Forging Trade Ties -- Forgoing Human Rights

"We highly appreciate the proactive stance of the new Canadian government in promoting the improvement and development of bilateral relations."

"Cooperation between the two countries in trade, energy, and cultural exchanges has yielded fruitful results, and has brought tangible benefits to the people of both nations."  

"Looking ahead, China and Canada should translate the important consensus reached by our leaders into concrete actions and work together to steer our relations back to  healthy, stable, and sustainable path." 

Yang Wanming, president, Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign countries 

 

"[While the world is going through] a period of profound global upheaval, an era shaped by shifting geopolitics and economic volatility, within this uncertainty, there is also opportunity."

"This is one of our most consequential trading relations."

"[Canada is committed to working with China] as we look to address trade challenges and advance cooperation to shape a forward-looking economic relationship."

"[We] can help China simultaneously meet its growing energy needs and climate goals."                                                                                                                                     Canadian ambassador to China Jennifer May   

Prime Minister Mark Carney shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the start of a meeting in Gyeongju, South Korea, on Oct. 31. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

As the Canadian Liberal government wrestles with the trade and political relations problems the second iteration of a Donald Trump presidency in Washington has brought to the fore, the search for new international trade partners has seen Canada finding it suddenly expedient to warm relations with the People's Republic of China, after an interval of frosty relations. The reasons for which have been many and compelling. Not the least of which, but the most recent as it were, Beijing's interference in Canadian politics during elections.

 

There have been other recent issues; the arrest and detention and imprisonment of two Canadians in China known as the 'two Michaels' (Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor) in 2018, held for several years in extremely rough conditions as purported spies. This was an illustration of Beijing's 'hostage-diplomacy' in retaliation to the arrest of Huawai's chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou on a U.S. warrant, for extradition to the U.S. to stand trial on criminal charges. Other Canadians faced charges related to drugs, leading to death sentences. 

 

Chinese cyber threats in Canada, the regime's threats against Chinese Canadians, its infiltration of academia, along with wholesale thefts of sensitive government and private industry initiatives, the most notorious of which was Nortel where former Chinese national employees lifted sensitive internal documents taken to China enabling groups like Huawai to profit from a successful global enterprise whose operations were repeated in China leading to the collapse of the Canadian firm.

Xiangguo Qiu wears a biocontainment suit while working in the containment lab at the National Microbiology Lab (NML) in Winnipeg. Qiu, her biologist husband Keding Cheng, and her students were escorted out of the NML in July 2019. Qiu and Cheng were fired in January 2021. The RCMP is still investigating a possible 'policy breach' reported by the Public Health Agency of Canada. (CBC)

 

Another operation of industrial espionage took place at the Winnipeg-based National Microbiology Laboratory linked to the Canadian Science Centre for Human and Animal Health, when two Chinese nationals employed at the facility, Dr. Xiangguo Oju and Keding Cheng, her husband, illegally sent vials of infectious materials back to China in 2019; they and their Chinese students were escorted out of the lab, on suspicion of stealth of scientific data which ended up at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

 

Relations between Canada and China under Liberal-led governments in Canada have always flourished. Former Prime Minister Jean Chretien led countless trade missions to China, and on his retirement from government working for a prestigious Canadian law firm, became their point man for China through his many high-level government contacts. Under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau relations were on-again, off-again, with his government yearning to restore trade relations despite setbacks.

 

The current leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and now current prime minister, Mark Carney, whose business background with Brookfield Asset Management Ltd. has warm, profitable relations with China has now once again reinstated relations with China. Mr. Carney has accepted an invitation by Beijing to visit China at "a mutually convenient time", for the purpose of strengthening bilateral ties; read that trade issues of immense importance to Canada, although for China these are fungible trade issues.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has committed to tackling ‘irritants’ with Chinese President XI Jinping as the two countries had their first formal leader-to-leader contact since 2017. Carney was also invited by Xi for a state visit.  Still from video/CBC

 

The Canadian embassy in Beijing arranged a reception to mark the 55th anniversary of the founding of diplomatic ties between Canada and China, co-hosted by the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, a state-linked organization. At a meeting last month in the Republic of Korea, the two leaders, Prime Minister Carney and President Xi Jinping congenially agreed to reopen warming talks toward improved relations.

 

That meeting during the Asia-Pacific Economic Economic Leaders' Meeting in Gyeongju marked the first meeting between Canadian and Chinese leaders since 2017. The leaders "agreed that their meeting marked a turning point in the bilateral relationship", with both leaders directing their officials to work toward resolving outstanding trade issues, primarily seafood, canola and electric vehicles. They spoke as well of clean and conventional energy, climate change, manufacturing and international finance.

Even with strained relations, China is Canada's second-largest trading partner after the United States. China is the second-largest source of imports, second-largest export market. A thaw in relations between the two countries will certainly benefit Canada. In the same token, China's human rights record with respect to the Uyghurs...Canada went so far as to pass a motion in the House of Commons condemning the People's Republic of China for 'genocide' against its Uyghur population.

 

China takes advantage of both Canadian products and expertise, including education, financial services and sustainable infrastructure for clean conventional energy. Beijing is also interested in increasing energy resources such as oil and gas, from Canada. For China, it is Canadian raw materials and its abundance of natural mineral resources that draws its interest. For Canada it is finished products that come from China that form the bulk of its imports.  

"Fifty-five years [since former Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau opened Canada up to China] is a milestone that invites us to reflect on our history, what we have achieved together, and how we navigated deeply complex and changing times."

"I want to be very clear that we are here to build this relationship and to build it strong."

Jennifer May, Canadian ambassador to China 

China controls the world's largest reserves of rare earth elements, and now it's tightening its grip. China's export restrictions are giving it powerful leverage over the United States and U.S. President Donald Trump is determined to catch up. Images provided by Getty Images, The Canadian Press and Reuters.

 

Trump's Personal Quest For American Dominance

"Let's be real about this; the rhetorical attacks on Canada have not actually resulted in a net good for the United States."

"[The White House habit of] yelling at Canada [helped to install a] far left-leaning internationalist [government] hostile to American interests."

"All of this started off as a joke, and I think President Trump is so committed to the bit at this point that he couldn't get off the train [repeated pledges to turn Canada into the '51st state']."

Conservative U.S. podcaster Ben Shapiro

 

"[Poilievre would have been] Canuck DeSantis [Ron DeSantis, Republican governor of Florida who challenged Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination]."

"Trump will [and has already] weirdly get on with Carney."

"Trump  vibes with the smart, hyper-machievellaian center-left type."

Curt Mills, editor, American Conservative

Mark Carney with supporters at a victory party in Ottawa, 29 April 2025. Photograph: Dave Chan/AFP/Getty Images

 

U.S. President Donald Trump is smirking triumphantly. It has been his very direct interference in Canadian affairs that succeeded in upsetting the trajectory of the April 28 general election. A situation where the Liberal Party of Canada succeeded in gathering a greater number of votes, sufficient to form a minority government, than the Conservative Party which had been surging in the polls before Mr. Trump introduced the shock of  his announced trade tariffs targeting first Canada and Mexico and China, before he included much of the rest of the world.

The Canadian public was well and truly sick of the Liberal government, its never-ending ethical scandals, its impoverishment of the Canadian economy, its massive annual deficits and a debt larger than anything any previous government had ever attained. The federal government estrangement from the Western provinces linked to its green agenda of refusing to exploit the generosity of natural resources in the energy field, has caused a rift between the provinces themselves, favouring the east and damning the west.

 

Runaway rising costs of food and lodging, a failing universal health system overburdened by an unsustainable and indiscriminate surge in immigration, refugee and migrant intake, along with other social services strained to their limits, including insufficient and prohibitively costly housing stocks, rising crime rates that a soft judiciary intent on giving bail for the most serious criminal offenders leading to a steadily rising crime rate. The twin problems of growing homelessness among whom people in mental distress loom large, along with an ever-widening circle of drug dependent, overdose-prone addicts.

@PierrePoilievre

President Trump, stay out of our election. The only people who will decide the future of Canada are Canadians at the ballot box. Canada will always be proud, sovereign and independent and we will NEVER be the 51st state.

Factor in ethnic/religious communities that no longer adapt to the Canadian way of life, its social contracts, its value system, its laws and regulations, and you have a restive population, resentful of a government whose policies and idiosyncracies in social engineering and race and gender politics have created deep divisions within society. All of which soured the public on the Liberal government headed by Justin Trudeau, the very embodiment of an entitled, sociopathic, deceitful, manipulative and narcissistic personality.

 

His government was in tatters; the antithesis of all that it represented was seen in the Conservative government with its leader, Pierre Poilievre prepared, given the Conservative-approving soaring polls, to win the next election. And then along came Donald Trump. And along came an international banker set to replace Justin Trudeau, boasting a record of accomplishment as former Governor of the Bank of Canada and of Great Britain. A man every bit as narcissistic as Trudeau, given to stretching the truth to suit his agenda, a man for whom plagiarizing and claiming as his own the intellectual work of others, slid by his supporters.

 

 

On the campaign trail Mark Carney who was elevated into the role of Prime Minister by the simple (and unprincipled) expedient of being voted in as leader of the Liberal Party in place of Justin Trudeau, and who then went on to boast of his professional expertise and successes in the world of finance, with no experience whatever in politics, and no seat in Parliament, to promise that he, and only he could lead Canada in its battle against an American president determined to economically ruin Canada and annex it into American territory.

 

Canadians in enough of a majority voted for the man who promised he would be Donald Trump's worse nightmare. A man who charged his Conservative competitor Pierre Poilievre of being just like Trump. When the truth is that Trump saw Poilievre as an impediment to his plans of absorbing Canada, and Carney as a useful tool in his extortion and coercion plans. Immediately after the election, US. President Trump spoke of Mark Carney as a "very nice gentleman" and their latest telephone conversation "couldn't have been nicer and I congratulated him". 

 

On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump weighed in on the federal election, offering advice to Canadians about how they should vote. (Balce Ceneta/The Canadian Press)

 

He plans, he stated, to meet with Carney "within the next week or less" in Washington, and expects to have a "great relationship" with Canada. "I actually think the Conservative hated me much more than the so-called 'Liberal'", Mr. Trump admitted. White House spokesperson Anna Kelly asserted to the Associated Press that the Canadian election "does not affect President Trump's plan to make Canada America's cherished 51st state". And his press secretary, Karoline Leavitt reinforced that message; that Trump's calls for Canada to become the 51st state were "Trump truthing, all the way".

 

The Canadian election outcome was heavily weighed by the antagonism seen from Trump against Canadian sovereignty and his disdain for the role of any Canadian prime minister whom he preferred to call a 'governor'. Trump made no secret of the fact that he planned to ruin the Canadian economy, as additional pressure to have Canada accede to his plans of being absorbed into the United States;  his personal quest for American dominance.  

Russian Disinformation Campaign

"Russia intended to use this bot farm to disseminate AI-generated foreign disinformation, scaling their work with the assistance of AI to undermine our partners in Ukraine and influence geopolitical narratives favourable to the Russian government."

FBI Director Christopher Wray

 

"Hybrid-war information operations run out of Moscow and Beijing are increasingly cross-pollinating with Khomeinist efforts to incite hostility to Israel, meanwhile, most noticeably in the agitations and activism purporting to support Palestinians in the current Gaza war."

"In Canada, antisemitic violence, 'anti-Zionist' histrionics and anti-Israel incitements based on Khomeinist propaganda have become commonplace in the left-wing activist milieu."

"Russian disinformation tends to get noticeably more traction among self-identified 'conservatives' than among Liberals or New Democrats."

"Conservative voters, who consistently poll as the most skeptical of conventional media, also showed themselves to be most  susceptible to Kremlin 'narratives'."

Terry Glavin, investigative journalist

 

"Disinformation is a big challenge because we see that Russia is fuelling disinformation in many ways."

"We also see China is doing that."

"So we need to be very much aware of the risk."

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg 

Canadian security officials are warning of a Russian propaganda campaign that is spreading online disinformation through social media site X. (Graeme Roy/The Canadian Press)

 

Security officials in Canada warn of a Russian propaganda campaign using social-media site X as a conveyance, spreading disinformation online. Individuals affiliated with RT (Russia Today) have used a social media bot farm, reveals the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, and the issue is one that the Russian government has been directing.

Throughout the process false social-media users have been created for the purpose of spreading disinformation across borders. The accounts frequently pose as Americans in origin, while promoting messages supporting Russian government objectives. The RT press office, when pressed for comment responded mockingly: "Farming is a beloved pastime for millions of Russians".

Both American and Canadian authorities are in the midst of grappling with the most effective ways they might counter foreign efforts to disrupt elections with the use of AI and disinformation techniques. An prime item in discussion this week with NATO leaders meeting in Washington; the issues of Ukraine and aid for the country, at the centre of discussions.

Russia's state broadcaster RT was banned by Canada's broadcasting regulator, from Canadian airwaves following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The RT broadcast content was found by the CRTC to be "not in the public interest", by exposing Ukrainian people to hatred or contempt on the basis of their race, national or ethnic origin.

Sinister Plots on the Boil

"The Kremlin has a growing interest in dominating the Arctic, where it sees Russia as in competition with Canada. This means Canada can anticipate escalations in formation warfare, particularly from hacktivists fomenting cyber-attacks."
"Perceived as one of Russia's chief adversaries in the Arctic region, Canada is a prime target in the information wars, with Russia potentially even meddling in the October 2019 federal election. Ottawa should be ready for a new surge in cyberattacks, disinformation and propaganda levelled against Canada in the near future."
Sergey Sukhankin, senior fellow, Jamestown Foundation

Canadian Armed Forces members prepare for a Bandvagn-206 course in Gasbakken, Norway during Trident Juncture on Oct. 26, 2018. (Cpl. Lisa Fenton/Canadian Armed Forces)

Now teaching at the University of Calgary, Mr. Sukhankin has produced a study predicting that Russian interference in the federal election campaign is likely to occur pursuant to the Kremlin's long-term interest in competition in the Arctic, specifically targeting Canada as an opponent -- with both countries claiming sovereign jurisdiction over long-disputed regions in the Arctic.

Despite the good chance that such interference may occur, Mr. Sukhankin also feels confident in predicting that any such interference will have little actual impact in Canada. He characterizes Canadian society as more homogeneous in its political attitudes, less fractured and openly hostile than for example the United States, using as examples the American presidential ballot and Britain's Brexit referendum.

Moscow's disinformation campaigns, Mr. Sukhankin emphasizes, are primarily designed for internal Russian purposes, to gather support for Vladimir Putin and his political party, more than they are capable of interfering with the Canadian voting process. The issue is an effort on the part of the Kremlin to present the "ugly side of democracy and liberalism" to Russians, portraying Canada as faultily influenced by the United States and the Canadian "Ukrainian lobby".

Canada is a nation of immigrants. Over time it has received massive numbers of people leaving their countries of origin to become Canadian citizens. Some would argue with a degree of accuracy that Canada has a "Sikh lobby", a "Chinese lobby", an "Indian lobby", along with the "Ukrainian lobby" that the Kremlin refers to in obvious connection with sanctions imposed on Russia related to its proxy war with Ukraine. There is a "French lobby", an "Italian lobby"; take your pick.

A soldier holds a machine gun as he patrols the Russian northern military base on Kotelny island, beyond the Arctic circle on April 3, 2019.MAXIME POPOV/AFP/Getty Images

This is an argument that falls into line with previous warning cautions issued by Canada's intelligence agencies. The government of Canada appointed a group of senior public servants whose mandate it is to guard against election interference during the campaign by foreign elements. Obviously, the cautions relate directly to the potential of interference emanating from Russian sources, much as was the experience during the last presidential campaign in the United States.

Should the commission find reason for alarm they are to brief members of all of Canada's political parties respecting possible threats. They have been given the mandate to publicly sound an alarm against perceived malign acts of interference deemed a fundamental threat. To its domestic audience, the Kremlin seeks to portray Canada as "Russophobic", a country to be distrusted, unjustly critical of Russia reuniting with the Crimea.

“Russia uses patriotism and this anti-fascist sentiment to convince the domestic audience and Russian-speakers abroad, primarily in Ukraine, Belarus and the three Baltic states, that Russia is the only country to stand against far-right sentiments and nationalism. This is basically used by the Russian side to garner domestic solidarity", emphasized Mr. Sukhankin.

Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chrystia Freeland, of Ukrainian descent, is characterized as a fascist sympathizer. Russian propaganda points out that her grandfather was a Nazi anti-Semite, editor and producer of a Nazi-aligned newspaper during the Second World War, that supported fascist Germany. For her part, she has never disowned her grandfather's legacy.

Canada's role with NATO, stationing  troops in Latvia as part of a rapid-response program meant to alert the Kremlin in no uncertain terms that should it consider extending its threat to an independent Ukraine to other Baltic states, it would have NATO to contend with, has not endeared Canada to Russia.

Members of 3rd battalion, Royal 22nd Regiment, prepare to roll out in BV-206 vehicles during Exercise Trident Juncture, in Gåssbakken, Norway, on Oct. 26, 2018. (Master Cpl. Pat Blanchard/Canadian Armed Forces)

Russian Political Interference in American Elections....?

"We're going into our fourth week of digital door knocking and text banking and it has been incredible. We can talk to a lot of voters in very little time and we've identified thousands of supporters that we will be getting out to the polls."
"We're holding texting parties every week in the lead up to the election, where we text thousands of voters across the province to make sure they don't vote for Kenney's UCP [United Conservative Party]."
Duncan Kinney, executive director, Progress Alberta

"The campaign is about trying to persuade business to stop establishing offices in the province [of Alberta]."
"From the very beginning, the campaign strategy was to land-lock the tar sands so their crude could not reach the international market where it could fetch a high price per barrel."
"In 2008, two major U.S. foundations asked CorpEthics to reruit the groups, develop the strategy, crate a coordinated campaign, and act as a re-granting agency for the North American Tar Sands Campaign."
Michael Marx, director, Tar Sands Campaign

"[SAFE -- Securing America's Future Energy was funded] to help business leaders become compelling voices for government action to reduce U.S. oil dependence and vulnerability of U.S. businesses to high and volatile oil prices."
William Hewlett, Hewlett-Packard co-founder, Hewlett Foundation

"The Society [Living Oceans] worked with non-profit lawyers at Ecojustice to intervene in the regulatory review of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline and tanker project."
"[Living Oceans] instructed its lawyers to bring judicial review proceedings against both the recommendation report of the National Energy Board and the ultimate decision of the Federal Cabinet to approve the project."
Living Oceans report to the IRS for taxation purposes

Miles of unused pipe, prepared for the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline, sit rusting in North Dakota.    Andrew Burton/Getty Images

Where to start? Some familiar names, perhaps: Northern Gateway, Energy East, Keystone XL, Trans Mountain, Line 3 -- targets all, by environmental groups to ensure that Alberta doesn't get the pipelines it needs to stop the forced sales of its petroleum products solely to the American market at a steep discount that sees Alberta forfeiting billions in lost royalties and revenue, reflecting a lack of infrastructure to ship large volumes of oil to overseas markets where Alberta can anticipate a fairer price return.

The hugely successful Tar Sands Campaign has manipulated events through its constant appeals to environmental risks associated with the extraction of crude oil from Alberta to refineries on the U.S. West Coast and abroad, through its relentless and hugely successful branding of Alberta oil as 'dirty' and polluting to the environment at a time of global warming and climate change, despite that what full extraction and production would produce in its carbon emissions are relatively minuscule in comparison to American pollution levels.

Yet the U.S. monopolizes Alberta oil production at a virtual giveaway price, holding it hostage to its own energy security, aided and abetted by U.S. environmental groups, leaving Alberta with pipeline gridlock, overseen by a federal government complacent with the status quo, itself beholden for votes from the environmental contingent. Two groups, Leadnow and Progress Alberta, are partially funded according to U.S. tax returns, by the Tar Sands Campaign.

A Rockefeller-funded American organization called the Online Progressive Engagement Network  out of which comes the Strategic Incubation program, created Leadnow. The United Conservative Party, led by Jason Kenney who hopes to unseat the New Democratic Party in Alberta in tomorrow's provincial election has been facing a strategic campaign funded by Rockefeller-supported groups, to keep the UCP from power, replacing NDP premier Rachel Notley. The UCP has committed itself to overturning the U.S. monopoly on Alberta's overseas oil exports.

A protest in Washington against Canada’s oilsands. Bloomberg

The Rockefeller Foundation funds the New Venture Fund based in Washington which has in turn funded roughly ten Canadian environmental groups involved in the Tar Sands Campaign, groups that include the Pembina Institute, Sierra Club BC and Living Oceans Society. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Hewlett Foundation have integral links to quite a number of groups they fund whose sole purpose is to ensure that the Alberta petrochemical industry remains in lock-down. A situation that has led directly to the loss of at least 130,000 jobs in the province.

It seems beyond peculiar that while the Democrats in the United States accuse the Republicans of collusion with Russia in allowing it to use social media sites and false news to interfere in the outcome of the 2015 presidential election, American charitable foundations are busy influencing the price of oil in the United States through placing Canadian oil on the sidelines of the global oil market; in one fell swoop leaving Canada with little option but to market its oil at bargain prices to the U.S. and hampering Alberta's efforts to get its fossil fuels to tidewater to markets overseas.

Canada has more than enough problems between the provinces, with the federal government effectively and ruinously pitting the East against the West by favouring the eastern half of the country over the western half, with provinces themselves rivalling one another. Where British Columbia wants Alberta oil and gas but refuses to allow it to build a pipeline on B.C. soil. Where Eastern Canada gets its oil from Saudi Arabia rather than from Western Canada, and Quebec refuses its soil to be sullied by a pipeline, but grasps equalization payments as a 'have-not' province from Alberta's coffers.

AP Photo/Elaine Thompson