Pandora, in ancient Greek mythology, lifted the lid of a box that released into the world all curses and miseries upon mankind. The myth has passed down to us today an idiom to describe a person’s deliberate action that subsequently is the cause of great and unexpected troubles. And this idiom captures the essence of the anxiousness about Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s choice to forge a strategic partnership with China. There is a growing concern that Carney entering into new deals with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) may be a costly mistake for Canadians. Some consider Carney’s deals as a Faustian calculation that undermine and may endanger Canada’s national sovereignty, as well as damage the nation’s standing and mutual trust with its trade, defence, and security intelligence allies.
In the few weeks since Carney’s visit to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other communist leaders, Canadians have learned that the new strategic partnership announced between the two countries was much more than trade negotiations related to canola and EV cars. There were multiple agreements made and MOUs signed that have established police and law enforcement cooperation in the name of “public safety and security,” increased access for Chinese media and communications in Canada, and alignment on government policy for climate change objectives and global governance agendas, including Canada’s recognition of the One China Policy.
Former Canadian ambassador to China, David Mulroney, questioned Carney’s deal making with Beijing, as the government seems to be willfully ignoring serious issues of foreign interference in Canada and dismissing China’s longstanding strategic foreign affairs objective of pulling Canada away from its traditional allies. In an informative interview in The Hub, Mulroney warns of the real possibility of the country becoming a “vassal state” of China. In a post this week on X, Mulroney stated: “Our relationship loop with China is now in its See No Evil phase, in which the government pretends that interference is inevitable and can be managed. This will last until interference becomes so egregious and corrosive that it’s impossible to ignore. Give it a year or so.”
Dr. Stephen Nagy, professor of politics and international studies at the International Christian University in Tokyo, is a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI). Nagy states, “Beijing is not a viable alternative to Washington and pretending otherwise represents a costly strategic error.” He writes in a MLI opinion piece that Carney’s China gambit is “strategic fantasy” that will soon run up against geopolitical reality: “Here’s the reality: diversifying economic relationships is prudent policy, but the notion Canada could meaningfully balance American pressure through Chinese partnership is strategically questionable and empirically unsound. In fact, Canada’s relationship with its southern neighbor runs far too deep, China presents an unreliable alternative, and Canada’s capacity for broader global engagement is limited.”
In a National Post column, Geoff Russ bluntly assessed, “Carney cozying up to China aligns us with those who would destroy us.” Russ wrote, “China will not become a western aligned democracy that will respect our elections and institutions.” He assessed Carney’s “independent” foreign partners include “China, Iran, Russia, Cuba, and Venezuela. None of these are especially pleasant countries,” and Russ stated, “If Carney and the Liberal government have chosen this moment for a “warming” of relations with Beijing, they are choosing a side with huge consequences.”
Michael Kovrig, one of “the two Michaels” locked away in Chinese prisons for more than 1,000 days, has repeatedly warned in a series of media interviews that the risks of working with China outweigh the benefits for Canada. In a recent article he penned, “Reckoning with China in the new world disorder,” Kovrig writes:
“The quixotic era of hopeful engagement—the belief that China could be changed by integrating it into the international order and a liberal trading system—is over. Since Xi Jinping took office in 2012, China has moved steadily away from a temporary interlude of softer authoritarianism toward a harsher, more centralized, and more ideologically rigid form of rule. The system today is far more repressive, securitized, and driven by fear than most outsiders appreciate.”
Kovrig asserts, “For Canadians, the central responsibility is to stay informed, resist comforting illusions, and demand principled seriousness from those who govern.”
Two of Canada’s most knowledgeable and insightful investigative journalists on Canadian-Sino relations are Terry Glavin and Sam Cooper. They have been writing on the CCP’s undue foreign activities in Canada and provide necessary context and the stories behind the story that the Liberals are weaving for Canadians about their new strategic partnership. Glavin contends that Carney’s concordat with Xi has been in the making for years (prior to the Trump election) and that it is far more complex than Canadians are being told. In a Michael Campbell interview, “Forgetting Beijing: Terry Glavin Sounds the Alarm on Canada’s China Blindness”, he explained:
“Mark Carney is being elevated much the way Justin Trudeau was… What I am most shocked about is that everybody seems to think that this is some kind of radical departure and that Trump’s belligerents is driving Canada reluctantly into the arms of Beijing. Is there anyone who can explain to me, or tell me, that if Kamala Harris had been elected a year and a bit ago in the American election, do we really think that Mark Carney would have done anything different? This is bread in the bone with these people. It is what they do and what they have always done. Whatever you make of any of this, could you please leave off with this business that Trump is driving us into the arms of China. This is where the Trudeau Liberals unfortunately feel most comfortable. It goes back to Justin Trudeau’s dad. What is happening here is the revival and reconstitution of a lot of protocols and MOUs that were in place during the Justin Trudeau period, the Dominic Barton period, before the Chinese pushed the envelope a bit by kidnapping Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, and before the public revelations about the degree to which the Chinese were influencing and monkey-wrenching our federal election system.”
In another interview earlier this week, Sam Cooper sat down with Brian Lilley to unpack the backstories relating to industry minister Mélanie Joly’s comments about joint Canada-China EV manufacturing in Canada, and CCP espionage and foreign influence. Cooper advanced his thoughts on the motivating factors that are driving the Carney Liberals to cement their deals with the CCP:
“Mélanie Joly musing about Canada and China building EVs together – this is just the same old story of the Liberal Party of Canada elites turning a blind eye to Trojan horses for Chinese intelligence infiltration, stealing of Canada’s world-leading technology like the Nortel case… Why is Mark Carney moving ahead with these absurd deals? My theory is… Scott Bessett at the White House is saying, ‘Who’s Carney working for?’ Look, he is trying to thread the needle between his patrons, the industrialists in Montreal that I’ve reported have been in bed with the Chinese communist elite, along with Jean Chrétien for decades. He is working with and for them. He is working for a majority. His elbows up rhetoric is still winning, anti-US, anti-Donald Trump. They’ve got a ticket to be a majority government for a long time unless Canadians smarten up. Here is the key: Mark Carney knows that if we don’t get an American trade deal, China doesn’t even care about us anymore – we matter because of our trade integration with the U.S. and the world.”
The wisdom of the Carney Liberals to advance new, more entangled relations with the CCP is being brought into question almost daily with new revelations about what the deals may contain and new facts emerging about how nefarious the CCP activities have been in Canada. This is an unfolding story that just this week featured two major news items, which reflected new light on the Canada-China strategic partnership. First, Conservative MPs Micheal Chong and Frank Caputo called on the government to release the details of the MOU on intelligence sharing between China’s Ministry of Public Security and Canada’s RCMP. The government has deemed the MOU “confidential” and does not intend on releasing any details to MPs. This is disconcerting for Garry Clement, former national director of the RCMP’s proceeds-of-crime program, who advises in an Epoch Times interview that the new police agreement may potentially permit the CCP to “capitalize on intelligence,” and this can jeopardize Canada’s credibility with its allies, with the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, and with diaspora groups, who already are unnerved with CCP police stations operating in Canadian cities.
A second breaking news story this week is a published report that details how the CCP is directing espionage and foreign interference operations throughout western democracies, and Canada is a particular target. The report’s investigation identifies 575 Beijing-linked organizations that are active in Canada: “the Party’s weapon that it uses to expand control and influence without force.” In response, the MLI held a quickly arranged news conference in Ottawa at which Christopher Coates, its foreign policy and national security director, stated, “The question is no longer whether this is happening. The question is whether Canada is prepared to respond with the seriousness that the evidence demands.” Indeed, that is the question.
As Glavin and Cooper continue to suggest, Canadians need to be more concerned about the details respecting the CCP’s influence in Canada, more demanding to know the deals agreed to by Carney and Xi, and more attentive to the worrisome consequences of Carney purposefully opening a Pandora’s Box.
Chris George is an advocate, government relations advisor, and writer/copy editor. As president of a public relations firm established in 1994, Chris provides discreet counsel, tactical advice and management skills to CEOs/Presidents, Boards of Directors and senior executive teams in executing public and government relations campaigns and managing issues. Prior to this PR/GR career, Chris spent seven years on Parliament Hill on staffs of Cabinet Ministers and MPs. He has served in senior campaign positions for electoral and advocacy campaigns at every level of government. Today, Chris resides in Almonte, Ontario where he and his wife manage www.cgacommunications.com. Contact Chris at chrisg.george@gmail.com.
