eyes can Decouple from Strategic Dependency was written by the Henry Jackson Society and says Canada, alongside the US, the UK, Australia and New Zealand are “strategically dependent” on China. 

These countries rely on China for as many as 831 different categories of goods, 260 of which are necessary components in communications and infrastructure. 

According to one of the authors of the report Samuel Armstrong, Canada is among the worst in terms of dependence on China for medicines and vitamins. Canada is also heavily dependent on China for cellular and computer technology. 

“The biggest one is phones and computers: 87% of your laptops and 78% of your cell phones are made in China. The modern economy relies on these,” Armstrong told the Globe and Mail.

The study found that Canada relies on China for as much as 96% of its supply of anthraquinone which is an ingredient found in cancer and anti-malarial medications. 

“If it was not already apparent, the COVID-19 pandemic has drawn attention to the dangers that dependency poses,” claims the report. 

In a section titled “Foreign influence and disinformation,” MacKay accuses the federal government of not properly addressing Chinese interference in Canada. 

“This clear threat to Canada’s national security has not been properly addressed or fully acknowledged, despite ample evidence over the past several years,” said MacKay. 

“China’s actions during the Covid-19 pandemic should also demonstrate to the Canadian government that it must ban all Huawei 5G technology from its communications infrastructure in order to mitigate any potential vulnerabilities that Chinese intelligence might seek to exploit.”

“The five powers have found it difficult to source the necessary volumes of medical equipment, either because China has commandeered such products for its own requirements or because the five powers have been forced to compete for limited supplies.”

Recently, the Canadian government has partnered with Chinese state-directed researchers to develop a coronavirus vaccine. 

According to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, clinical trials of the Chinese vaccine will begin to be performed on Canadians within the coming weeks despite warnings that such a partnership could endanger the safety of Canada’s citizens. 

The federal government has been advising its employees to avoid any reference to China when discussing the coronavirus, according to Blacklock’s Reporter. 

Documents by the Treasury Board and The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS), both advise federal public sector workers to avoid any reference to the virus’ country of origin as to avoid “stigma” and “micro-aggressions.” 

“Don’t blame any age group or people from a specific country, ethnicity or race for the spread of Covid-19. Show compassion for all victims around the world and go easy on the others,” wrote the Mental Health And COVID-19 For Public Servants: Balance Family Life which was published by the Treasury Board. 

According to the CCOHS, public sector employees are encouraged to spy out “social stigma and micro-aggression” while at work. 

“Groups that may be experiencing stigma during the COVID-19 pandemic including those that have traveled, persons of Asian descent, emergency or health care professionals and other essential workers,” wrote the CCOHS’ guidebook titled Preventing Stigma.

“Micro-aggressions are everyday verbal, non-verbal and environmental snubs or insults that communicate hostile, derogatory or negative messages. These messages target persons based on the group the other person perceives them to belong to.”

Since the virus originally broke out in Wuhan, China, and was subsequently covered up by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the communist regime has sought to cast shade over its origins and insist that any criticism of their government’s handling equates to racism. 

The CCP’s tactic has caught on in Canada. In April, a CBC article echoed CCP talking points when slandering an exposé report by the Epoch Times. 

The CBC charged the publication, which is owned and operated by people of Chinese descent, of “advancing a conspiracy theory” and being “racist and inflammatory.” 

Epoch Times Canadian Editions publisher Cindy Gu called the allegations by the CBC “deliberately misleading.”

“The CBC headline focuses on a small part of our eight-pages-long special edition, a commentary article that discusses the history of top CCP officials talking about developing bioweapons. But this opinion article did not state that the Wuhan lab was developing bioweapons, contrary to the claim in the headline,” wrote Gu in a statement posted online.

In an exclusive True North report, Macdonald-Laurier Institute foreign policy specialist Shuvaloy Majumdar accused the CCP of conflating “credible critiques with charges of racism.” 

“We’ve seen them conflate credible critiques with charges of racism and it’s silly to do that and they’re growing sharper and more immature in how they’re responding to it,” Majumdar told True North.

A Toronto-area frontline doctor has warned Canadians that the federal government’s partnership with Chinese researchers puts Canadians in unnecessary danger due to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) tendency towards obscuring the truth. 

Recently the National Research Council (NRC) announced that Canadian researchers will be partnering with the Chinese based CanSino Biologics and in extension the People’s Liberation Army to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus.

President of Concerned Ontario Doctors Dr. Kulvinder Gill spoke out against the deal, saying that partnering with China is “the most counterproductive and dangerous thing [the federal government] could do.” 

“The role of our governments is to build trust through transparency and accountability. If the Trudeau government wants Canadians to trust and buy into a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, partnering with the Chinese Communist Party’s military is […] the most counterproductive and dangerous thing it could do,” Gill told Thinkpol. 

“[Canada] must abandon this illogical and dangerous endeavour, and instead fund vaccine trials with our allied nations who understand the critical importance of trust, ethics, safety, transparency and collaboration.”

Gill also pointed to the CCP’s involvement in covering up the severity of the coronavirus pandemic during the early stages of the pandemic.  

“The Five Eyes intelligence alliance, consisting of Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, has raised significant concerns regarding China’s handling of the novel coronavirus calling it an ‘assault on international transparency’ with the disappearance of Chinese scientists and whistleblowers, censorship of scientific data, and fatal denial of human-to-human transmission via the World Health Organization,” said Gill.

Critics have accused the Liberal government of being too friendly to the communist regime, despite clear evidence that their actions endangered the safety of people around the world. 

Recent reports have shed light on the fact that while China hid information from the international community, it was buying up the world’s supply of personal protective equipment (PPE).

According to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, clinical trials of the Chinese vaccine will begin to be performed on humans within the coming weeks in Canada.

The first phase of the trials will include 30 to 100 healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 55.