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Michael Ma, the Conservative MP who crossed the floor last week to bring Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals one seat short of a majority, was part of a controversial diaspora organization that urged former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole to resign after the 2021 election over what it described as his “anti-China” stance, told Chinese Canadians to “vote carefully” ahead of the 2025 election, and later called for Pierre Poilievre to step down, according to Chinese-language records reviewed by The Bureau.

The records link Ma — who defeated a Liberal candidate in Markham-Unionville after the party replaced incumbent Liberal Paul Chiang — to a politically active network of community leaders that has repeatedly intervened in Conservative leadership politics while echoing Beijing-aligned talking points on Canada–China relations.

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Chinese-language outlets including EasyCA show Ma listed as a director of the Chinese Canadian Conservative Association in 2019, with additional Chinese-language coverage later describing him as a leader. Two years later, the group held a widely covered October 2021 press conference accusing O’Toole’s “anti-China” stance of costing the Conservatives the election and demanding his resignation.

The National Post reported that the CCCA’s spokesman at the event asserted that China’s arrest of the “Two Michaels” occurred only after “Canada started the war,” that China had a right to fly military aircraft into Taiwan’s air-defence zone, and that Canada should not publicly criticize Beijing’s human-rights abuses.

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In the run-up to the 2025 vote — and shortly after Chiang was forced to step down after acknowledging he had suggested his Conservative rival, Joe Tay, could be turned over to Chinese diplomats in connection with a Hong Kong bounty — the same organization emerged again.

WeChat posts show the group’s leaders meeting with Ma in March 2025 and publicly promoting their endorsement of Ma.

In April 2025, during the final stretch of the federal campaign, the group convened another media event urging Chinese Canadians to “vote carefully,” stressing that voters should support “the candidate they approve of — rather than the party.”

Shortly after the Conservative defeat, it again surfaced in Toronto calling for Poilievre to “actively resign,” echoing its 2021 message that Conservative leaders who antagonize Beijing cannot win.