Vancouver MP-elect Don Davies will be taking over as the interim leader of the NDP following former leader Jagmeet Singh’s defeat and resignation. However, resurfaced meetings and comments from Davies are stirring controversy for the struggling party.
After the NDP lost 17 seats and official party status, it appointed the pro-China and anti-Israel MP-elect for Vancouver Kingsway to helm the party into the next session of the House of Commons while it searches for a new leader.
Davies was previously the NDP’s finance critic and sat on the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, and had held the riding since 2008 and kept it by only 310 votes last election.
Davies played a leading role in the Liberal-NDP coalition negotiations to pass dental care and pharmacare legislation. A look back at Davies’ social media posts shows several instances where Davies accused Israel of committing atrocities and genocide despite saying he supports both Israel and Palestine.
In one post just months after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, Davies alleged Israel was using “sophisticated technology” to “target and kill” Gazan academics, authors, historians, poets, artists, journalists and teachers.
“These are not Hamas leaders. This is cultural genocide,” Davies said in the post. “The world must intervene to stop this brutal crime against humanity.”
When mocked online for allegedly spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories, Davies said his source was the Times of Israel, which reported the IDF was using “artificial intelligence and automated tools to produce reliable targets quickly and accurately.”
In a post in October last year, Davies accused Israel of “indiscriminately” killing civilians and “openly planning ethnic cleansing,” but didn’t provide evidence of these claims. The comments under the post were blocked.
Davies did not respond to True North’s requests to comment.
The new NDP interim leader has also been at the heart of several accusations of People’s Republic of China interference in Canada. As the MP-elect for a riding where one-third of the population is from the East Asian diaspora, according to 2021 census data, Davies has attended several pro-Beijing events over the years.
Davies was photographed toasting 75 years of Chinese Communist Party rule over China next to Senator Yuen Pau Woo. Woo was named as one of the five government officials journalist Sam Cooper alleged were involved in a foreign influence scheme. Woo has denied any involvement in foreign interference.
Davies also went to China several times to meet with PRC officials. In March 2024, he went with the Canada-China Legislative Association. The organization promotes the sharing of information and deepening relationships between the two countries.
According to a government release of the trip, it was led by its Co-Chair, former MP Han Dong, who resigned in March 2023 following media reports of alleged connections to the CCP, and Conservative Senator Victor Oh, who was also named by Cooper as an alleged witting agent of foreign influence–an accusation which Oh rejected.
Former independent MP Kevin Vuong blasted Davies online, calling him a “fawning admirer” of the Chinese dictator. The comments came as images of the new NDP leader shaking hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping resurfaced.
In the House of Commons in 2016, Davies stood up and applauded several organizations’ roles, including the Chinese Benevolent Association, which Cooper also named for its alleged role in promoting pro-Beijing narratives.
During that address, Davies said legacy media could learn from the Chinese media in Canada such as Sing Tao, Ming Pao, Global Chinese Press, Dawa, and the Fairchild TV and radio station for its honest reporting.
“The mainstream media in this country could take a lesson from the Chinese media in this country, which leads the way in fair, balanced, diverse coverage. We owe a debt of gratitude to them all,” Davies said.
Many of the outlets named by Davies have been criticized or questioned for their pro-Beijing coverage. For example, the U.S. Department of Justice ordered Sing Tao, a Hong Kong-based outlet, to register as a foreign agent due to its alleged ties to the Chinese government.
Davies has also echoed the Chinese government’s talking points, such as advocating that Canada invest in and help build the Asian Infrastructure Development Bank.
Davies also said the arrest of alleged Chinese spy, Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, in 2018 was “clearly a political issue disguised as a legal one, as Beijing had alleged.”
Additionally, in 2010, Davies publicly criticized the then-head of CSIS Richard Fadden for claiming that China was trying to covertly influence Canadian politicians—an accusation which several future reports have now confirmed accurate.