Grappling with foreign interference allegations at home, MPs look to Taiwan for ideas

As a multi-party delegation of Canadian politicians returns home from Taiwan, MPs say Canada can learn lessons from the island when it comes to dealing with the threat of foreign interference from China.

Speaking to CBC's The House from Taiwan as they prepared to depart, Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong and Liberal MP John McKay — who chairs the parliamentary committee on national defence — said they had been impressed by the Taiwanese approach to resisting disinformation campaigns.

"I think there's a lot of lessons that Canada can learn about foreign interference and how society and government should respond to harden Canadian society against this meddling that we're experiencing from Beijing," Chong told host Catherine Cullen.

In a separate interview with CBC News, the NDP's foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson said she had similarly learned a great deal from the trip and that it had been a worthwhile multi-party experience.

"I think we were all of one mind as a delegation, which I think you can appreciate is not always the case in parliamentary work," she said.

The trip, organized as part of the Canada-Taiwan Friendship Group in Parliament and also including members from the Bloc and NDP, was in part overshadowed by large-scale air and naval military drills by China last week near Taiwan. Those drills are thought to be linked to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen's visit to the United States earlier this month.

Beijing insists that Taiwan is part of China. But Taiwan's leaders reject Beijing's sovereignty claim and the island is governed democratically. 

In an interview on Rosemary Barton Live, McKay said the threat posed by China was "serious" and the superpower was attempting to "turn Taiwan into a vassal state." But he praised Taiwanese officials, and Tsai in particular, as strong and determined.

He told CBC's chief political correspondent that Taiwan was poorly treated by the international community and could be further integrated into international institutions and partnerships like the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

McPherson told CBC News that she supported Taiwan's inclusion in some institutions like the World Health Organization.

Asked whether he was concerned that trips by politicians — such as then-U.S. Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit last year — could risk further inflaming tensions in the region, McKay was blunt.

"I don't really worry about what China might think about this trip or might not think about this trip," McKay said. He highlighted a series of points of tension within the Canada-China relationship, including the detention of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, industrial espionage and the intimidation of the Chinese diaspora in Canada.

Scott Simon, a professor at the University of Ottawa specializing in the study of Taiwan, said in an interview that trips by foreign politicians to Taiwan happened frequently, and that China's recent military drills had more to do with favourable weather this time of year.

"China doesn't respond to every trip. They are basically only interested in the American relations with Taiwan," he said.