Politics
GTA Liberal candidate’s relations with China consulate trigger fresh concerns TenX News
New questions have surfaced about relations between a federal Liberal candidate running in Markham-Unionville and China’s consulate in Toronto, including his presentation of an award of appreciation to a consul-general and appearing to salute the Communist flag at an event celebrating the establishment of the People’s Republic of China.
Peter Yuen, then a Toronto Police Service (TPS) superintendent, attended a Queen’s Park ceremony in 2016 along with a half dozen other uniformed TPS officers to commemorate the authoritarian regime’s 67th anniversary alongside then-Ontario Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne.
In a photo published afterwards on the website of the People’s Republic of China Toronto Consulate, Yuen appears to be saluting the Chinese flag while it is being raised outside the legislature.
In his TPS uniform, Peter Yuen appearing to salute the Chinese flag as it is raised during a ceremony to commemorate the authoritarian regime’s 67th anniversary alongside then Ontario Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne outside Ontario’s legislature.
Toronto Consulate website / People’s Republic of China
Two years earlier, Global News found a photo of a uniformed Yuen at an event inside China’s Toronto consulate, published in The China Daily USA edition, showing him giving a plaque to outgoing PRC Toronto Consul Fang Li “in appreciation for his support and friendship during his term in office.”
The Toronto police officer and Chinese diplomat were surrounded by seven younger TPS officers, whose presence at the consulate event was not explained.
This 2016 photo shows Toronto Police Superintendant Peter Yuen (center left) giving a plaque to departing PRC Toronto consul Fang Li, surrounded by 7 other unidentified Toronto police officers. The event happened at the China consulate in Toronto.
Li Na / China Daily (USA Edition)
Presented with a detailed list of specific Global News questions about his attendance at these events, Yuen, who retired as a TPS deputy commissioner in 2022, offered only a general response:
“I am proud of my Hong Kong heritage, but I have been a Canadian citizen for over 45 years and have been honoured to serve my community on the front lines of the Toronto Police Service for more than 30 years.
“I am in this race because I am committed to building a strong, resilient, and united Canada. During the period you referenced, events of this nature were common among private and public institutions as a means to strengthen people-to-people ties.”
“In my capacity as a police officer, I attended public safety conferences around the world, including Taiwan. I believe in a strong Canada that stands firm in its defence of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. If I have the privilege of serving as a Member of Parliament, I will always support this work.”
Global News discovered Yuen’s participation in the two events after the National Post reported last week that Yuen also made a trip in 2015 to the People’s Republic of China, where he attended a Chinese military parade in Beijing at the invitation of the communist government.
Yuen said his participation in the trip was approved by Toronto police and his superiors “as part of a broader effort to recognize the role of Canada and its allies in the Second World War,” the National Post reported.
An NBC TV video report of the event showed China boldly displaying its growing military might for political reasons after a massive stock market crash.
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The NBC’s report shows leader Xi Jinping enjoying “wave after wave of goose-stepping soldiers, tanks and missiles” and watching aircraft as the military parade passed through (and above) Tiananmen Square. It showed Chinese leader Xi Jinping looking on approvingly alongside his guest of honour, Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
“Most Western leaders stayed away,” the NBC report added.
Several news organizations have reported that Yuen also served briefly on the academic advisory board of a private Toronto high school that offers in-person and online classes to overseas Chinese students seeking to prepare for entry into Canadian and U.S. universities.
The Hogue Commission of Inquiry heard testimony — and received redacted CSIS briefing notes — that suggested some students from the high school were bussed to Han Dong’s bid to win the federal Liberal nomination in Don Valley North riding in 2019.
Dong testified at the inquiry that he did not know who arranged or paid for the buses that transported the students but also acknowledged that he had tried to recruit the students as political supporters during an earlier visit to a residence where the students stayed.
Justice Hogue cited classified intelligence holdings that suggested the efforts were part of an apparent attempt by the Chinese government to interfere with the outcome of that Liberal nomination.
Neither the Liberal Party nor Yuen responded to questions about when his tenure with the high school began or ended. Historical digital records of the NOIC Academy’s website reviewed by Global News listed Yuen as a member of its advisory board between at least March 30,2023, and Sept. 19, 2024.
Yuen’s uniformed appearance at the events in 2015 and 2016 coincided with China facing international censure.
The regime faced mounting allegations of systemic problems in its criminal justice system, which resulted in widespread torture and other ill treatment by Chinese police and unfair trials, according to human rights watchdog group Amnesty International.
Global News contacted former CSIS intelligence officer Dan Stanton and a pro-democracy leader in Toronto’s Chinese community for their reactions about the Yuen photos and his trip to Beijing.
Cheuk Kwan, co-chairman of the Toronto Association for Democracy in China, said he had several concerns about Yuen’s relationships with the Chinese consulate and conduct at PRC events.
Kwan said that while it is not wrong to pay tribute to a departing foreign consul general, it is a national matter usually handled by federal Canadian officials.
‘This is not something to be done by a local police officer.’
“This is national politics. This is not something to be done by a local police officer. That’s China overstepping its boundaries. The evidence is there. We’re left guessing the motive.”
“You see the line of Chinese Canadian policemen backing him. To me, that’s beyond pale and totally inappropriate,” Kwan added. “The problem is that these people see no problem doing that. It’s business as usual.”
“What we’re seeing is that this is not business as usual. This is a repressive regime. You’re cow-towing to somebody else,” Kwan added, saying Toronto police officers should not go to the PRC consulate in uniform and should not be saluting the PRC flag.
“There is a security concern, but there’s not much we can do to stop people from hob-knobbing with the consulate,” Kwan said.
Ex-CSIS officer Dan Stanton said he wasn’t concerned.
“There’s unlikely to be anything sinister or national security related to this very public acknowledgment to a diplomat. Consul Generals do good work in the community. Most do not have an intelligence role,” Stanton said, saying influence efforts would be hidden.
“The (other) TPS officers (in the two sets of event photos) probably have familial links to Hong Kong, so this plays well in Chinese media,” Stanton added.
During the period of Yuen’s trip and photos, however, Amnesty International published a detailed report that expressed concerns about PRC activities inside and outside the country in 2015 and 2016.
New laws presented serious threats to human rights
Amnesty said the PRC had drafted and enacted a series of new “national security laws” that presented serious threats to the protection of human rights.
“(Chinese) Police detained increasing numbers of human rights defenders outside of formal detention facilities, sometimes without access to a lawyer for long periods, exposing the detainees to the risk of torture and other ill-treatment,” the Amnesty report said.
“Booksellers, publishers, activists and a journalist who went missing in neighbouring countries in 2015 and 2016 turned up in detention in China, causing concerns about China’s law enforcement agencies acting outside their jurisdiction,” Amnesty added.
Kwan added there was no need for a TPS officer like Yuen to travel to Beijing to attend a military parade, either. He also questioned who paid for Yuen’s trip and why.
Kwan also remarked that a Canadian police officer also should not salute the flag of a repressive regime.
Toronto Police Service corporate spokeswoman Stephanie Sayer declined to answer questions about Yuen, nor did she respond to questions about who paid for his trip to the military parade in Beijing in 2015 or who approved it, instead referring the queries to Yuen.
Yuen did not answer Global News’ direct question about who paid his travel and accommodation expenses for the 2015 Beijing trip.
Media reports from the past several years suggest that raising and flying the Chinese flag in Toronto has become an increasingly controversial issue in Ontario, as the Chinese government has faced increasing allegations of foreign interference in Canadian elections.
Similar events were halted at Queen’s Park in 2020 and in the City of Markham in 2019 following outcry from Chinese Canadian taxpayers and residents who protested such events, calling for them to be banned and for officials who organized them to apologize.
Yuen was hastily picked to run in Markham earlier this month after incumbent Liberal MP Paul Chiang was forced to withdraw. Yuen had launched an unsuccessful campaign in Ontario’s February election.
Chiang resigned after he made remarks suggesting Canadians turn in Joe Tay, a Tory candidate and pro-democracy Chinese activist, to the PRC Consulate in Toronto and collect a bounty. Chiang later apologized for his remarks, which caused outrage across Canada and calls for his resignation.
The Markham riding, which is home to one of Canada’s largest population of residents of Chinese ancestry, has been a magnet for political troubles and foreign influence efforts, including being the location of an alleged overseas Chinese secret police station that was shuttered by the RCMP.
Denmark’s prime minister says the country is standing firm in its commitment to “prevent” a threatened U.S. takeover of Greenland, after a meeting with American leaders on Wednesday.
A translation of a statement posted by Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on social media on Thursday morning described the meeting and what could come next following U.S. President Donald Trump’s rhetoric that Greenland will be acquired by the U.S. “whether they like it or not.”
“Yesterday I received a briefing about the meeting between Greenland, Denmark and the U.S.A. from Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and Greenland Minister for Foreign Affairs Vivian Motzfeldt — it was not an easy meeting,” said Frederiksen in the statement.
Trump has claimed that the United States must acquire Greenland, a Danish territory dating back centuries, because of “national security.”
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He has made repeated claims that NATO and Denmark were not doing enough to defend the Arctic from potential threats, including Russia and China.
Frederiksen’s statement describes how NATO forces are working to establish a stronger security presence in the Arctic and that the alliance will not allow the U.S. to take over Greenland.
“Now a working group is being established to discuss how to strengthen security in the Arctic,” she said.
“However, this does not change that there is a fundamental disagreement because the American ambition to take over Greenland is intact. It is, of course, serious, and therefore we continue our efforts to prevent that scenario from becoming a reality.”
Greenland and the U.S. are both members of NATO.
“There is an agreement in the NATO alliance that a strengthened presence in the Arctic is crucial for European and North American security,” said Frederiksen.
“Denmark has invested significantly in new Arctic capacities. And I would like to acknowledge that a number of allies these days are contributing to joint exercise activities in and around Greenland. The defence and protection of Greenland is a common concern for the whole NATO alliance.”
She adds that the Danish government will provide an update on Friday for its own government as well as NATO members about the situation at a meeting in the State Ministry.
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
Politics
Sick astronaut returns to Earth with crew in NASA’s 1st medical evacuation – National TenX News
An ailing astronaut returned to Earth with three others on Thursday, ending their space station mission more than a month early in NASA’s first medical evacuation.
SpaceX guided the capsule to a middle-of-the-night splashdown in the Pacific near San Diego, less than 11 hours after the astronauts exited the International Space Station. Their first stop was a hospital for an overnight stay.
“Obviously, we took this action (early return) because it was a serious medical condition,” NASA’s new administrator Jared Isaacman said following splashdown. “The astronaut in question is fine right now, in good spirits and going through the proper medical checks.”
It was an unexpected finish to a mission that began in August and left the orbiting lab with only one American and two Russians on board. NASA and SpaceX said they would try to move up the launch of a fresh crew of four; liftoff is currently targeted for mid-February.
NASA’s Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke were joined on the return by Japan’s Kimiya Yui and Russia’s Oleg Platonov. Officials have refused to identify the astronaut who developed the health problem last week or explain what happened, citing medical privacy.
Support teams onboard the SpaceX recovery ship SHANNON work around the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft shortly after it landed off the coast of Long Beach, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026.
NASA via AP
While the astronaut was stable in orbit, NASA wanted them back on Earth as soon as possible to receive proper care and diagnostic testing. The entry and splashdown required no special changes or accommodations, officials said, and the recovery ship had its usual allotment of medical experts on board.
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The astronauts emerged from the capsule, one by one, within an hour of splashdown. They were helped onto reclining cots and then whisked away for standard medical checks, waving to the cameras. Isaacman monitored the action from Mission Control in Houston, along with the crew’s families.
NASA decided a few days ago to take the entire crew straight to a San Diego-area hospital following splashdown and even practiced helicopter runs there from the recovery ship. The astronaut in question will receive in-depth medical checks before flying with the rest of the crew back to Houston on Friday, assuming everyone is well enough. Platonov’s return to Moscow was unclear.
NASA stressed repeatedly over the past week that this was not an emergency. The astronaut fell sick or was injured on Jan. 7, prompting NASA to call off the next day’s spacewalk by Cardman and Fincke, and ultimately resulting in the early return. It was the first time NASA cut short a spaceflight for medical reasons. The Russians had done so decades ago.
Spacewalk preparations did not lead to the medical situation, Isaacman noted, but for anything else, “it would be very premature to draw any conclusions or close any doors at this point.” It’s unknown whether the same thing could have happened on Earth, he added.
The space station has gotten by with three astronauts before, sometimes even with just two. NASA said it will be unable to perform a spacewalk, even for an emergency, until the arrival of the next crew, which has two Americans, one French and one Russian astronaut.
This screengrab from video provided by NASA shows NASA astronaut Mike Fincke getting helped out of the SpaceX Crew-11 capsule.
NASA via AP
Isaacman said it’s too soon to know whether the launch of station reinforcements will take priority over the agency’s first moonshot with astronauts in more than a half-century. The moon rocket moves to the pad this weekend at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, with a fueling test to be conducted by early next month. Until all that is completed, a launch date cannot be confirmed; the earliest the moon flyaround could take off is Feb. 6.
For now, NASA is working in parallel on both missions, with limited overlap of personnel, according to Isaacman.
“If it comes down to a point in time to where we have to deconflict between two human spaceflight missions, that is a very good problem to have at NASA,” he told reporters.
© 2026 The Canadian Press
Troops from several European countries, including France, Germany, the UK, Norway and Sweden, are arriving in Greenland in a show of support for Denmark as talks between representatives of Denmark, Greenland and the U.S. on Wednesday highlighted “fundamental disagreement” between the Trump administration and European allies on the future of the Arctic island.
Denmark announced it would increase its military presence in Greenland on Wednesday and several European partners started sending symbolic numbers of troops on that day, just as the Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers were preparing to meet with White House representatives in Washington.
The troop movements were intended to portray unity among Europeans and send a signal to U.S. President Donald Trump that an American takeover of Greenland is not necessary as NATO together can safeguard the security of the Arctic region amid rising Russian and Chinese interest.
“The first French military elements are already en route” and “others will follow,” French President Emmanuel Macron announced Wednesday, as French authorities said about 15 soldiers from the mountain infantry unit were already in Nuuk for a military exercise.
Germany will deploy a reconnaissance team of 13 personnel to Greenland on Thursday, its Defence Ministry said.
On Thursday, Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said the intention was “to establish a more permanent military presence with a larger Danish contribution,” according to Danish broadcaster DR. He said soldiers from several NATO countries will be in Greenland on a rotation system.
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, flanked by his Greenlandic counterpart Vivian Motzfeldt, said Wednesday that a “fundamental disagreement” over Greenland remains with Trump after they held highly anticipated talks at the White House with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Rasmussen added that it remains “clear that the president has this wish of conquering over Greenland” but that dialogue with the U.S. would continue at a high level over the following weeks.
Inhabitants of Greenland and Denmark reacted with anxiety but also some relief that negotiations with the U.S. would go on and European support was becoming visible.
In Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, local residents told The Associated Press they were glad the first meeting between Greenlandic, Danish and American officials had taken place but suggested it left more questions than answers.
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Several people said they viewed Denmark’s decision to send more troops, and promises of support from other NATO allies, as protection against possible U.S. military action. But European military officials have not suggested the goal is to deter a U.S. move against the island.
Maya Martinsen, 21, agreed and said it was “comforting to know that the Nordic countries are sending reinforcements” because Greenland is a part of Denmark and NATO.
The dispute, she said, is not about “national security” but rather about “the oils and minerals that we have that are untouched.”
On Wednesday, Poulsen had announced a stepped-up military presence in the Arctic “in close cooperation with our allies,” calling it a necessity in a security environment in which “no one can predict what will happen tomorrow.”
“This means that from today and in the coming time there will be an increased military presence in and around Greenland of aircraft, ships and soldiers, including from other NATO allies,” Poulsen said.
Asked whether the European troop movements were coordinated with NATO or what role the U.S.-led military alliance might play in the exercises, NATO referred all questions to the Danish authorities. However, NATO is currently studying ways to bolster security in the Arctic.
Rasmussen, the Danish foreign minister, announced the creation of a working group with the Americans to discuss ways to work through differences.
“The group, in our view, should focus on how to address the American security concerns, while at the same time respecting the red lines of the Kingdom of Denmark,” he said.
Commenting on the outcome of the Washington meeting on Thursday, Poulsen said the working group was “better than no working group” and “a step in the right direction.” He added nevertheless that the dialogue with the U.S. did not mean “the danger has passed.”
“We are really happy that action is being taken to make sure that this discussion is not just ended with that meeting alone,” Greenlandic MP Aki-Matilda Høegh-Dam said on Thursday during a news conference in Copenhagen.
She said Greenlandic people understood they were a “pivotal point” in a broader transformation of the international rules-based order and that they felt responsible not just for themselves but also for the whole world to get it right.
Høegh-Dam said the military operations should not happen “right next to our schools and right next to our kindergartens.”
Line McGee, a 38-year-old from Copenhagen, told AP that she was glad to see some diplomatic progress. “I don’t think the threat has gone away,” she said. “But I feel slightly better than I did yesterday.”
Speaking to FOX News Channel’s Special Report on Wednesday after the White House talks, Rasmussen rejected both a military takeover and the potential purchase of the island by the U.S. Asked whether he thinks the U.S. will invade, he replied: “No, at least I do not hope so, because, I mean, that would be the end of NATO.”
Rasmussen said Greenlanders were unlikely to vote for U.S. rule even if financial incentives were offered, “because I think there’s no way that U.S. will pay for a Scandinavian welfare system in Greenland, honestly speaking.”
“You haven’t introduced a Scandinavian welfare system in your own country,” he added.
Trump, in his Oval Office meeting with reporters, said: “We’ll see how it all works out. I think something will work out.”
© 2026 The Canadian Press
Denmark vows to ‘prevent’ U.S. takeover of Greenland after meeting – National TenX News
Sick astronaut returns to Earth with crew in NASA’s 1st medical evacuation – National TenX News
European troops arrive in Greenland after ‘disagreement’ with U.S. – National TenX News
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