On March 14, Mark Carney became prime minister of Canada, just days after Beijing slapped new tariffs on Ottawa in response to Canadian tariffs on China imposed in October. To the American press, however, Carney’s arrival seemed all about U.S. tariffs on Canada, not a Canadian trade war with China.
Where Canadian news is concerned, the U.S. press can handle up to two developments at a time only if one of them relates to President Trump. Or so it seems.
Despite the tariffs from China, the Canadians suggested that trade talks were nevertheless still on the table, providing themselves not just with wiggle room but with a handy exit route from imposing tough retaliatory measures. “Canada remains open to engaging in constructive dialogue with Chinese officials to address our respective trade concerns.”
This is part of a pattern in dealing with the communists, as we shall see.
A belated departure
Outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should have left office a year earlier, when Beijing’s election interference story peaked; or better yet in the year before that, when various China scandals converged into a torrent. Trudeau rode out the tainted 2019 vote, the crooked 2021 vote, the reports about Chinese police stations, the communist operation against MP Kenny Chieu, the Chinese billionaire donations, and other scandals.
Regarding the 2021 vote, in April 2024 CNBC summarized things in fine Canadian style: “Canada’s domestic spy agency has concluded that China interfered in the last two elections. Erin O’Toole, who led the Conservatives during the 2021 campaign, estimated Chinese interference cost his party up to nine seats but added it had not changed the course of the election” (emphasis added).
No harm no foul? O’Toole was not just a good loser but a beautiful loser.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) came up with a different tally for the 2021 election. They reckoned that “at least 11 candidates and 13 staff members were implicated in foreign interference by the Chinese government.”
According to a May 2023 Globe and Mail report:
Secret and top-secret documents viewed by The Globe reveal that Chinese diplomats and their proxies had two primary aims in the 2021 federal election: to ensure that a minority Liberal government was re-elected in 2021 [and] to defeat certain Conservative candidates considered to be unfriendly to Beijing….
The Globe reported in late December [2022] that the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau [had] received a national-security briefing during the fall in which he was told China’s consulate in Toronto had targeted 11 candidates—nine Liberals and two Conservatives—in the 2019 federal election. CSIS Director David Vigneault told Mr. Trudeau that there was no indication that China’s interference efforts had helped elect any of the candidates, despite the consulate’s attempts to promote the campaigns on social media and in Chinese-language media outlets.
The Globe report came more than a month after Global News reported that CSIS warned the Prime Minister that China has been targeting Canada with a foreign-interference campaign, including Beijing allegedly providing cash for 11 federal candidates in the 2019 election. Mr. Trudeau later said this was incorrect and he had never been briefed on this.
Never been briefed on this. Trudeau couldn’t take action if he didn’t know, you know. Besides, he said, it would “seem very improbable that the Chinese government would have a preference for the government” of Canada.
In denial
In the denied briefing, CSIS Director David Vigneault had told Trudeau that “China’s consulate in Toronto had targeted 11 candidates—nine Liberals and two Conservatives—in the 2019 federal election.”
Vigneault added though that there was “no indication that China’s interference efforts had helped elect any of the candidates, despite the consulate’s attempts to promote the campaigns on social media and in Chinese-language media outlets.” Vigneault also launched an investigation to find the whistleblowers who leaked “highly classified information on Chinese election interference” to The Globe and Global News.
From the government’s point of view, it’s as if the whistleblowers had tilted the election.
In August 2024, “investigators for the Commissioner of Canada Elections concluded that the Chinese government tried to get Chinese Canadian voters to vote against the Conservative Party and then-Conservative MP Kenny Chiu in the 2021 election.” You’ll be relieved to know that according to the report, “the interference attempts didn’t break the law.”
But were they effective? Al Jazeera reports that a former Chinese consul general of Vancouver, Tong Xiaoling, “allegedly boasted that Chinese efforts resulted in the defeat of two candidates from Canada’s Conservative Party in the province of British Columbia. Chiu was one of them.”
Collusion
Meanwhile, a Liberal Party MP, Han Dong, was having private meetings with the Chinese consul general in Toronto, Han Tao. “National security sources quoted by CTV News accuse Dong of encouraging China to delay freeing two Canadians, Michael Sparov and Michael Kovrig, who were detained in 2018 on espionage charges. Releasing them too early, Dong allegedly implied, would benefit the Conservative Party in the polls.”
The accusations about Dong were too much for Prime Minister Trudeau. “One of the things we’ve seen unfortunately over the past years is a rise in anti-Asian racism linked to the pandemic and concerns being arisen around people’s loyalties,” Trudeau told reporters. Accusations that Dong was “somehow not loyal to Canada should not be entertained.”
Mr. Trudeau had to make good on his own appearance of impropriety. “Chinese billionaire Zhang Bin’s $1 million donation to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation and University of Montreal raised concerns about the intentions behind such donations,” you see. And by March 2023, the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation was saying that it had “returned the money from Mr. Zhang after a Globe report that the pledge was part of a Chinese-directed influence operation targeting the Prime Minister.”
Trudeau was targeted. Not his fault.
More to come
And so now here is Mark Carney, former central banker, a temporary prime minister who this year will be tested at the polls. Research analyst Ai-Men Lau, who tracks influence operations, sums up: “I still haven’t really seen anything that’s forward-looking in terms of what we are going to do for the next election.” She says that Canadians tend to be “incredibly reactive to any allegations of foreign interference” instead of being proactive.
On the other hand, Beijing likely has its plans laid. They’ll be back. So too some beautiful losers to claim that the communists, whatever their successes, have “not changed the course of the election.” □
James Roth works for a major defense contractor in Virginia.
Also see:
StoptheCCP.org: “Canadians in Cahoots With the Chinese Communist Party”
