'Cybersecurity incident' shuts down London Drugs stores across Western Canada
All 79 locations of pharmacy and retail chain London Drugs were shut down Sunday after it was the victim of a “cybersecurity incident.”
As the foreign interference commission kicked off this week, the inquiry received fierce criticism from a diaspora group often targeted by China.
In a statement Wednesday, the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project (URAP) said its members will not participate in the inquiry, blaming commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue for allowing "a significant security risk" to their community and families back in China.
Some national security experts fear this will undermine the integrity of the inquiry into alleged Chinese interference in the 2019 and 2021 elections.
URAP executive director Mehmet Tohti says Uyghur Canadians pulled out to protest Hogue's decision to grant former Liberal MP Han Dong and current Markham Deputy Mayor Michael Chan full standing in the commission.
READ MORE: Former Ontario minister sues CSIS, unidentified leakers, reporters
"We don't want to be questioned by those [who] are allegedly tied up with the Chinese Communist Party," Tohti said.
Both Han and Chan deny the allegations against them, but with full standing, they have access to classified documents submitted to the commission and have the ability to cross-examine witnesses.
"There is something terribly wrong here," Tohti said.
The Uyghurs are a Muslim minority group in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang.
Human rights groups accuse Beijing of forcing more than one million of these ethnically Turkic people into forced labour camps.
An August 2022 report from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights concluded China is responsible for "serious human rights violations" against the Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.
Phil Gurski, a former strategic analyst at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), says the commission is missing a key perspective without Uyghur testimony.
"It takes away from the credibility of the inquiry," he said. "Canadians are not going to get a full picture of what China is doing in our country."
Gurski argues with much of the evidence expected to remain classified, testimony from various diaspora groups would help Canadians get a more complete view of the problem.
"If you're going to have a public inquiry, you have to make sure that the information that can be released into the public sphere is released," he said.
Former CSIS director Ward Elcock says while it's important to shed light on communities facing intimidation and threats from Beijing, the Uyghur's absence will have little effect on the commission's overall goal.
"I frankly don't think it has much impact," he said. "The commission of inquiry is not really about foreign interference broadly writ. It's about foreign interference in two elections."
Elcock adds Hogue was left little choice but to grant Dong and Chan full standing.
"Nobody has demonstrated publicly, or demonstrated in a court, that these people are what some people allege them to be," he said.
All 79 locations of pharmacy and retail chain London Drugs were shut down Sunday after it was the victim of a “cybersecurity incident.”
Three women diagnosed with HIV after getting 'vampire facial' procedures at an unlicensed medical spa are believed to be the first documented cases of people contracting the virus through a cosmetic procedure using needles.
Elias Lindholm scored 1:02 into overtime and the Vancouver Canucks came all the way back to beat the Nashville Predators 4-3 in Game 4 of their first-round playoff series on Sunday.
One person was killed in a six-vehicle crash on Highway 400 in Innisfil Friday evening.
Aerial photos posted by Chinese state media on Sunday showed wide devastation in part of the southern city of Guangzhou after a tornado swept through the day before, killing five people, injuring dozens others and damaging more than 140 buildings.
Ontario is introducing a suite of measures that will crack down on cellphone use and vaping in schools.
Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Monday described domestic violence as a 'national crisis' after thousands rallied around the country against violence toward women.
Rookie goalie Arturs Silovs will start in net for the Vancouver Canucks when they face the Nashville Predators in Game 4 of their first-round playoff series Sunday.
U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely didn't order the death of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny in February, according to an official familiar with the determination.
The lawyer for a residential school survivor leading a proposed class-action defamation lawsuit against the Catholic Church over residential schools says the court action is a last resort.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.
As if a 4-0 Edmonton Oilers lead in Game 1 of their playoff series with the Los Angeles Kings wasn't good enough, what was announced at Rogers Place during the next TV timeout nearly blew the roof off the downtown arena.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.