OTTAWA/TORONTO — In this episode, I catch up with columnist Brian Lilley to unpack Prime Minister Mark Carney’s emerging trade and cooperation agenda with the People’s Republic of China — and why I argue these agreements could accelerate Canada’s decline on multiple fronts.
Before we get into Ottawa’s electric vehicle deal — which I argue risks introducing foreign surveillance platforms onto Canadian roads while aggravating our most important trade partner, the United States — we step back and ask: what is Carney really trying to accomplish?
I lay out my view that Carney is rewarding key business backers with deep commercial ties to Chinese Communist Party–linked entities, in ways I compare to the Lord Peter Mandelson playbook: elite influence, insider networks embedded with investors aligned with Chinese intelligence interests, and a political strategy designed to look pragmatic and beneficial to all Canadians in the “new world order,” as Carney calls it, while primarily benefiting party backers behind the scenes.
We also examine the domestic politics driving the moment — including the argument that helped win support before: positioning Carney as a steady “adult in the room” against a polarizing and unpredictable United States president — and why I believe the real maneuver is more complicated. As Carney asks Canadians to believe the country can “pivot away” from the United States, I argue he also knows Canada cannot survive without a serious trade arrangement with Washington, because our deepest economic and security partnership remains our most powerful asset.
I argue that Carney is trying to thread the needle for a domestic audience while pleasing Beijing, the Liberal Party’s business wing, and Washington — a balancing act that is not transparent and will be difficult to pull off.
We also discuss Carney’s “media cooperation” deal.
In a threat environment where Chinese-language media ecosystems have been tied to intimidation, narrative control, and election interference — and where Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai has been imprisoned for challenging Party rule — I argue this is the wrong lesson at the worst time: Ottawa is treating propaganda infrastructure like normal journalism. I point to intelligence reporting that, as The Bureau has reported, describes clandestine operations on Canadian soil, including Chinese police paying Chinese-language journalists to track dissidents and coercing targets not to cooperate with Canadian law enforcement.
And that’s why I frame the judgment as reckless: Carney widened access for a Party-state media apparatus — and expanded information-sharing with Chinese police and the RCMP — without publicly detailing safeguards, enforcement, or even acknowledging the documented threat, effectively expanding the very channels through which intimidation, manipulation, and Chinese clandestine police operations already manifest in Canada.
Finally, we discuss the stunning Toronto Police organized-crime corruption scandal — a set of allegations I tell Brian shows hallmarks of Mexican-cartel penetration also alleged in Washington’s case against former Olympian Ryan Wedding, including allegations in the same Ontario jurisdiction of bribery, penetration of police databases, and an alleged conspiracy to murder a United States federal witness involving a Toronto lawyer and numerous other alleged conspirators.
