‘China’s fault!’ says Canadian reporter caught using film footage as ‘casino security footage’ — The Canada Files

The Canada Files reached out to Sam Cooper and The Bureau for comment and questions, giving them three days to respond. Cooper did not respond to the request and these questions:

1. Are you disputing that your thumbnail image is from a 2015 Chinese film starring Bill/William Majcher, titled ‘From Vegas to Macau II’?

2. Did you obtain your thumbnail image from a source or person other than yourself, or did you find the images yourself?

3. Do you plan to edit your September 4 article titled “Exclusive: Ex-Mountie Bill Majcher Linked to Meeting with Tse Chi Lop, Chinese Triad Leaders” or will you leave it as is?

Questions 1 and 3 were answered by The Bureau’s public actions, but question 2 remains unanswered. There is a hint, however. Cooper wrote on September 8, 2024 that:

“The Office “I have retracted a story about William Majcher, published in September 2024, after it became clear that I had been the target of a sophisticated and ongoing undercover operation since March 2024.”

Cooper’s full article, titled “The Bureau retracts Majcher story after investigation,” blames his journalistic failures on Chinese “transnational repression” and a “sophisticated and sustained undercover operation since March 2024.” In short, Cooper says it’s all China’s fault.

Sam Cooper’s Guide to How Not to Do Journalism: His Own Journalism

Sam Cooper’s journalism has been under scrutiny by The Canada Files since 2021, when the author subjected himself to reading Sam Cooper’s book, Wilful Blindness. In September 2021, the author discovered that while Cooper claimed without evidence that the Chinese government uses criminals as proxies to commit money laundering in Canada, he admitted that his sources were almost exclusively from the DEA, RCMP, CSIS, and “the U.S. national security community.”

In December 2022, we discovered that Cooper had been caught falsely claiming that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had been briefed on the names of “Chinese-funded” election candidates. The article was filled with anonymous intelligence sources. At this point, it became clear that Cooper was taking the word of the intelligence community in North America, specifically CSIS.

Given Cooper’s reliance on the word and reports of the intelligence community, consider what Canadian Deputy Business Minister David Morrison said: “Intelligence is not the truth.” There is a big difference between intelligence agencies making claims in reports (which can be referenced in intelligence briefings by other agencies) or through leaks, and pursuing allegations of Chinese interference in Canada, which requires evidence strong enough to hold up in court, something that has yet to be presented.

The Han Dong incident occurred in the spring of 2023. On March 22, 2023, Sam Cooper, citing anonymous national security sources, reported that MP Han Dong had secretly advised the Chinese consul general in Toronto in 2021 to delay the release of the Two Michaels. In February 2023, Cooper’s reporting claimed that CSIS believes Dong is “a deliberate ally in China’s election interference networks.”

The Globe and Mail published an article the day after Cooper’s March report, saying they refused to publish the story because their own source “told them the PMO had received the transcript (of Dong’s conversation with the Chinese consul general in Toronto) from CSIS, reviewed it and concluded there was no ‘actionable evidence’ against Dong,” Davide Mastracci noted for The Maple. On the same day, Dong resigned from the Liberal caucus, denying the allegations against him.

In April 2023, Dong Global News parent company Corus Entertainment sued Cooper and other Global employees for $15 million over Cooper’s reporting about him. In May 2023, Michael Chan sued Sam Cooper, Robert Fife, and CSIS for $10 million over separate reporting. On June 7, 2023, Cooper left Global News and subsequently founded The Bureau.

In the months that followed, Cooper continued his favorite pastime of blaming China for Canada’s domestic problems and spouting whatever his sources told him. With the advent of a foreign interference investigation that had begun in the fall of 2023, Cooper abandoned the pretense of “journalistic objectivity”

In December 2023, Cooper called for Chinese-Canadian organizations to oppose McCarthyism. prevented from suing the Attorney General of Canada in regular courts – under the guise that their resistance is “CCP lawfare” – they would only be allowed to litigate in special “national security” courts. When Cooper indirectly compared Senator Yuen Pau Woo to a person he calls a “transnational gangster,” Paul King Jin, in that when Jin “got a position on the Cullen Commission, it made witnesses cold.” Cooper ended his poll question by “asking” whether “the upcoming FI Commission (should) be concerned about” PRC jurisdiction, and then said that Senator Woo “my biggest concern is CCP jurisdiction and CSIS has files.”

When The Canada Files contacted Mr. Pau Woo last year, he vehemently denied Cooper’s inference and indirect comparisons.

Two weeks later, Cooper took a break from his China hysteria to phone call for an anti-racketeering law (RICO) in Canada to suppress pro-Palestine protests, alleging that these protests are supported by foreign actors. Cooper also said that “someone has to be responsible for their education” of university students who support Palestine.

Cooper’s legendary reliability was called into question by his citation in a December 20, 2023 article, in which he cited a July 2023 Canadian immigration ruling by Immigration and Refugee Board member Iris Kohler to support his rhetoric against the UFWD and its perceived malignancy toward Canada. The “outrageousness” of Senator Woo’s words was also highlighted, in which he vowed to counter smear campaigns against members of an organization within the Chinese UFWD.

The only problem with the report? Kohler’s statement cites precisely zero evidence that UFWD is spying or has malice toward Canada, while other references to supposed UFWD characteristics/activities come via claims from an unnamed “Australian think tank,” or articles cited as evidence that the public can’t directly access when checking references.

Cooper, if you haven’t figured it out, opposed Senator Yuen Pau Woo being given intermediary status (without the ability to ask questions of witnesses) in the foreign interference investigation.

Further underscoring the excellence of Cooper’s reporting, on June 20, 2024, an Ontario Superior Court judge approved MP Han Dong’s lawsuit against Global, Corus, Cooper and other Global employees after ruling that there was “no documentary evidence to support the allegations made against former Liberal MP Han Dong in a series of Global News stories last year.”

Cooper spent the next few months up to his usual trick: saying whatever national security and law enforcement sources told him.

Yet five days ago, Cooper finally went too far. Never before had one of Cooper’s articles containing wild claims about individuals connected to Canada-China relations actually been retracted. Not only was the article retracted, Cooper was forced to retract it from his own publication.

It turns out people aren’t big fans of reporters using film footage to fake a big “exclusive.” What a shocker.