Rest not Easy; All Is not Well

Trade, economic stability, a growing energy industry, employment gains, all consume government's attention.  Encouraging free market deals that will compromise some of Canada's cherished agricultural support systems, and that will likely also hit the pocketbook of Canadians purchasing pharmaceuticals. 

And assuring potential trading partners with huge financial clout that their considered investments in Canada are hugely appreciated.

That is business as usual, but on a fast-track.  And perhaps all the repercussions have not been duly considered in sufficient depth, despite the enthusiasm of huge corporate share-holders greedy for their bottom line.  China looms large on the Canadian horizon.  There is a substantial trade imbalance between Canada and China, and it appears to be on the cusp of becoming wider, not narrower.

Still the potential is there for huge export sales. 

On the other hand, Canada has an inordinately valuable commodity - far more than just energy natural resources, but it is energy that China and India and other emerging economies slaver over.  And the China National Offshore Oil Corporation's $15.1-billion (dollar-friendly, nationalist-troubling) bid to take over Calgary's petroleum producer Nexen a case in point.

Waiting in the wings for clearance from government once the bid clears the Investment Canada Act review, will be other massive energy investment offers from China.  Should the CNOOC-Nexen deal clear the warm and fuzzy concept of "net benefit" to Canada through improving the level of economic activity, of employment, and compatibility with national industrial economic and cultural policies, the deal will proceed.

In light of so many concerns respecting China's cultural-nationalistic tendencies of ownership of geographies not their own, of the country's secretive dealings, of its dalliance with opaque threats, its past and current furtively-successful governmental-political, industrial and cyber espionage activities, we can only hope the Government of Canada thinks hard and defensively about cementing such deals.

For behind the CNOOC-Nexen prospect nearing completion is yet another, with Talisman Energy, the Calgary-based oil and gas company, expected to be targeted for yet another takeover attempt.  China's Sinopec oil company is already in a joint venture with Talisman Energy.  This venture would represent yet another review under the Investment Canada Act, to be subjected to scrutiny by cabinet to the "net benefit" test.

This, even while Calgary-based Telvent which produces software used by energy companies has become aware through the intervention of cyber-security news site KrebsOnSecurity.com that it has been hacked and a breach of security has occurred.  Experts have identified the digital fingerprints of Chinese hackers, yet another of many such incidents.

Can the government really busy itself adequately protecting Canada's cyber networks while at the same time inviting the main actor in such intrusions meant to corrupt vulnerable networks, to buy into Canada's major sovereign resources? 

Can we be so naive as to expect Chinese national resource companies to respect Canadian laws, values and ownership?