Arrest Liberal MP Paul Chiang for Criminal Counselling of Kidnapping

Ex-Police Officer Chiang Knew The Law

In January 2025, Liberal Member of Parliament and former York Regional Police Sergeant Paul Chiang publicly counselled supporters of the Chinese Communist Party to abduct Conservative candidate Joe Tay and deliver him to the Chinese Embassy in exchange for a $1 million bounty.

The threat was not theoretical or a joke. The Chinese regime has issued a warrant for Tay’s arrest due to his pro-freedom videos, filmed and published from Canada. Chiang’s incitement to have a Canadian citizen kidnapped on Canadian soil for foreign powers is a direct violation of Canadian criminal law—and a dangerous escalation of foreign interference in our democracy.

Paul Chiang served as a police officer for 28 years. He retired as a York Regional Police Sergeant in 2020 and knows full well that counselling an abduction is a serious Criminal Code offence.

Counselling a Crime in Canada

In Canadian law, you don’t need to address a specific person to be guilty of counselling a crime. Broadcasting the encouragement to a general audience is enough, provided two conditions are met:

1.The message is deliberate and intended to encourage the offence.

2.The offence being counselled is serious and clearly defined in the Criminal Code.

This principle is upheld in precedent, most notably:

R. v. Hamilton, [2005] 2 S.C.R. 432 (opens in new tab)

Hamilton sold email packages with instructions for credit card fraud and bomb-making. He was convicted of counselling fraud and mischief—even though he never communicated with specific individuals, and no crimes were proven to have occurred.

Key takeaway from the Supreme Court:

“Counselling” can occur even where the person being counselled is unknown or never acts—as long as the accused intended their words to encourage the offence and it is reasonably foreseeable someone could act on it.

Criminal Code Provisions

Section 464 – Counselling an Uncommitted Offence

Even if no one follows through, it’s still a crime to counsel an indictable offence:

464(a):

“Everyone who counsels another person to commit an indictable offence is, if the offence is not committed, guilty of an indictable offence and liable to the same punishment…”

This applies to public speeches, videos, blogs, or social media posts encouraging serious offences like abduction or forcible confinement.

Section 22 – Counselling Committed Offences

If someone acts on the counselling—even in a different manner than originally suggested—the counsellor is legally a party to the crime and fully criminally liable.

Section 279 – Kidnapping

279(1):

“Every person commits an offence who kidnaps a person with intent:

(a) to confine or imprison them;

(b) to transport them out of Canada;

(c) to hold them for ransom…”

Penalty: Indictable offence, punishable by life imprisonment.

Time to Act

Paul Chiang’s public incitement to kidnap a Canadian citizen for a hostile foreign power is a textbook case of counselling a serious crime. The law is clear. His status as a sitting MP and former police sergeant only aggravates the offence.

It’s time for law enforcement to do their job—no special treatment, no political protection.

Paul Chiang must be arrested and criminally charged.

Donald Best

March 31, 2025