Regulator Admits 2018 Buddhist Land Probe Was Never Completed, Sparking Outrage on Prince Edward Island

“There are too many interconnections within Prince Edward Island to really get to the bottom of the issue" former PEI MP said this week.

OTTAWA — Prince Edward Island lawmakers have added to a growing political firestorm in Canada’s smallest province, confirming that a long-sought investigation into controversial land holdings by Buddhist organizations in eastern PEI was never completed, following the release of an extraordinary letter from the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission (IRAC).

As reported yesterday, with increased scrutiny from media including CBC and The Bureau, pressure mounted for the release of the 2018 land-investigation report at the center of the controversy — reportedly prepared by IRAC — which was said to have examined extensive land holdings on Prince Edward Island linked to Buddhist-affiliated entities and Chinese financial interests. In response to a CBC report earlier this year 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.

But in a stunning response to a subpoena demanding IRAC’s report into the Buddhist-affiliated entities, the regulator has now revealed that no such report was ever completed.

The letter, written by IRAC chair Pamela Williams and reviewed by legislators Thursday before being released publicly, discloses that the 2016–18 investigation into the Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute and the Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society produced no findings, no hearing, and no final report.

An investigation was launched in early 2016 into the land holdings of several Buddhist-related organizations under section 15 of the Prince Edward Island Lands Protection Act. According to IRAC’s response to legislators, a consultant prepared both an initial and a supplementary report and provided those documents to the investigating officers on a privileged basis. But for reasons not explained by IRAC, the Commission’s investigating officers did not ultimately produce a report, no hearing was held, and no order was issued determining whether the parties under investigation did or did not violate the Act.

The revelations have shocked legislators and residents who for years believed the province had quietly completed — and withheld — the 2018 report. Instead, the correspondence shows that the probe was effectively abandoned without explanation.

Green Party MLA Matt MacFarlane, a member of the committee that subpoenaed IRAC for answers, said the disclosure represents a profound breach of public trust.

“There is no report and there never was,” MacFarlane posted to Facebook. “We learned that an investigation began in early 2016 and ended in early 2018. But even after two years of work, IRAC chose — or was told — not to produce a final report which would have concluded whether the Buddhist organizations did or did not violate the Lands Protection Act. We still do not know why this investigation was not completed.”

MacFarlane added that for seven years Islanders were led to believe a full investigation had been completed and merely kept confidential. He said the failure raises questions not only about IRAC’s performance but also about the province’s broader accountability mechanisms.

He pointed to renewed calls in Ottawa this week for a federal investigation into the Buddhist organization’s landholdings, and a separate, ongoing IRAC review of the same group’s dealings, but said many residents now doubt either process will be completed with transparency.

“I will be reaching out to Premier Lantz and Liberal leader Robert Mitchell, who was the minister responsible for land at the time of the 2018 investigation, to get a better understanding of how this was allowed to happen and why Islanders were never told, until now, the truth.”

The revelation adds fuel to a story gaining significant traction on Prince Edward Island, a province of just 170,000 that — despite being Canada’s smallest — appears to have played a disproportionate role in Chinese immigration-investment schemes.

The land transactions questioned this week by former Liberal MP Wayne Easter and the authors of Canada Under Siege are at the center of the controversy.

In his statement Wednesday, book author Garry Clement — a former RCMP superintendent and anti-money-laundering expert — said his investigation had uncovered what he described as “elite capture” in PEI.

“What we found was money laundering, corruption, and elite capture at the highest levels,” Clement said.

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.

“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.”