cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/6946553

When Chinese interference operations in Canada go unaddressed, regional partners draw conclusions about whether Canada can be counted on as a serious security partner in an increasingly contested Indo-Pacific region.

Archived link

Foreign interference in Canada is no longer an abstract concern whispered about in security circles. It is a lived reality – one that touches elections, communities, universities, and even the everyday trust that Canadians place in their democratic institutions.

While no single country has a monopoly on these activities, a growing body of evidence shows that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been a particularly active and consequential player. The cumulative effect is a slow erosion of sovereignty, confidence, and credibility at a moment when the global rules Canada has long relied upon are fraying.

...

[In January 2025, a public inquiry led by Justice Marie-Josée] Hogue concluded that “foreign interference is real” and that “some foreign states (China) are trying to interfere in our democratic institutions, including electoral processes.” The report specifically noted that while Canada’s democratic institutions “have thus far remained robust,” the phenomenon of **foreign interference “poses a major risk to Canadian democracy” **and constitutes “an existential threat” particularly through information manipulation.

...

Specific documented cases reinforce these findings including:

• The 2023 arrest and charging of RCMP officer William Majcher under the Foreign Interference and Security of Information Act for allegedly using his knowledge and contacts to help the Chinese government identify and intimidate individuals who posed credible threats to Chinese state interests (Banerjee 2024; Onishi 2023).
• The ongoing investigation into alleged Chinese police stations operating in Canada without authorization – with RCMP charging three individuals in June 2023 – that demonstrate Chinese operational presence on Canadian soil (Thompson 2024).

...

Chinese state interference operations systematically target diaspora communities through intimidation, surveillance, and coercion, creating what experts describe as “transnational repression” (Privy Council Office 2025). The Hogue Commission specifically noted that diaspora communities face “particular vulnerability” to foreign interference, with community members reporting self-censorship due to concerns about family safety in countries of origin.

...

Foreign interference extends beyond electoral politics to target research institutions, critical infrastructure, and technology sectors ... [For example] Alliance Canada Hong Kong’s report documented systematic exploitation of Canadian research institutions: “Due to the vulnerable funding environment in Canada, the Communist Party of China utilizes its capital and resources so that it is able to fund specific research in Canadian institutions. In the end, it’ll be able to trade the intellectual property for a very low cost.” The report noted that Canada’s National Research Council had collaborated with entities linked to China’s military-civil fusion strategy, raising concerns about inadvertent technology transfer.

...

Canada’s 2022 Indo-Pacific Strategy positions Canada as a reliable partner for regional democracies and a contributor to rules-based order (Global Affairs Canada 2022) ... However, documented Chinese interference operations undermine this positioning in multiple ways.

When Tokyo, Seoul, Canberra, New Delhi, and other regional partners observe Chinese state actors successfully penetrating Canadian institutions without robust countermeasures, questions arise about Canada’s commitment and capability as a security partner. The Alliance Canada Hong Kong report notes that “Canada lacks a comprehensive foreign interference framework to address these issues” and that “existing infrastructures in Canada are ill-equipped to address foreign state influence and interference today”

...

Policy Recommendations

• Implement Comprehensive Foreign Influence Transparency Legislation ...

• Enhance CSIS Operational Authorities Against Disinformation ...

• Strengthen the Research Security Framework Against IP Theft ...

• Create a National Counter-Foreign Interference Office ...

I know this has nothing to do with politics, economics, or ideology. But nonetheless, I find it interesting for myself.

Are there practices and rituals that go beyond the conventional and ACTUALLY work, instead of being empty promises?

I created a list on https://kounjikakumeika.wordpress.com/topics/magic to collect rituals that ACTUALLY work.

(I created it on another website because I couldn't categorize the topic anywhere, and that website is more casual anyway. Nothing there needs to appear professional.)

I can’t create a table here, so I’ll just list it by points.

WOMAN

• Biology
• • Menstrual cycle (period)
• • Pregnancy
• Society / Stereotypes
• • weak
• • caring
• • submissive
• • gender gap
• Media
• • Sexualization
• • Being shown naked is mostly avoided (Asia)
• Statistics
• • more rapes

MAN

• Biology
• • random erection
• Law (most countries)
• • mandatory military service (theoretically, but still written down)
• Society / Stereotypes
• • strong
• • all-knowing
• • dominant
• • less family time
• • acceptable that Woman are in man areas but not reverse (specific in (old) USA)
• • less valued (children and women first)
• • in physical conflicts, always treated as the main suspect
• • gets less help than women (pre-COVID)
• • Male victim statistics often receive little attention.
• • statistics reinforce gender roles
• State / Government
• • support for woman facilitation but not for men facilitation
• • women-only parking spaces
• Media
• • idiot (stupid dad stereotype)
• • can appear naked without issue
• • more focus on women’s problems, less on men’s
• Statistics
• • more homeless
• • more accidents
• • more deaths
• • more unemployed

++++++++++++++++++

If something was forgotten, what I assume, you can mention it.

Women's parking spots or spaces marked with signs like "reserved for women" or "women only" are sexist. They represent a clear form of gender discrimination, favoring one group while deliberately excluding another.

They unilaterally privilege one group and effectively deny access to others in this case, men. If women's parking spots exist, there should logically be men's parking spots too. BUT THERE AREN'T. Precisely because of this, it's a one-sided and blatantly unfair favoritism.

Theoretically, men could park there, but the label alone deters them, and in private facilities, their vehicles can even be towed or penalized. Imagine signs reading "Park only if you're Jewish," "Reserved for Blacks, no Whites," or any random group without a compelling reason like "Doctors on duty" near a hospital the outrage would be massive.

It's more than questionable why women's parking spots aren't treated as discrimination and sexism. In principle, they should be legally classified as disadvantaging men and prosecuted accordingly instead, they're sold as "tolerant" and "progressive," with the state eagerly playing along.

The standard excuse is always: Women's parking spots are for women's safety. This raises a glaring question: "Don't men need safety too?" How is that supposed to make sense? Should men park in dangerous, dark dead ends because "men = strong," while women get sorted into bright, flower-decorated spots with cameras?

Safety needs aren't gender-specific. Men also feel unsafe in certain places, though it's often ignored or hushed up. Many men feel pressured to act tough and deny their fear in such situations.
Men too are victims of violence in and around parking garages, and overall, men are statistically more often victims of physical assaults than women. If statistics are invoked to justify women's spots, one could just as easily pick stats where men are the victims and introduce men's parking spots. Or ones where mostly whites or blacks are affected, and reserve spots just for them.
In other words: Find stats for Group X and make protections only for Group X.
This exposes how absurdly selective such "objective reasons" are safety should apply to everyone, not just based on cherry-picked numbers.
Instead of favoring one group, create measures that benefit all: better lighting, video surveillance, emergency call pillars, and general safety concepts protecting people not just women, not just men, but everyone.

The most bitter part: This sexism and discrimination against men happens openly, right in front of everyone's eyes and society and state even market it as modern, important, and "sensitive." HELLO, ARE YOU ALL BLIND OR WHAT?
True equality means equal rights and duties for all not special rights for one group while quietly sidelining the other.

If you spot sexism like women's parking spots or other disadvantages, start with the clean approach:

• Send a factual but firm email to the company or parking operator.
• If nothing happens, escalate: Write to the city, mayor, or relevant authorities, explaining why it's discriminatory.

Alternatively, you could try eye-catching tactics like "Sexism" stickers or markings. But: Anything involving damage, graffiti, or unauthorized sticking is illegal and can lead quickly to charges via cameras, witnesses, or facial recognition, resulting in messy proceedings.
In the end, the media would run: "Men are aggressive, that's why we need more women's spots," while the real issue remains unchanged.

Bottom line: The anger is totally justified you're allowed to be furious But the smartest way is to fight this sexism with legal, documented means, not let an unfair system criminalize you too.

Hymn Text

The Free Thoughts

1. The free thoughts, who can guess their source, they are gifts in the night, a shadow’s quiet course. No one can know them, no prison can contain, it’ll always be: Thoughts are free!

2. I think what I will, and what makes me glad, but all in silence, and fittingly clad. My wish and desire, no one can deny, it’ll always be: Thoughts are free!

3. Lock me away, in a dark prison cell, these are all vain, futile as well. For my thoughts will go through every bar, it’ll always be: Thoughts are free!

4. Bound at my feet, with chains and bands, made by distress, by life’s harsh strands. I long to forget worries, and cease to complain, and my senses fade, yet in my heart’s domain, I can always laugh, and joke again, it’ll always be: Thoughts are free!

5. No one can find the chain, that binds my thoughts, nor can anyone contain what my mind has wrought. Women and men, their thoughts can’t be caught, it’ll always be: Thoughts are free!

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/6287164

Archived link

China’s Economic Miracle Was Built on Mass Displacement. If you think the CCP will treat foreigners better than its own people, when it extends its power over you, please think again: Dimon Liu's warning to Canadian Parliament, warns Dimon Liu Dimon Liu, a China-born, Washington, D.C.-based democracy advocate who testified in Parliament to the Canada’s House of Commons committee on International Human Rights on December 8, 2025, about the human cost of China’s economic rise.

Liu argues that the Canadian government should tighten scrutiny of high-risk trade and investment, and ensure Canada’s foreign policy does not inadvertently reward coercion.

Liu also warns that the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] could gain leverage over Canadians and treat them as it has done to its own subjugated population—an implied message to Prime Minister Mark Carney, who has pledged to engage China as a strategic partner without making that position clear to Canadians during his election campaign.

...

If you have ever wondered how China managed to grow so fast in such a short time, Charles Li, former CEO of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, has the answers for you. He listed 4 reasons: 1) cheapest land, 2) cheapest labor, 3) cheapest capital, and 4) disregard of environmental costs ... “The cheapest land” because the CCP government took the land from the farmers at little to no compensation. “The cheapest labor,” because these farmers, without land to farm, were forced to find work in urban areas at very low wages ...

One well known incident of eviction occurred in November 2017. Cai Qi, now the second most powerful man in China after Xi Jinping, was a municipal official in Beijing. He evicted tens of thousands into Beijing’s harsh winter, with only days, or just moments of notice. Cai Qi made famous a term, “low-end population” (低端人口), and exposed CCP’s contempt of rural migrants it treats as second class citizens.

“The cheapest capital” is acquired through predatory banking practices, and through the stock markets, first to rake in the savings of the Chinese people; and later international investments by listing opaque, and state owned enterprises in leading stock markets around the world.

Chinese Communist officials often laud their system as superior. The essayist Qin Hui has written that the Chinese communist government enjoys a human rights abuse advantage. This is true. By abusing its own people so brutally, the CCP regime has created an image of success, which will prove to be a mirage.

Democracy

• Introduction:
• 1. Media Manipulate Votes
• 2. Television or Mass Manipulation
• 3. Those with money can afford posters and advertising
• 4. Never define what “exactly” is meant
• 5. Nobody reads what a party truly wants
• Conclusion:
• Other Arguments

Democracy was never real

Introduction:

I want to discuss whether democracy is really as ideal as it is often portrayed. I will examine democracy from a critical and problematic perspective and present various arguments.

1. Media Manipulate Votes

Instead of serving as a neutral information platform, news outlets filter and frame topics according to their own political and economic agendas. Through targeted language, repetitive coverage of certain issues, and the omission of other viewpoints, they significantly influence what voters consider important and how they perceive candidates or parties. This undermines the foundation for an informed and autonomous decision-making process, which is essential for a “true” democracy.

2. Television or Mass Manipulation

Public opinion, the basis for democratic decisions, is heavily controlled by capital and media. This includes various TV channels, news outlets, and newspapers. Wealthy individuals and large corporations can dominate political campaigns through media ownership and advertising, steering the debate in their favor. They decide what we talk about, and more importantly, what we do not talk about. Targeted disinformation and massive misinformation or omission of information can be used to artificially create a desired artificial opinion. This creates an opinion that suits them. It is no longer information. It is fabrication. It is the artificial construction of public opinion. Of course, there are occasional exceptions or individuals who go against the tide, but they are given little attention.

3. Those with money can afford posters and advertising

Only parties that sell themselves and show up everywhere with advertising are elected and gain attention, while others with less money cannot afford such luxuries. Elections and public appearances are no longer won solely by ideas but primarily through financial resources. Those with large funds can push their messages into the public space via expensive ad campaigns, posts, attention, and professional marketing. As a result, well-funded positions are perceived disproportionately, while alternative or critical voices without sufficient financial support hardly get heard. It’s not “One person, one vote,” but “One euro, one more voter.”

4. Never define what “exactly” is meant

In the context of manipulation, a key strategy for maintaining power is to deliberately leave meanings vague and elusive. When political slogans, promises, or even threats are never precisely defined, they can mean anything and nothing. The voter can fill in the gaps mentally themselves or steer their perception so they believe their values are being supported. Vague promises like “security,” “democracy,” or “freedom” can be filled with hopes from very different voter groups. Everyone hears what they want to hear. Since it is never specified how something should be achieved or what it exactly means, it cannot later be held accountable for not fulfilling it. The promise was technically never broken because it was never clearly articulated. Critics are declared a problem, not the lack of clarity. Thus, language is used not as a tool for clarification but as a tool for obfuscation (confusion). The refusal to define something “exactly” is not an accident but a method.

5. Nobody reads what a party truly wants

Every party has a party program and ideally a campaign program. But these are long and complicated. Sometimes the rhetoric is hard to understand. But who has the time to study them thoroughly? Not everyone has time to read them. Between work, family, and other commitments, most barely find the time. And not everyone can or wants to engage so intensively with politics. Nor are they necessarily interested. People decide based on headlines, debates, short information snippets, feelings, and what they catch in their environment. Complexity is replaced by simple messages. Politics becomes a brand. We vote for a feeling, a face, a slogan, an illusion, but not the reality. The real plans and positions are hidden in thick documents that hardly anyone reads. And we not even discuss about broken promises or lies, or opinions and demands that constantly change. In the end, it’s not the best idea that wins, but the loudest. And those with the biggest media outlets or the most expensive advertising campaigns usually find the most ears.

Conclusion:

The arguments show that democracy is an ideal for most people, but reality does not meet that ideal. Moreover, the definition of democracy is broad and can even be claimed by non-democratic countries. Therefore, a new, qualified term for democracy is needed. One that includes aspects like media manipulation, lobbying, and lies in political practice. The goal of such a term would be to show that the claim of popular sovereignty is far from being fulfilled. Instead, the current system seems to be shaped by elites, manipulative opinion-making, and neglect of the broad population. This new term should be linked to a concrete checklist that clearly defines what a “true” democracy entails (contains) and considers manipulative strategies and their deficits. Possible examples of such neologisms could be:

• Fair Democracy
• Balanced Democracy
• Folkratie
• Peoples’ Republic
• Transparent Democracy
• etc.

Other Arguments

1. Media manipulate the votes
2. Television or mass manipulation
3. Those with money can afford posters and advertising
4. Never define what “exactly” is meant
5. No one reads what each party truly wants
6. Genuine opinion vs. what the mainstream wants to hear
7. Slogan as statements instead of facts
8. Emotional manipulation instead of arguments
9. Us versus them
10. False facts/misinformation
11. Logical fallacies
12. Lobbying
13. Lies
14. Corruption
15. The definition of democracy has always been imprecise1

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy
• https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zensuswahlrecht (German)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Householder_Franchise
• https://www.elysee.fr/en/french-presidency/the-constitution-of-4-november-1848
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffrage ↩︎

We consider anonymity to be a fundamental human right.

The reasoning behind this is as follows:

Freedom from Persecution:
Governments, institutions, and corporations often try to silence critical voices by intimidating or persecuting individuals. Anonymity enables whistleblowers and courageous citizens to expose wrongdoing without fear of retaliation. It is the shield for those who wish to bring corruption and misconduct to light. Without anonymity, much corruption would never be uncovered. Anonymity protects us from surveillance by “the elites.” It prevents personal data from being abused, manipulated, or used to blackmail individuals.

Freedom of Expression:
Only those who can remain anonymous dare to express their opinions openly even if those opinions are unpopular or go against the mainstream. Anonymity fosters open discourse, protects against repression, and encourages people to share their thoughts without fear of consequences.

Personal Freedom:
Without anonymity, privacy would be trampled underfoot. Do you really want Big Tech and other companies to know: Your personal preferences? What your children like? When you go to bed? Your medical history? You wouldn’t even share these things with your family, let alone your friends. Why should corporations be an exception?

Conclusion:
It must be noted that anonymity can also lead to the easier spread of crime, lies, terrorism, CSAM, and misinformation. Nevertheless, anonymity offers crucial advantages, such as protection from repression, the exposure of corruption, and the preservation of freedom of expression. Therefore, responsible use and appropriate measures are essential. Anonymity should be a firm component of everyday life and form a foundation for safeguarding our democracy.