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On Thursday's episode of The Ezra Levant Show, Ezra sat down with independent journalist and podcast host Andy Lee to unpack one of the stranger resignations in recent parliamentary memory. Toronto-area Liberal MP Shaun Chen abruptly announced he was stepping down, citing a car accident that he said left him unable to make the regular commute between Toronto and Ottawa. And yet, just recently he turned up on Chinese social media, travelling across the ocean to take part in a Chinese Communist Party publicity campaign.

Andy told Ezra she found the videos while combing through WeChat, the Chinese-language platform where state-linked content often surfaces long before it ever reaches English-language media.

"I found Shaun Chen and numerous videos of him gallivanting around China with a Chinese social media influencer," she said.

The influencer is a well-known figure on Chinese platforms, and Andy says the trip traces back to China's central propaganda committee and the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office — more commonly known as the United Front Work Department.

OK. So the story here is that Canadian parliamentarians can quietly hustle off to China whenever they please to meet with Chinese government officials? To go on state-sponsored United Front tours, while saying they are too tired to work for their voters?

Just want to clarify. https://t.co/EM7ZRuhQur pic.twitter.com/QKZDTtOTiL

— Andy Lee (@RealAndyLeeShow) August 12, 2026

Andy described the United Front as something closer to a state marketing arm with much broader reach.

"It's an influence department," she said. "They use it like espionage, so we have to be very, very careful when we work with them."

The trip itself was tied to Hakka culture, a historically vibrant tradition that Andy noted was also once associated with Chinese guerrilla fighters. According to Chinese government work orders for 2026 that Andy has reviewed, Beijing's stated objectives go well beyond promoting Hakka arts and culture, extending into education, artificial intelligence integration, and data centre management.

They sponsored a petition in Canada to celebrate Hakka culture
Went to meet the propaganda department of the CCP
Gave them promotional footage which has been posted over the last four months
But not one of them shared that or posted about their cultural tour for their voters https://t.co/OZORY8bWa8 pic.twitter.com/WNQJGjPujT

— Andy Lee (@RealAndyLeeShow) August 13, 2026

"There's all sorts of things that are under this Hakka initiative that go a little bit further than maybe what Shaun Chen was aware of," Andy said. "I'm still familiarizing myself with this."

Ezra pressed her on whether Chen could plausibly claim ignorance of who he was dealing with, given that his own handlers on the trip were openly state officials. Andy wasn't offering much of an excuse.

"That would be a hard sell for me," she said. 

Andy went further, floating her own theory about why Chen resigned when he did. She suggested it's possible he grew uncomfortable with mounting requests from his Chinese hosts for access and face time with Canadian officials, and simply decided he no longer wanted to serve as, in her words, "a pawn for these guys." 

We need to focus on the priority here, which is secretive international travel to China by parliamentarians to a country legendary for espionage *and* transnational repression tactics.

We need ground rules, and answers.

They didn’t promote the trip, but they petitioned to… https://t.co/JKkHEZLwbl

— Andy Lee (@RealAndyLeeShow) August 14, 2026

Andy confirmed that Chen and Joe Lee did disclose the China trip through a letter to the ethics commissioner, but she isn't convinced that disclosure satisfies the public interest, particularly given the unanswered questions about who funded the trip, who directed it, and whether a related Hakka culture conference held in Markham, Ontario was similarly tied to Beijing.

"I do think we need to clarify," she said. "Are we doing state-sponsored trips to China now? Is it a free-for-all?"

Ezra closed the segment by urging Andy to keep digging, noting that with mainstream outlets like CTV and the Globe and Mail seemingly uninterested in the story, independent reporting may be the only place Canadians get real answers about what happened to Shaun Chen — and why.