August 26 (Wednesday)

My application to register as a Third Party Sponsor was approved. I registered my independent media outlet—my WeChat public account—to avoid having articles published during the election period challenged on registration grounds.

Under British Columbia’s election rules, the relevant registration must be completed before September 19.

Afternoon | Meeting with a Lawyer

I sought legal advice about this incident. I will not go into the details here.

Deciding to Explain Why I Did Not Attend the August 23 Gathering

Too many people have asked me this question in recent days. Some were puzzled, some worried on my behalf, and others asked directly whether I was avoiding the issue.

It is a fair question, and I should answer it directly. So I decided to write an article.

There are just two central points I want to make.

First, I stayed away to preserve my position as an ordinary resident. The moment I stepped onto a platform, the issue would shift from “a resident condemned without due process” to “political mobilization initiated by one individual.” Once that label was attached, no one would discuss the real issue: procedure.

Second, the people who attended that day did not come for me. I knew only a very small number of them. Most were complete strangers. They came out not to rally behind one person, but because they felt that a civic right had been violated. They were defending their own ability to speak freely and without fear in the future.

I must make this clear. To describe the spontaneous actions of hundreds of people as something done for me personally is both untrue and unfair to them.

August 27 (Thursday)

Morning | Meetings Back at the Office

I met separately with the OpenDeed team and the Luxmore Realty team. Over the past month or so, I have been far too distracted from company matters, and my colleagues have shouldered a great deal.

Submitting a New Freedom of Information Request

After receiving and reviewing the City’s response to FOI #2026-164, I submitted a new request seeking disclosure on four points:

1. Why the City changed the “Human Rights Tribunal” named in Council’s resolution to the “Human Rights Commissioner”;
2. How and when that change was decided;
3. Whether Council was informed of the change;
4. Whether the City considered correcting or clarifying the public record.

These are four factual questions, each of which can be answered in a single sentence. I am drawing no inferences; I am simply asking for an explanation.

Afternoon | Writing to the Media

I prepared a letter for journalists setting out the entire incident and sent it, together with the relevant documents, to several mainstream news outlets, including CBC News, Global News and CTV.

The letter presented the sequence of events in chronological order:

• The initial report in the Vancouver Sun;
• The motion passed by City Council on July 27;
• The reporting by Richmond News;
• The four letters I sent to the Mayor and all councillors, none of which has received a substantive response to date;
• My complaint to the BC Ombudsperson;
• The peaceful gathering on August 23, in which I did not participate;
• The information disclosed through the FOI request.

I did not ask any outlet to speak on my behalf. My request was that journalists independently examine the facts and procedural issues on the basis of the public record.

The documents are all there. What journalists write after reading them is a matter for their own judgment.

August 28 (Friday)

Regarding MLA Teresa Wat

Today I saw the news that Richmond MLA Teresa Wat had announced her departure from the BC Conservative caucus and would remain in office as an independent.

Let me first set out the facts I have verified.

Teresa Wat is a four-term MLA, born in Hong Kong in 1949 or 1950. She was elected in 2013 and previously served as Minister of International Trade and Minister Responsible for Asia Pacific Strategy and Multiculturalism. On August 26, she announced that she would no longer remain in the BC Conservative caucus.

She gave the following reason: on July 29, media reports revealed leaked group-chat messages allegedly from party leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay that linked her to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and questioned her loyalty to Canada. She described the remarks as “offensive and hurtful” and said that Findlay had still not apologized.

For accuracy, I am also recording the other side’s account: Findlay said that she had apologized directly during their July 29 phone call and had issued a statement on social media, and that she considered the matter closed. She called Wat’s departure a “betrayal.”

The actual origin of the leaked messages remains an allegation at this point. I am making no judgment.

But one issue does not depend on whether they are authentic.

The practice of branding someone as linked to the CCP is itself a problem.

Someone who has lived in Canada for decades, been elected to the provincial legislature four times, served as a minister, and has no connection to mainland China can nevertheless be labelled a “member of a foreign political party” with a single remark.

This makes me angry, and not merely because it happened to a Chinese Canadian MLA.

It is because attaching this label costs so little.

No evidence is needed to say it. Yet the person labelled may spend months or years trying to remove it—or may never be able to do so.

I thought of my own experience.

A journalist who once worked in investigative reporting dug up an article I wrote in 2021 and connected it to “foreign government interference” and “ties to a foreign political party.”

It is the same method.

First, find a passage written in Chinese by a Chinese person. Then place it within a “foreign interference” framework. After that, there is no need to prove anything—the framing itself does the work of making the accusation.

The person accused has no way to defend themselves. If you say, “I have no such ties,” the reply can be, “Of course you would deny it.” It is a structure designed to make it impossible to establish your own innocence.

So I decided to write an article in support of MLA Teresa Wat.

I have no personal relationship with her, and our party-political positions do not necessarily align.

But silence on this matter is not an option.

If a four-term MLA and former minister can be casually labelled in this way, there is no need to imagine what an ordinary resident might face—I am experiencing it myself.

This is not just about Teresa Wat, nor is it just about me. It is something any Chinese Canadian may face simply by speaking about public affairs.

August 29 (Saturday)

Another Article Taking Shape

I saw an American host say that, if a military conflict broke out between the United States and China, all ethnic Chinese people in the United States should be locked up.

That statement immediately brought the Second World War to mind. This was precisely how Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadians were sent to internment camps and had their property confiscated. Memoirs in Canada have also described how Japanese Canadian fishermen lost their boats and how their property was disposed of after they were confined in camps.

The Canadian government has formally apologized for this history and provided compensation.

But an apology does not mean it cannot happen again.

An apology addresses what has already happened. What can prevent it from happening again is someone immediately saying “No” when such rhetoric first appears.

I am still developing this article. Before writing it, I need to establish two things: the host’s exact name, words and source, and the specific historical sources documenting the disposal of Japanese Canadians’ property.

I will not write something without a source. That principle has protected me many times over the past month.

Reflections on These Past Few Days

What I did this week may look like four unrelated activities: registering as a Third Party Sponsor, meeting a lawyer, submitting an FOI request, and writing to the media.

But they are really part of the same effort.

All of them are ways of keeping this matter within formal procedures.

I am not taking to the square, chanting slogans or organizing people. I submit the applications that need submitting, ask the questions that need asking, and document what needs documenting.

My greatest lesson from this past month is this: when public power oversteps its bounds, the only truly effective tool available to an ordinary person is to build a record that cannot be refuted.

Emotions pass. The record remains.

Current Status | As of August 29

49 days until voting day on October 17