Minister of Citizens’ Services, Terry Beech, centre, speaks as Liberal MPs, Parm Bains, left, and Wilson Miao, right, listen during a news conference in Burnaby, B.C. on March 6. A B.C. judge has given a former Canadian Army reservist a conditional sentence for posting a video online threatening the life of Richmond member of Parliament Miao.ETHAN CAIRNS/The Canadian Press
A British Columbia judge has given a former Canadian Army reservist a conditional sentence for posting a video online threatening the life of Richmond member of Parliament Wilson Miao.
B.C. provincial court judge Diana Vandor issued the ruling on Wednesday, handing 30-year-old Peter Liu 60 days of house arrest and 16 months probation after he posted a video online of himself firing a bullet into a picture of the Liberal MP.
The ruling says Liu accused Miao in the video of “being a communist agent for China,” and used “phrases that are often uttered by Islamic extremists just before committing acts of terrorism.”
The judgment says the video shows Liu in a mask and camouflage pants holding up a “political pamphlet” featuring Miao, and saying he will “get what is coming to him,” before putting it on the ground, pumping a shotgun and shooting the pamphlet.
It says friends of Liu’s contacted police “immediately,” and the RCMP’s national security unit began investigating the China-born Canadian citizen, who was also a reservist in the Canadian Armed Forces for five years.
The judge says in the ruling that Liu was co-operative with investigators, remorseful, that he pleaded guilty to uttering threats, and is not considered “a danger to the community.”