Carney's China Journalist Deal: A Catastrophic Betrayal of Canadian Security

OpEd: Carney’s plan to facilitate “two-way” media access with Beijing demands public safeguards—or it endangers sovereignty.

CSIS intelligence assessment from October 2022 reveals systematic Chinese state control of Canadian Chinese-language media.

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney’s January agreement to facilitate Chinese journalist access to Canada represents one of the most reckless national security decisions in recent Canadian history. The deal commits Canada to “provide mutual support and convenience for media to work in each other’s countries” through a formal agreement with China Media Group, the Communist Party’s state propaganda apparatus.

Canada is an open society. That is our strength—and, increasingly, our vulnerability.

In the current threat environment—where Canadian police have warned a federal candidate it was unsafe to campaign, where Chinese-language ecosystems have been tied to intimidation campaigns, and where Canadian intelligence reporting describes Chinese media as a central tool in Beijing’s election interference—the proposal is not merely naïve. By enlarging the very channels through which coercion, censorship, and Beijing’s vote-fixing schemes already operate, it may be recklessly dangerous.

What makes Carney’s Beijing deal indefensible is not speculation about future risks—it is what Carney already knew when he signed it.

As Prime Minister, Carney has access to classified intelligence including a June 2019 NSICOP report and a 2022 CSIS assessment that The Bureau has obtained. The Bureau has also reported on these documents during Justin Trudeau’s tenure, in reports that were not contested, and in some cases, filed as exhibits in the Hogue Inquiry into Chinese election interference.

The most dramatic illustration of the danger sits in recent parliamentary testimony and documented threats against Conservative candidate Joseph Tay. In December 2024, Hong Kong police issued a $184,000 bounty for Tay, a pro-democracy activist and Canadian citizen, under charges of “inciting secession” and “colluding with foreign forces.” What happened next should have stopped Carney’s China “reset” deal—particularly the state-level media agreements—dead in its tracks.

In January 2025, Liberal MP Paul Chiang stood before a Chinese-language media news conference and told attendees they could claim the bounty “if you bring him to Toronto’s Chinese consulate.” Chiang also warned that Tay’s election to Parliament would cause “great controversy” for Canada. When confronted, Chiang claimed he was joking and issued a perfunctory apology.

Tay rejected it, stating publicly: “Threats like these are the tradecraft of the Chinese Communist Party to interfere in Canada. They are not just aimed at me; they are intended to send a chilling signal to the entire community to force compliance with Beijing’s political goals. This situation has left me fearing for my safety.”

Carney’s response was to defend Chiang. The Prime Minister called the incident a “teachable moment,” praised Chiang’s “integrity,” and refused to remove him as the Liberal candidate in Markham-Unionville. Only after the RCMP announced it was reviewing the matter—and international Hong Kong diaspora groups mounted a pressure campaign—did Chiang resign.

But Chiang’s comments at a Chinese-language media event were not an isolated incident.

They occurred within a documented pattern of threats against Tay’s campaign that The Bureau has exclusively reported and that federal authorities have now corroborated. On April 21, 2025—one week before the election—the federal Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force issued a public warning confirming a “transnational repression operation” targeting Tay’s campaign, featuring mock “wanted posters” and coordinated suppression efforts to curtail his online visibility across Chinese-language platforms.

But the endangerment of a Canadian election candidate via Chinese-language media channels is just the most high-profile and recent case of Beijing’s egregious abuses.

The Bureau reported in July 2023 on a high-level June 2019 NSICOP report, which can be read in its redacted form here. The unredacted and classified report, which cannot be read except in The Bureau’s reporting, states:

“PRC officials have used covert and unauthorized tactics, including unauthorized trips to Canada, threats, intimidation, harassment, arresting relatives in China as a form of leverage, paying Chinese-language journalists to locate and track individuals, and discouraging people from reporting their covert activities to Canadian police.”

Chinese police have paid Chinese-language journalists in Canada to locate and track targets. This is documented intelligence available to the Prime Minister in unredacted form. Mark Carney knows this.

The second critical piece makes the election interference dimension undeniable.

The Bureau has obtained and confirmed a CSIS intelligence assessment dated October 31, 2022, marked SECRET//CANADIAN EYES ONLY, providing devastating detail about Chinese control of media in Canada—a portion of which is posted in the headline photo for this opinion editorial.

The assessment states that “a PRC ‘takeover’ of Chinese-language media has transpired over decades.” It quotes a former editor-in-chief of a major Chinese-language newspaper: “Beijing has become the mainstream now in Chinese newspapers or magazine here in Canada. I cannot find a real independent and non-partisan newspaper here in Canada reporting Chinese affairs.”

CSIS reporting from July 2022 found that “almost all Chinese media outlets are controlled by local media associations.” Approximately 30 to 40 people in Greater Toronto Area “meet regularly to come to a consensus regarding what to publish.” CSIS assessed that “these individuals act as gatekeepers to ensure that whatever is reported in Chinese-language media adheres to pro-PRC narratives.”

Recall: Paul Chiang made his threatening comments about turning Joe Tay over to the Chinese consulate for a bounty at a gathering of Chinese-language journalists in Toronto—precisely the controlled media apparatus CSIS described.

The document itself reveals direct PRC Consulate control, in general: “The PRC Consulate contacted a journalist within half an hour of the article being published” about a piece casting a negative light on a Chinese company. “As a result, the journalist deleted the article so as not to offend the Consulate.”

Most critically, CSIS identifies media as “a target for foreign state Foreign Interference activities that seek to manipulate and influence key media entities, control narratives, and disseminate disinformation” during elections.

The document notes that during the 2021 federal election, “disinformation activities targeting the Conservative Party of Canada and a CPC candidate” were conducted through these channels.

Connect these dots: CSIS documented in 2022 that Chinese-language media in Canada are systematically controlled and used for election interference targeting the Conservative Party.

Paul Chiang made his threatening comments about Conservative candidate Joe Tay at a Chinese-language media event in January 2025.

That April, the Conservative candidate faced a coordinated transnational repression operation and lost after the RCMP advised him to suspend public campaigning.

Nine months later, in January 2026, Prime Minister Carney—a Liberal—signed an agreement facilitating Chinese journalist access to the very media apparatus that CSIS documented as targeting Conservatives and that enabled the threats against Tay.

The timing makes Carney’s judgment indefensible.

The government has known about these threats since 2015, when CSIS first alerted officials to escalating Fox Hunt operations. CSIS provided a “red alert” assessment in March 2018. The NSICOP report documenting Chinese police paying journalists came in June 2019. The CSIS assessment on media control came in October 2022. Bill C-70, the Countering Foreign Interference Act, passed in June 2024 but remains unimplemented—no foreign agent registry, no foreign interference commissioner.

Carney had all of this intelligence.

He signed the journalist access agreement anyway. He offered no public explanation of safeguards, no consultation with diaspora communities who face these threats, no security assessment to justify the decision.

Instead, he praised Xi Jinping’s “leadership” and called China a “more predictable” partner than the United States—even as Canadian federal authorities were confirming active Chinese interference operations targeting a Canadian election.

The questions Canadians should demand answers for are grim but fundamental to the nation’s sovereignty.

Did Mark Carney prioritize trade deals over the safety of diaspora communities and the integrity of Canadian elections? Or is his judgment so catastrophically flawed that he cannot be trusted to protect Canadian sovereignty?

What is certain is that Carney signed an agreement facilitating access for Chinese “media” operatives that Canadian intelligence has explicitly documented as threats to Canadian democracy and Canadian lives.