Pressure Mounts for Release of Long-Buried PEI Report on Buddhist Land Transactions, Amid Broader Calls for Federal Inquiry

Former PEI MP Wayne Easter, along with former Toronto-area MP Kevin Vuong, speak at a press conference on investigations into PRC interference and suspect land dealings in Canada.

OTTAWA — The authors of a new book, Canada Under Siege, allege that a religious group linked to the Chinese Communist Party has been involved in a pattern of suspicious land transactions across Prince Edward Island — Canada’s smallest province, which they say is increasingly a flashpoint for questions about national security, land control, and transparency.

The authors — former RCMP superintendent Garry Clement and publisher Dean Baxendale — are pressing for the release of an investigative report they believe was suppressed, and for a new provincial probe commissioned this year to show concrete progress.

As scrutiny from the authors and from media including CBC and The Bureau has increased this year, the long-sought 2018 land-investigation report at the centre of the controversy — prepared by the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission (IRAC) — may finally surface, after a legislative standing committee issued a subpoena for the document. The report, which examined land holdings on Prince Edward Island, including those of several Buddhist-affiliated entities, was never released publicly by the regulatory body.

The authors, along with a group of concerned PEI citizens were joined in Ottawa yesterday by Wayne Easter, a retired nine-term Liberal MP and former chair of the House Finance Committee. Easter requested a judicial inquiry into suspected corruption tied to land transactions, saying he is among many Prince Edward Islanders alarmed by suspicious dealings involving the Buddhist groups. (The author of this story also spoke at the press conference on PEI investigations and foreign interference.)

Easter stressed that critics do not believe the Buddhist followers who have come to live and work in the communities established by the China-linked organization are engaged in wrongdoing. Rather, he warned that clandestine actors may have infiltrated and exploited the group’s land holdings for undisclosed purposes.

“There’s no sense doing a provincial inquiry,” Easter said. “There are too many interconnections within Prince Edward Island to really get to the bottom of the issue. You need a federal public inquiry that can subpoena witnesses, trace bank accounts, and bring in people internationally to get to the bottom of this.”

In response to a CBC report linking the religious group to Chinese Communist Party entities, representatives of the organizations involved strongly denied the allegation, stating that their activities have no political connection to the CCP.

Clement and Baxendale called for a federal inquiry into what they described as land dealings consistent with money laundering, routed through shell companies and religious non-profits.

Adding to those calls, Jan Matejcek, a PEI-based lawyer who has conducted his own investigations with a group of concerned Island residents, says the provincial government’s apparent reluctance to release a prior report into the land dealings of the Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society, conducted from 2015 to 2018, “raises some doubt about this government’s commitment to transparency.”

Documents reviewed by The Bureau show that the decade-old investigation, authorized under section 15 of PEI’s Lands Protection Act, examined land holdings of several Buddhist-affiliated corporations — including the Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society, Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute Inc., Moonlight International Foundation, and related companies — before being declared concluded in January 2018. No findings were ever made public.

A November 2024 letter from Housing Minister Steven Myers, obtained by The Bureau, and addressed to IRAC CEO Doug Clow, is titled “Re: Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute Inc. and Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society.”

In the letter, Myers wrote:

“I am writing to request that the Commission provide an update on the 2018 land investigation file relating to the above-noted organizations. Given the public interest and recent inquiries from legislators, I ask that the Commission provide a summary of its findings and the status of any recommendations or follow-up actions.”

That earlier investigation is now under renewed scrutiny following a February 2025 directive from Myers ordering IRAC to reopen the case under new powers added to the Lands Protection Act in 2022. The minister cited “public interest” and the need to examine potential direct or indirect control of the corporations’ land holdings, requesting a full report on whether the organizations had contravened the Act or its regulations.

This scrutiny follows mounting concern among residents and lawmakers that PEI’s land protections — designed to prevent excessive concentration of farmland — have been undermined by complex corporate structures and opaque beneficial-ownership chains.