BC Mayor Demands Conservative Leader Produce Evidence to Police or Apologize, After Anonymous Account Publishes Message Alleging Her Own Caucus Member Is Tied to CCP

VANCOUVER — Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West called on British Columbia Conservative Leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay Wednesday night to take an unverified allegation about one of her own caucus members to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and expel her from caucus, or else apologize to her — the first significant public intervention by an elected official into a purported leak that has moved through British Columbia political circles at speed since Tuesday evening.

“Many know I have been both a target of, and an outspoken opponent against, foreign interference in our democracy,” West wrote in a post published at 9:48 p.m. “If Kerry-Lynne Findlay has evidence to support what she has alleged, I urge her to immediately provide it to the RCMP and remove MLA Teresa Wat from caucus.”

“If she doesn’t, she should apologize to MLA Wat,” West continued. “Foreign interference is far too serious an issue in British Columbia and Canada for any responsible political leader to play games with it.”

West was responding to a post by an anonymous account operating under the name The Findlay Files, which said it had received what it described as a trove of files and stories concerning Findlay’s leadership, and published what it called an alleged screenshot from an internal group used by Findlay’s leadership campaign. The image, which The Bureau has not authenticated, shows a message attributed to an account labeled “Hon. Kerry - Lynne Findlay,” forwarding a ten-page document and then adding a series of instructions to unnamed recipients.

“Remember that WeChat is China Govt controlled and Teresa Watt MLA is CCP & sold many memberships to CCP Chinese in Richmond,” the message reads in part. “The Chinese community that supports us knows this.”

Findlay responded publicly two hours and 42 minutes after West’s post, at 12:30 a.m. Thursday, with a statement praising Wat that did not address the alleged message, confirm or deny its authenticity, or mention West by name.

“I had a wonderful discussion today with MLA Teresa Wat, who also serves as our steadfast Critic for Multiculturalism and Community Partnerships,” Findlay wrote. “I especially value her contributions, experience, and the important role she plays in bringing our team together.” Building relationships with the Chinese Canadian community, she added, had always been important to her. She then framed the episode as an attack on her party: “As the Conservative Party of British Columbia continues to gain momentum, increased scrutiny and political attacks are inevitable. But we will not allow them to distract or divide us.”

There is no public evidence that ties Wat to the Chinese Communist Party, and no Canadian public inquiry, regulator, or law enforcement body has ever found or alleged that she dealt improperly with it. Media reports, including from The Bureau, have documented meetings and engagements between Wat and entities of the People’s Republic of China over more than a decade. Responding in 2017 to questions from this writer about her role in bringing Poly Culture — an arts subsidiary of a Chinese state conglomerate whose arms division was formed as a manufacturing wing of the People’s Liberation Army — to British Columbia, Wat said that as minister of international trade she met regularly with local and international corporations, and that Poly Culture was one of many such companies she met and spoke with in the course of that work.

But the man now demanding an answer is not a bystander to this subject. West has told The Bureau he was warned by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) that Chinese diplomats in Vancouver regarded his political rise as a threat to their objectives, and says Beijing-linked networks in British Columbia later worked to defeat him at the ballot box because of his criticism of Chinese interference. His intervention raises the purported Findlay communications — and whatever the new Conservative leader now does or declines to do — to a matter of significant public interest in Canada.

Hours before West weighed in, the same purported leak was amplified by Jas Johal, the veteran broadcaster who hosts afternoon drive on CKNW and who spent much of his journalism career reporting from Asia. “Somewhere in the BC Conservative caucus, a group chat just exploded,” Johal wrote.

Johal served as Global News’ Asia bureau chief in Beijing beginning in 2008, traveling extensively in China to report on the economy, foreign and domestic policy, and human rights, before returning to British Columbia and entering provincial politics. In 2017 he was elected the Liberal member for Richmond-Queensborough and was appointed Minister for Technology, Innovation and Citizens’ Services in Christy Clark’s final cabinet, sitting in the same government caucus as Wat, who served as Clark’s Minister of International Trade and Minister Responsible for the Asia Pacific Strategy and Multiculturalism from 2013 to 2017. Johal lost his seat in 2020 and returned to broadcasting.