How China’s Canadian lobbyists blurred the lines of PR, journalism and political activism
- Lobbyists from Solstice Public Affairs, hired by China’s consulate, have been regular contributors to media discourse about China in Canada
- In a Toronto Star opinion piece, a Solstice employee warned of a ‘new wave of Sino-phobia’ without originally identifying China as a company client
Karen Wen Lin Woods wants you to know she has “absolutely” no relationship with the Chinese government or its diplomatic missions in Canada.
And she wants the critics who suspect otherwise to know that she thinks they are, variously, “fat and creepy”, “trolls” or “simplistic hacks”.
Co-founder of the Canadian Chinese Political Affairs Committee (CCPAC), Woods has become a prominent commentator on China-related affairs in Canada, appearing on the CBC and other broadcasters and publishing lengthy pieces in Canadian newspapers since the arrest of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou.
“[The] Huawei case has put a dark cloud shrouding the psyche of many Chinese-Canadians,” she told readers of The Toronto Star ’s opinion pages in a 750-word lead article on December 18. It warned them of a “new wave of ‘Sino-phobia’”, and grimly concluded that “in a West rebuilt on Cold War ideologies and McCarthyism, there is likely to be little place for Chinese-Canadians”.
But what she did not tell them at the time was that her employer, Solstice Public Affairs, had been hired as the lobbyist for the Chinese Consulate-General in Toronto last August.
It was a rare relationship: not only was Solstice the first federal lobbyist engaged by China, no other country appears to have engaged a private firm to provide such services in Canada, which are typically undertaken by diplomats. Canada’s Lobbying Act exempts foreign diplomats from registration if they want to lobby Canadian officials.