The “Jason Liu Incident”: A Firsthand Account by Jason Liu — Part 1

An AI-Generated Image, Two Weeks, and Richmond

 

Facts Only, Not Emotions. Every Point Has a Date, a Source, and a Record.

I am Jason Liu. Two weeks ago, I wrote two articles urging Chinese Canadians to increase voter turnout. The cover image for the first article was generated by an AI tool after I submitted the article to it. The image was wrong. When I discovered the problem, I replaced it myself and apologized on my own initiative. Had Mr. Heed not taken a screenshot and sent it to the Vancouver Sun, very few people would have seen it. Chinese-language readers focused on the content and paid little attention to the image. Yet the matter surrounding that already-withdrawn image proceeded all the way to a vote at City Council and to the doorstep of the Human Rights Tribunal. In this article, I will not judge anyone’s motives. I will do only one thing: set out, point by point, what each party did, in chronological order and according to the public record.

Prologue: The Image, and What the Author Did

From beginning to end, the central argument of my article rested on three public figures: Chinese residents account for 54% of Richmond’s population; turnout in the 2022 municipal election was 24.5%; and when turnout in the 2025 federal election was 59.6%, a Chinese candidate was elected as Member of Parliament. The conclusion was that increasing voter turnout is what matters, regardless of whom people vote for or who is elected.

The cover image was produced in a straightforward way: I gave the article to an AI tool and asked it to generate a cover. It did so, and I published it after only a quick glance. I never requested a national flag or a turban – the tool added those elements on its own. But I was the person who published it, so the responsibility is mine: I did not examine it carefully enough. Once I saw it clearly, and before any English-language media report, I voluntarily replaced the image with a data-only graphic containing no people or ethnic symbols and apologized publicly. No one asked me to do so. Please remember this point in the timeline, because every person who appears next was responding to an image the author had already withdrawn.

Act One: The First Media Outlet

On July 25, the Vancouver Sun published a report. Reporter Oksana Shtohryn sent me five written questions, which I answered one by one, and all of my answers were quoted: Why did I write the article? Because of 24.5% compared with 59.6%. To whom did “other people” refer? The minority of voters who make decisions for everyone when turnout is low, not any ethnic group. How did I respond to criticism? I had corrected what was wrong and apologized. Had I paid to promote the article? No. Whom did I support? No one.

In the same report, Mr. Heed made three statements worth remembering: he believed my article did not violate British Columbia’s election law; he was not seeking an apology; and he was not asking that the post be removed. The report also mentioned that someone had told him to “go back where you came from.” I publicly condemned that remark the same day: it was racism. Chinese people have heard “go back” far too often and are the last people entitled to say it to anyone else.

Act Two: The Person Calling for Discipline

After the report was published, real estate industry figure Bob Ransford posted repeatedly, calling on an industry association to discipline me professionally for “unprofessional conduct” and stating that a complaint had “been filed.” He also singled out Councillor Alexa Loo for not condemning me immediately, calling her silence “cowardice.” Two details should be recorded: commenters under his own post pointed out that he had identified the wrong body as having jurisdiction; and what he cited was the withdrawn image and the report’s headline – nowhere did he quote the original article. In his post, he referred to me as “a realtor.” Mr. Gabriel Yiu,  identified there as a political commentator, said the matter should be sent to mainstream media, after which the relevant authority would take action against me.

Act Three: The Person Asking the Questions

Bob Mackin, a veteran investigative reporter with the English-language online outlet theBreaker.news, sent me six written questions, each containing a premise: Whom do you support? Are you associated with a particular organization or individual? Will you register as a “third party advertising sponsor”? I answered each question with facts: I support no one; I researched and wrote the article by myself, and it was unrelated to any organization; and as for registration, under the Local Elections Campaign Financing Act, registration is required for paid advertising that campaigns for a candidate. The law does not require registration for a personal commentary that neither supports nor opposes any candidate and on which not a cent was spent for promotion. Every answer remains in the written record. His subsequent report contained a passage worth reading for everyone who accuses me of “dividing voters by ethnicity.” He found that, after the 2021 federal election, I had publicly welcomed the victory of Indo-Canadian Liberal candidate Parm Bains over Chinese Canadian Conservative Member of Parliament Kenny Chiu. He treated this as material uncovered in his investigation of me. But it proves precisely one thing: in an election between a Chinese candidate and an Indo-Canadian candidate, I never took the side of ethnicity. A reporter known for investigative work used material he found himself to answer the question Council never asked me

Act Four: The Council Chamber

July 27: a regular meeting of Richmond City Council. During the livestream, Councillor Carol Day held up a printed sheet – the AI-generated image I had already withdrawn – called it a “ridiculous cartoon,” said it “offends everybody that lives in Richmond,” and stated that making “derogatory comments about one particular ethnicity is completely unacceptable.”

Councillor Laura Gillanders then spoke, characterizing the matter as follows: “This is racism. It is dividing and separating Richmond along racial lines.” She summarized my article this way: “It implies that if one ethnicity comes out and votes in greater numbers, it will prevent a person of another ethnicity from being elected. That is what it says.”

My original text stated: “I do not intend to tell anyone whom to vote for. No community association or community leader should hand-pick candidates on behalf of voters”; and, “As long as voter turnout increases, regardless of who is elected or which ethnicity that person represents, if that person wins in an election in which Chinese voters have participated enthusiastically, we can and should accept the result.” That is not what it says – it is the opposite of what it says. That day, a motion introduced by Councillor McNulty passed. It had three parts:

  • require the party who published the post to apologize publicly on behalf of all Richmond residents;
  • have the City publicly condemn the post; and
  • refer the matter to the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal for review. Three facts must be placed on the record: before Council voted, no one asked me a single question; to the best of my knowledge, the complete text of my article – in Chinese or in any translation – was not before Council when it voted; and after the vote, the City did not notify me in any way. I learned that City Council had condemned me only through an interview email from a third reporter.

Act Five: Four Letters

After learning of the motion, I wrote that same day to Mayor Malcolm Brodie and Councillors Day, Gillanders, and Heed. I attached the complete English text of the article, translated by me personally, and made the same either-or request of each recipient: After reading the complete text, please identify which passages are “racist” or “derogatory toward an ethnicity.” If you cannot identify any, please correct the public record.

At the same time, I formally requested the text of the motion and the debate record, and put a procedural question to the Mayor: when the motion was introduced, debated, and voted upon, was the full text of my article before Council? I also stated that I was willing to appear before Council and publicly answer any question about anything I had written – an opportunity I was never given before the vote.

Act Six: A Question That Must Be Asked

I must first be fair: Richmond City Council has opposed racial discrimination in the past. In 2020 and 2021, Council publicly declared twice that “racism and discriminatory behaviour have no place in Richmond.” The City has a Cultural Harmony Plan and adopted a Community Protocol Responding to Racism and Hate. I acknowledge all of this. But consider how those words have been applied.

In March 2021, at a coffee shop in Steveston, a couple poured coffee on the floor, threw a cup at a young Chinese woman working there, and shouted “f*** you Chinese.” The entire incident was recorded on video, and both individuals later pleaded guilty. It was a real, documented, criminally adjudicated act of anti-Asian hate, committed against a young woman at her workplace, at a time when Chinese people across Canada were being abused and told to “go back” because of a pandemic. Council’s response at the time was a statement of principle. It named no one. It required no one to apologize to all Richmond residents. It referred no one to the Human Rights Tribunal. Yet on Monday, Council singled out an ordinary citizen, required him to apologize publicly on behalf of all Richmond residents, publicly condemned him, and voted to refer him to the Human Rights Tribunal – because he wrote articles urging people to register and vote. To the best of my knowledge, Council had not read those articles, asked him no questions, and notified him neither before nor after. I am not asking why Council did less at that time. What I am asking is why it is doing so much now – and who is observing that disparity. A Chinese barista who had coffee poured at her received a statement of principle; a Chinese person who wrote in Chinese that his community should vote was singled out, condemned, and sent to the Human Rights Tribunal. Whatever Council intended, that is the message many people received this week.

Act Seven: Language

There is another issue that I consider far more important than my personal circumstances. My article was written in Chinese, for Chinese-language readers, in a city where 54% of residents are Chinese. Before condemning it, demanding an apology, and voting to refer it to the Human Rights Tribunal, did anyone read it? Did they read the original or a translation? If it was a translation, who prepared it? A multicultural city is not merely a place where many languages are spoken; it should be a place where what is said in those languages is actually read before it is judged. To the best of my knowledge, the complete English translation I provided was Council’s first opportunity to see the article in full.

Final Act: The Overlooked Protagonist

Now pull the camera back and consider the most ironic aspect of this drama: within two weeks, a withdrawn AI-generated image drew the attention of a mayoral candidate, three media outlets, an industry figure, two city councillors, a Council vote, and soon, potentially, a provincial human rights tribunal.

Yet the true protagonist of this drama – the 24.5% voter turnout – never came under any of those magnifying glasses. Not one person who held up the image asked: what should be done when three out of four Richmond residents do not vote? Not one debate about public safety, taxation, housing, or drug policy lasted a minute longer because of this image. I have begun seeking legal advice about my options, including the freedom of expression protected by section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and other legal issues that may arise from public characterizations. I had hoped to spend this month encouraging people to register to vote, rather than consulting lawyers. I can withstand this controversy: I have a company, a platform, and a complete written record. But most people do not. If a small-business owner, an elder who is not fluent in English, or a newly arrived immigrant in this community had been considering encouraging neighbours to register to vote, the message sent to them this week was: do not speak; stay home. In a city where three quarters of eligible voters did not vote, that is the last message that should be sent. A mistaken image merits this much attention, while the silent three quarters of a city’s electorate do not – that is everything this spectacle tells us. Therefore, my conclusion is firmer than ever: although Chinese residents make up 54% of the population, they are the truly disadvantaged group. I acknowledge the error in the image and corrected it long ago; but I will not apologize for urging everyone to vote. On October 17, come out and vote. Let voter turnout be the sole protagonist of the next great drama. When you meet someone, remember to ask: Are you ready to vote?

Luxmore Realty | Jason Liu | Author of AI Economics

Infrastructure determines the ceiling; data determines the moat.

Sources of Facts

Vancouver Sun report dated July 25, 2026; official livestream of the Richmond City Council regular meeting of July 27, 2026 (remarks at 01:34:58–01:35:18 and 01:36:06–01:38:08); Richmond City Council’s public anti-discrimination statements from 2020 and 2021 and the City’s Cultural Harmony Plan; public reporting and court outcomes concerning the 2021 Steveston coffee-shop case; relevant reporting by theBreaker.news; Bob Ransford’s public social-media posts; and the author’s complete written correspondence with the Vancouver Sun, theBreaker.news, and Richmond News. Every factual statement in this article can be traced to and checked against its source.