We Don't Have to Trade With China

Welcoming the new overlords:

Whatever the ultimate truth of President Donald Trump’s allegations of Chinese meddling in American elections, Canadians have no excuse for the kind of reflexive dismissal in which the CBC indulged Friday. Despite their ruling class's attempts to hush up and smooth over what they had allowed to happen, Canadians nevertheless know from what limited government admissions were made exactly what Beijing is capable of. Whether what Trump said is the exact or entire truth, or timed to influence the midterms, is not the point. 

This side of the border, we know the Chinese have tried to influence our elections. (Full disclosure, I suspect Trump is broadly right: if the Chinese thought Ottawa worth the effort, Washington certainly would be….)

Trump’s speech (here unedited) highlighted Chinese efforts to compromise U.S. voter data and influence outcomes.

Here’s the Canadian story, documented in the Hogue Commission’s final report (January 2025) and repeated in CSIS assessments. These documents paint a clear picture of systemic Chinese Communist Party (CCP) interference in our federal elections.

Justice Marie-Josée Hogue wrote that China was the “most active perpetrator” (Page 39) of foreign interference targeting Canada’s democratic institutions in 2019 and 2021. Her report describes how Beijing deployed proxies, diaspora networks, disinformation on WeChat and other platforms, and even suspected fund transfers to support “pro-PRC” or neutral candidates while undermining perceived adversaries.

CSIS documented clandestine efforts to leverage community leaders, exclude “anti-China” voices from events, and exert control over Chinese-Canadian communities. Later reports confirm these tactics evolved but persist with mass recruitment via fake job ads, transnational repression, and influence operations viewed by Beijing as “low-risk, high-reward.”

The Hogue report rightly (and it must be said, eagerly) noted that overall election results were not overturned... It is a fundamental principle of Liberal government in Canada that one does not need to deal with problems that one can plausibly deny exist.

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Carney will squander Canada's middle power advantage by allying with China

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The country's top spy agency says Natural Resources Canada approached it with concerns about former federal scientist Dennis Lu more than two decades ago, not the other way around — and has made a rare disclosure of one of its documents in court to set the record straight, CBC News has learned.

There are also new details about part of the reason for a 23-month delay between the last Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) briefing about Lu to his employer in February 2021 and the start of Natural Resources' internal investigation into Lu in January 2023.

Lu's security clearance was eventually revoked and an RCMP investigation resulted in criminal charges of breach of trust and unauthorized use of a computer.

It's alleged that he used his access to the Natural Resources network to copy a total of more than 2,500 documents onto a USB key and external drive.

He faces trial in Ottawa's Superior Court by a judge alone in January.