Thread by @TDotResident

#ONpoli #CDNpoli

Seems like the media ONLY want to cover the Chinese influence story at the Federal level, but ignore it if Trudeau isn't involved.

THREAD 🧵 on Chinese influence tied to Doug Ford's Ontario PC Party, specifically 2 names:

Ted Zhou and Zhaoan Sui

1/ Ted Zhou
- Attended Trudeau fundraiser in 2016, but mostly Conservative fundraisers since then
- CEO of Evertrust (developer w/ projects in Niagara & Bracebridge)
- Built companies worth over $2.6B in China
- Founded dozens of Canadian companies, including 10+ influence groups

2/ Zhaoan Sui
- Runs the Canada Gansu Federation of Chamber of Commerce (CGFCC) and other influence groups
- Family runs Global Education Mihome Corporation (GEM), which operates Ace Acumen Academy (private college tied to St. Clair College) and also builds residences

3/
Both Ted Zhou and Zhaoan Sui are major donors to the Ontario PC Party as individuals - you can see many large donations to Vincent Ke, Billy Pang, the main Ontario PC Party, and to the PC riding Associations.... but the donations story goes well beyond that.

4/
#ONpoli
In the 2018 election, there is a suspicious donation pattern for the Ontario PC Party, specifically in the Vincent Ke riding (Don Valley North) and Billy Pang riding (Markham-Unionville).

There were 160 donations of exactly $400 to Ke's riding and 46 to Pang's.

5/
#ONpoli

So, why would 160 donations of $400 be suspicious?

$400 is the limit for a 75% refund. It is also well below the max of $1600/$1222 in 2018 (like Doug Ford got from DeGasperis).

And, no other riding had even close to 160 donations of $400. Most had under 20.

6/
#ONpoli

Examples from other PC Party ridings:
- Ajax (Rod Phillips) had 13 $400 donations
- Bay of Quinte (Todd Smith) had 4
- Don Valley East (Minnan-Wong) had 6
- Etobicoke North (Doug Ford) had 5

7/

So, Vincent Ke's riding had 160 donations x $400 ($64k), all getting a 75% refund of $300 from the province. So, $64k in funding cost only $16k.

Then, Ke got an extra $30k "allowance" from the riding association in 2018 - pretty good take when only $16k was spent by donors!

8/

Now, back to Ted Zhou and Zhaoan Sui... they each run many pro-China grassroots groups, some flagged as "United Front" groups.

The specific influence scheme that Vincent Ke resigned from the PC Party over was "transferring money through grassroots groups and staff members"

9/

Looking at specific $400 donations from 2018, you will find Ke's staff in that list of $400 donors. (the names are reported in the 2022 story about shell companies tied to Vincent Ke)

10/

And, in addition to Vincent Ke's staff being involved, many of those $400 donors are also members of the various Pro-China grassroots organizations. Here are 2 examples from Zhaoan Sui's Canada Gansu Federation of Chamber of Commerce (CGFCC):

11/

And, Ted Zhou's grassroots organizations have supported many Federal and Provincial Conservative candidates and even saw Zhou be a campaign advisor to Vincent Ke.

12/

So, in summary: it appears that pro-China grassroots organizations backed by wealthy businessmen coordinated 200+ donations of $400 to Doug Ford MPPs (Vincent Ke and Billy Pang) in the 2018 election.

That is either AMAZING fundraising skills, or foreign influence, or both?

Oh, and Ted Zhou's Evertrust company saw 2 of it's buildings mysteriously COLLAPSE recently in Welland... good thing the Ministry of Labour was there to ok the construction to continue!

Another bonus tweet! I forgot to mention Doug Ford's weird connection to St. Clair College (the company tied to Zhaoan Sui and Global Education Mihome Corporation)