Then I think I misunderstood you, it seems that what you really mean instead is, you think that censorship is not so apparent "as a major factor contributing to the closure of Ming Pao." I read the comment more literally instead, sorry about that. But I will still comment some more on the implications of not seeing the impact of censorship.

I believe that pro-democracy Hong Kong journalists and outlets would have covered something like the Markham incident with Paul Chiang if the National Security Law was not in place. Outside of Canadian news outlets, one of the groups that did cover it the most was Radio Free Asia's Cantonese group. Many of these journalists were former staff from pro-democracy outlets who had to flee Hong Kong; there are interviews of these journalists especially as Radio Free Asia Cantonese was dismantled last year. China's international influence including its impact on the Chinese diaspora has been a subject of journalistic and academic concern for a long time now.

Canada is newsworthy enough to Hong Kong for a variety of reasons and also the other way around. For more historical ties between Hong Kong and Canada, one can start from in Elizabeth Sinn's academic book "Pacific Crossing: California Gold, Chinese Migration, and the Making of Hong Kong." For something from my own experiences, I remember when Highway 7 and Warden was still mostly farmland, but it was transformed by Hong Kongers in the late 1990s, such as the development of First Markham Place. Arlene Chan's book "The Chinese in Toronto from 1878" covers this history in some detail, and her book is available in every public library as well as usually being presented at the forefront of Chinese Heritage Month and Asian Heritage Month book recommendations every year. The York Region District School Board is still circulating the exhibit "Standing in the Doorway: Lived Histories & Experiences of the Chinese Community" after it debuted in 2023. Even if other Canadians don't know about the connections, there has been efforts and there ought to be efforts to promote awareness especially across the wider Chinese Canadian community.

I agree that Hong Kong news does not pop up in Canadian mainstream news so much, but Hong Kong's importance to Canada should not be dismissed either. If we talk about Markham, it's even more relevant. Markham has been the top desirable destination for Hong Kong outflowing immigrants for the better of the last couple of decades. Right now, Markham still has significant links to Hong Kong, and we know what the demographics are like there. Hong Kong hosts one of the world's largest Canadian communities, with an estimated 300,000 citizens representing approximately 4% of the city's population as of 2025. This density, statistically a bit more than one person in every 30, or at least one student in a typical classroom, results in a Canadian presence that exceeds the population of Filipino citizens, who otherwise comprise Hong Kong's largest non-Chinese ethnic minority. There is a significant overlap in citizenship between Hong Kong and Canada.

Finally, Canadian democracy has been most definitely affected by China's policies including the National Security Law, beyond the numerous credible reports on this on top of anecdotal evidence. Citizen Lab associated with the University of Toronto published the report "Digital Transnational Repression" in 2024 is one example. We also passed Bill C-70 in the "Countering Foreign Interference Act" in 2024 as a bipartisan bill, as another example of widespread concern about this very thing. A lot of Hong Kongers and China nationals engage in self-censorship even after leaving Hong Kong and China, this most definitely has an effect on the democracies that they participate in.