A Toronto MP who was dropped by the Liberal Party days before the last federal election over a failure to disclose a withdrawn sexual assault charge says he was the victim of “honeypot” tactics at the hands of the Chinese government.
Kevin Vuong, who sits as an independent Member of Parliament for Spadina-Fort York, suggested Thursday that the woman behind the charge laid against him in 2019 may have been a Chinese operative.
“If you look at what happened to me, it fits the Chinese MO of a honey trap, right?” Vuong told Newstalk 1010’s Moore in the Morning.
“You don't have to have defeated me. In this instance, what [the Chinese government] did to me was dragged my name through the mud.”
A “honey trap,” as described by Canada’s spy agency CSIS, is a form of sexual entrapment meant “to seduce you and get you in a compromising position or one where you could be blackmailed.”
In 2021, just two days before the election, the Liberals turfed Vuong for failing to tell them about the past sexual assault charge, which was was dropped by the Crown, but his name remained attached to the party on paper ballots and yard signs.
Vuong -- who said he had a two-hour meeting with CSIS this week -- vehemently denied the allegations and apologized to his supporters, as well as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in the weeks that followed the election.
Vuong has not provided any evidence to back up his claims. He did say his meeting with CSIS was "very insightful," but did not release any details about the conversation citing confidentiality.
The politician said he believes he was an alleged target because the Chinese government wanted Spadina-Fort York represented by someone who was “sympathetic to them and their agenda.”
“One in seven of my constituents, like me, are of Chinese heritage, so it's no surprise that my community would be a high priority target for the Chinese Communist Party,” he said.
“You don't have to be a political scientist to realize that I would not be a communist sympathizer, given my own family lived experience with my parents being run out of their country by communists.”
Vuong’s remarks come a day after Trudeau said CSIS must inform MPs about all threats against them, no matter how credible they are, following alleged threats made against Conservative MP Michael Chong and his family members.
Earlier this week, the Globe and Mail reported that Chong and his relatives in Hong Kong received threats from China after he criticised Beijing's treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, but that CSIS never told Chong about the threats.
In recent months, allegations of foreign interference in Canadian elections have been growing.
In April, Global News reported that MPP Vincent Ke served as a financial intermediary in a Chinese Communist Party election interference scheme.
Before that, the same news outlet reported MP Han Dong spoke to a Chinese diplomat in February 2021 about delaying the release of the two Michaels and that he was a “witting affiliate” of Chinese interference networks.
Ke and Dong resigned from their parties following the news and are both suing Global News separately. The lawmakers have denied the allegations.
