Canadians need to “educate themselves” on the risks of closer China relations

Canadian PM Mark Carney has heralded “a new era” of Canada-China relations. In his meetings in Beijing last week Carney praised the ushering in of a “new strategic partnership.” In the Prime Minister’s printed media release it stressed the agreed to collaboration in the areas of energy, clean technology, and climate competitiveness. In his media interviews Carney highlighted Canada’s new trade potential and the expectation that Chinese tariffs on canola and other Canadian agricultural and fish exports will soon be dropped.

However, there were plenty more details of the new partnership found in the countries’ joint statement (and, surprisingly, there is no mention of trade). There are new commitments to support the U.N. and other international bodies in order to “improve global governance.” It specifically states, “Canada notes the Global Governance Initiative (GGI) proposed by China.” There are also disturbing promises of new cooperation to be had with the countries’ respective media, public safety and respective national police forces, and cyber intelligence. Remarkably, the PM has agreed that Canada is committed to the One China policy, that dismisses the sovereign right of the Taiwanese and insists on China rule over Taiwan.

There is certain to be much debate over Mark Carney’s embrace of China as well as his pronouncement that, with the cooperation and support from Beijing, Canada is aligning itself with a “new world order.”

Not to be lost in that debate on Carney’s China pivot is a CTV Question Period interview conducted by Vassy Kapelos with Michael Kovrig, who is a former Canadian diplomat with expertise on China and Indo-Pacific geopolitics. More significantly, Kovrig is one of the “Two Micheals” who were imprisoned without cause in China for more than 1,000 days. In surviving that ordeal, he is intimately knowledgeable about China and the dangers of dealing with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The Kapelos-Kovrig exchange is very insightful and you can find both the video link and a verbatim transcript here.

CTV Question Period Video Link

Kapelos: “At many points in advancing and during this trip, the federal government framing around it has been “economic pragmatism” and necessity vis-à-vis the treatment of us by the United States. But there were moments during the trip where the Prime Minister appeared to take things further, including during meetings with the President and other top officials in China, where he even surmises about a new world order. That certainly caught the attention of some people in the U.S. but also many people in Canada. What did you make of that?”

Kovrig: “I thought that was a very worrisome way to express things frankly. Look, diplomacy is necessary and likewise Mark Carney standing and grinning when shaking Xi Jinping’s hand, that is not very comfortable for somebody like me to see. Diplomacy is necessary, grinning is optional and looking like a supplicant is undignified. That’s not a good look. So the optics could have been better. Talking about a “refreshed strategic partnership,” while intoning about a new world order, while you are sitting in a meeting room with the Chinese Communist Party really carries some very Orwellian overtones. I think it risks, rather than trying to acknowledge realities, actually endorsing and supporting narratives that are deeply problematic and dangerous. It’s a deeply unsettling message and a very dangerous game. Mark Carney in general is seemingly following the Australian playbook of emphasizing trade and business and not talking about security. That can work for a while but only if you quietly take increasingly robust measures to defend your country, and you cannot stay silent forever because that undermines confidence of allies and it doesn’t let the Canadian public understand the real risks that they are being drawn into with these kinds of arrangements.”

Kapelos: “What are those risks? I ask because I know they are obvious to you and for people who cover this all the time. But I think Canadians are rightly worried the challenge that we face with the United States and polling shows that they are more open to the argument the government is putting forward. What are the risks we should be aware of?”

Kovrig: “The reality of these times is that we now have to manage relations with multiple difficult great powers. But that doesn’t mean you should jump into the arms of another power that is even more hostile and adversarial. So, the risks: there is the big picture risk and there are the small ones for individual Canadians and Canadian society. The big picture risk is that China is trying to become the most dominant and influential country in the international system, dominate its region, control Taiwan, bully its neighbours, and ultimately undermine the west. It wants the west to go away. It wants NATO to go away. And it wants to be able to pick off individual small powers, one by one, in bilateral deals and arrangements, and coerce them into doing its bidding and bowing to Beijing. It’s very clear about that. Anything you do that undermines any kind of alliance coherence or cooperation with likeminded partners, with G-7 partners, with CTPP, with the EU, and even with the United States, no matter how difficult it is to deal with now, that is making things easier for that Chinese agenda. And then internally in Canada, it is risky because the more and more economic engagement and interaction you have with China the greater the risk is of further foreign interference, influence, espionage, IP theft, domination of industries, hollowing out of Canadian industry, transnational repression and other influence of the diaspora communities and elite capture. So the key is that any increase you have in economic relations has to be accompanied by channeling any new revenue you get from those relations into more robust defense, security, intelligence gathering, and into strictures like investment screening and a foreign agent registry and all kinds of things like that to protect Canadians from the harmful downsides of interaction with China. The key thing that Canadians need to take away from it is it is now imperative that they educate themselves of what those risks are and to think about how the country needs to act on them, and let their politicians know that they need to do that.”

Canadians must become more aware of the risks associated with so eagerly climbing into bed with China. Canadians need to educate themselves – and, as a start, here are three exceptional journalists on this subject matter.

• Investigative journalist Sam Cooper of The Bureau News on substack is argumentatively the most knowledgeable newsman on the subject of the CCP’s undue influence in Canada. His columns are must-reads and I highly recommend his podcast video interviews with Brian Lilley and Jason James. For example, here is a recent in depth interview that reveals a web of activity through last year in Mark Carney’s backroom: The Carney Network: Davos, Beijing, and the 2025 Appointments that made The Bureau’s Map look prescient. Sam Cooper can be found on X.

• Toronto Sun news reporter and columnist Brian Lilley also prolifically writes on his substack site. In the past couple of days, Lilley has written: Carney’s China deal: What it says, what it doesn’t, what it could mean and who will get hurt... and Niall Ferguson’s brilliant take on Canada, Trump and the American views on the Great White North... Brian Lilley can be found on X.

• Terry Glavin is another go-to journalist of integrity, with a wealth of knowledge on China and the CPP influence in Canada. Glavin’s substack site is The Real Story and, in his recent column he makes lucid observations on the current international turmoil: “In no particular disorder: Europe, China, Canada, Iran, Venezuela, and the Disunited States of America.” Terry Glavin can be found on X.

By George Journal Redux: Canada-China Relations

I am also taking this opportunity to provide readers with an index of the past five years of By George Journal and Niagara Independent articles that focus on Canada-China relations. By way of introducing this index, I am providing an excerpt from a Niagara Independent column from early 2024 in which core critical issues were identified and listed relating to the CCP’s undue influence and interference in Canadian affairs.

For years, the covert research activities at the Winnipeg lab has been at the top of the list of the Trudeau government’s scandals involving China. In fact, in the last few years in my Niagara Independent columns I produced and repeatedly referred to a top-ten list of critical issues that scrupulously tie the Trudeau Liberals with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

1. Cover up of the virus research in the Winnipeg lab and link to the genesis of COVID-19

2. CCP ties to Liberal business network, anchored by Power Corporation

3. Ignoring mention of fraud and interference in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections

4. Beijing money flowing into the Trudeau Foundation

5. Permitting CCP police stations and agents to operate in Canada

6. Failure to respond to forced labour and human rights violations of the Uyghurs

7. “Mishandling” of foreign intelligence as forwarded by CSIS

8. Federal investment in China – CCP and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

9. Avoidance of establishing a foreign agent registry

10. Deteriorating national defense leaving arctic territories unprotected to Chinese encroachment

With this current government, Canadians will never know the undue influence applied by the CCP. The governing Liberals continue to evade inquiries and obfuscate the facts surrounding their involvement with the CCP. Today, Justice Marie-Josee Hogue is doing the bidding of Justin Trudeau, just as Special Rapporteur David Johnston did and Morris Rosenberg before him. Justice Hogue is yet another Trudeau-family friend (and lawyer for her former teacher client from West Point Academy).

With this Trudeau government, Canada has become a vassal state beholden to Beijing. As Joel Kotkin, author of The Coming of Neo Feudalism — A Warning to the Global Middle Class, asserts “China’s goal is not to replicate the crude imperialism of the Europeans, or even the American type, but to create vassal states — subordinate countries that rule themselves but are expected to kowtow on command.”

And here is the annotated index of Canada-China relations columns, in reverse order, from last week’s news commentary all the way back to early 2020 with issues relating to the outbreak of the COVID pandemic.

• Carney courting Xi and what it means for Canada - U.S. relations

January 16, 2025 - PM Mark Carney is in Beijing this week to discuss closer relations with China President Xi Jinping. This Canadian overture is taking place just as the United States is taking unprecedented actions to rebuff the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) influence in North America and across the western hemisphere.

• Closer ties with China: “It’s a devil’s bargain”

August 8, 2025 - The Liberal-CCP ties have woven a nefarious web of activity that former Liberal MP John McKay conceded is “an existential threat.” This activity continues under the Mark Carney led Liberals and, today, Canadians can see the signs that the country may be entering into an even tighter relationship with the communists from China. Canadians need to ask what this means for the country.

• The veil of secrecy remains draped over the Liberals – CCP relationship

May 30, 2025 - The Trudeau era will be known as a decade when CCP’s undue influence in Canada increased in money laundering, terrorist financing, drug production, and security threats – not to mention the subversion of Canada’s electoral process. Mark Carney’s actions to date suggest he will ensure the veil of secrecy remains draped over the Liberals – CCP relationship.

• Mark Carney, the Liberals, and the Chinese Communist Party

April 9, 2025 - From the secret virus joint-research being conducted between the Winnipeg and Wuhan labs to the identification by Canada’s security and intelligence community of traitorous parliamentarians colluding with Beijing, I have been writing on the close, nefarious relationship between the Liberal Party and the CCP.

• Liberals – Chinese Communist Party Ties Undermine Canadian Sovereignty

February 7, 2025 - The Liberal Party interests have been supported by Beijing for decades, from their multiple business dealings to their backroom political activities. This intimate relationship between the Liberals and CCP has, in the Trudeau years, damaged the nation’s international standing and weakened Canada’s national interests.

• MJ Hogue has successfully defended Justin Trudeau -- again

January 31, 2025 - This week Justice Marie-Josee Hogue released the final report of Canada’s Foreign Interference Commission... As Canadians are discovering, the Hogue Report will be remembered more for what it did not contain than any of the facts and insights shared by the commission’s work.

• Trudeau remains silent on potentially treasonous parliamentarians

September 6, 2024 - It was on Monday, June 3 that Canadians learned that their parliamentarians were colluding in quid pro quo relationships with foreign governments and were involved in potentially treasonous acts. Since the National Security and Intelligence of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) report was made public, PM Justin Trudeau has not commented…

• Another week of the Trudeau government’s rot

June 7, 2024 - There were reports released of parliamentarians that are knowingly collaborating with foreign governments, Liberal-friendly companies being routinely contracted hundreds of millions of dollars, and a steady stream of damning stories of ineptitude and foul play. Such is a single week’s worth of Ottawa news in this Trudeau government era….. Compromised parliamentarians…

• The on-going cover-up concerning the Winnipeg and Wuhan labs

March 8, 2024 - Canadians are now learning about the gain-of-function virus research that was being conducted at Canada’s Winnipeg National Microbiology Laboratory and passed along to the infamous Wuhan Institute for Virology. What was once only suspected and labeled as a racism-fueled conspiracy theory by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has now become “most probable” given the facts and admissions made public this past week.

Here are archived Niagara Independent articles on Canada-China news dating from 2020-2023 that will provide further detail and context regarding the close relations between the Trudeau Liberals and the CCP.

• CCP’s undue influence in Canada remains the elephant in the room

October 27, 2023 - “Foreign interference is a serious national security threat to Canada. It threatens our economy, our long-term prosperity, social cohesion, our Parliament and our elections. It requires a suite of measures to combat, including putting closer co-operation among allied democracies.” - MP Michael Chong

• The case for a full-blown investigation of the Trudeau government’s relations with China: part one

June 16, 2023 - It is unsettling to consider why the Trudeau government has been so evasive on a review of the facts relating to the CCP’s activities in Canada.

• The case for a full-blown investigation of the Trudeau government’s relations with China: part two

June 23, 2023 - There are multiple ways the country’s independence has been potentially compromised by Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) undue influence. Below is part two in a pair of articles counting down ten critical issues, which taken together establish a case for why Canadians must demand a thorough investigation of the relationship between the Trudeau government and the CCP.

• The Conservatives’ China policy (in stark contrast to the Liberals’)

June 9, 2023 - When it comes to dealing with the issues of CCP influence in Canada, there is no ambiguity in the Conservatives policy approach. This is a marked difference to the political powerplays that the Liberals are currently orchestrating on Parliament Hill.

• David Johnston kicks the can a little further down the road

May 26, 2023 - It is clearly evident from the wording of Johnston’s report that Justin Trudeau (and his friends) have no intention to expose the CCP’s involvement with the Liberal Party and its implications for Canadians.

• It’s now evident this national scandal is more than election interference – and Justin Trudeau is “obviously hiding something”

March 10, 2023 - “This is a full-blown national security crisis. The ruling Liberals want us to pretend it’s not happening. The prime minister is obviously hiding something.” – Terry Glavin

• The Chinese Communist Party-sponsored Trudeau Liberal Party (Part 1)

February 24, 2023 - The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) covertly influenced Canada’s 2019 and 2021 federal general elections in order to re-elect a Liberal government. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau does not want Canadians to know about the Chinese operations in Canada. These are the two threads that are woven through the never-ending-story of intrigue, scandal, and false narratives. It is a serious matter.

• The potential quid pro quos between Trudeau Liberals and the Chinese Communist Party (Part 2)

March 3, 2023 - What is now becoming apparent is that there is much that was known in the corridors of Ottawa that was not shared with the Canadian public. And there are so many questions about Canada-China relations, specifically about the CCP ties with Justin Trudeau and his political operatives.

• The Trudeau—Xi exchange: what was said and why

November 18, 2022 - The exchange between Canadian PM Justin Trudeau and Chinese President Xi Jinping that was recorded Wednesday by the media pool at the G20 summit in Bali has gone viral. The video generated international news headlines that screamed Xi “angrily rebukes”, “scolds”, “lectures” Trudeau over release of details from their unofficial chat.

• Three international issues that deserve full parliamentary attention

September 16, 2022 - 1) The virus research Canada was conducting with China in the Winnipeg lab, 2) Canadian government’s response to China’s human rights violations against the Uyghurs, 3) Canada’s lack of support for Afghan allies left behind

• Canada’s relations with Communist China hurt our international reputation

October 22, 2021 - The international community recognizes the Canadian government and many key players with the Liberal Party of Canada as having become inseparably linked to today’s Communist China.

• Justin Trudeau’s Communist China gambit

June 18, 2021 - Trudeau’s gambit – from failing the two Michaels, to a failed vaccine agreement, to hiding possible covert Canada-China research – has resulted in deserved scorn from numerous political pundits.

• The Ties that Bind the Trudeau Liberals to Communist China

February 19, 2021 - The Liberal Party of Canada is inseparably linked to today’s CCP, and the foundation of most Canadian-Chinese business relationships is Power Corporation, the jewel in the crown of the Desmarais family fortune. The Liberal Party and Power Corp are interchangeable.

• A Spotlight on Canada-China Relations (Part 3)

May 8, 2020 - In responding to the unfolding crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the glare of the spotlight on Canada-China relations has illuminated the Liberal Party’s affairs with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). What Canadians are witnessing is that our country’s relations with China are as much about political and business ties as they are about Canada’s foreign policy position.

• A Spotlight on Canada-China Relations (Part 2)

May 1, 2020 - Canada’s relations with China are tense with a great many more contentious issues, including the Meng Wanzhou trial, the overdue decision regarding Huawei’s 5G network, the canola trade dispute, and the multiple queries about China’s influence over the World Health Organization (WHO) and what impact that had on the spread of the coronavirus.

• A Spotlight on Canada-China Relations (Part 1)

April 24, 2020 - In Ottawa, as the cries for a probe of China’s actions mounted, the official comment from the Canadian Government came from the Prime Minister, who stated he would not comment. On repeated occasions through this week – and there were at least three opportunities – PM Justin Trudeau refused to denounce the CCP or make any comment on Canada-China relations.

• Mounting Condemnation for CCP Misleading the World on Coronavirus

April 17, 2020 - Canadian lawyer Irwin Cotler was at the centre of this week’s international media maelstrom that openly criticized the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for allowing the coronavirus to become a global pandemic. This is the same man whose distinguished 16-year career as Montreal MP culminated in being named Justice Minister by then PM Paul Martin.

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