Dominic Barton’s Shadow Over $1-Billion PRC Ferry Deal: An Investigative Op-Ed

Ottawa’s story never added up. When the Canada Infrastructure Bank pushed through a $1-billion loan to BC Ferries for vessels built at a Chinese state-owned shipyard, federal ministers claimed they were “dismayed” and blindsided. Chrystia Freeland even wrote a letter to the BC government citing national security concerns. In hindsight, she and her staff were engaged in political theatre, performing shock to deflect responsibility onto Premier David Eby.

Documents later showed Freeland’s own ministry of transport had been briefed six weeks before the public rollout. In one internal exchange, her staff admitted officials had received “a confidential heads-up” well in advance. Then came testimony from Housing and Infrastructure Minister Gregor Robertson — also responsible for the Infrastructure Bank — acknowledging the loan was already “inked” in March, before he supposedly raised concerns, a claim as hollow as Freeland’s staged outrage.

The $1-billion CIB loan to BC Ferries flows directly to China Merchants Industry Weihai — a dual-use shipyard central to Beijing’s military-civil fusion strategy. Critics have long warned that such contracts risk entangling Canadian taxpayers with Chinese state enterprises linked to the People’s Liberation Army.

Those concerns take on new urgency with fresh revelations from Australia. ABC News reported yesterday on a classified U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency assessment showing that China’s commercial ferry fleet is being militarized for amphibious operations against Taiwan. These are not neutral passenger vessels but dual-use platforms modified to carry tanks and PLA troops. The timing of the four-ship build for BC Ferries, the nature of the shipyard, and the class of vessel all suggest that Canada could be indirectly bolstering Beijing’s invasion platform — and, at the very least, injecting Canadian funds into the industrial ecosystem driving the PLA’s buildup.

The nature of CIB’s involvement, and Ottawa’s actions that fit the pattern of an emerging cover-up, point to a deeper story that has been bubbling in the capital for nearly a decade: former McKinsey global director and Canadian ambassador to China Dominic Barton, his deep ties to Chinese state-owned and dual-use enterprises, and his founding role in the CIB.

Defensive “talking points” prepared for Gregor Robertson’s August 1, 2025 testimony provide a revealing glimpse. The records, obtained through freedom of information by The Bureau, are mostly boilerplate answers. But two pages on the CIB’s structure show clearly what outside reporting has long established: the Bank carries Barton’s DNA, and the imprint of his McKinsey network continues to this day. That raises a plausible theory — that Canada’s pro-Beijing trade lobby, a circle of business leaders revolving around Barton, Sabia, McKinsey, and now Prime Minister Mark Carney, looks like the hidden hand guiding this supposedly arm’s-length deal.

The records that anchor this OpEd show the Infrastructure Bank’s story can be traced like a family tree. At the top is Dominic Barton. In 2016, while serving as McKinsey’s global managing director, he chaired the federal Advisory Council on Economic Growth. That council produced the blueprint for the Canada Infrastructure Bank — and McKinsey itself was paid as a consultant during its creation. Sitting beside Barton on the council was Michael Sabia, who would later become chair of the Bank in 2020 and today serves as chief of staff to Prime Minister Mark Carney.

As the Bank moved from paper to practice, Sabia’s role became pivotal. When he took over as chair, he pulled Barton back into the fold. In June 2020, Barton joined a “strategic refresh” meeting of the CIB. Emails later revealed that McKinsey staff had arranged the session so that “Dom” could “speak freely,” even though he was then serving as Canada’s ambassador to China.

The pattern deepened as new leadership arrived. In November 2020, Ehren Cory was appointed CEO. Cory, too, had worked at McKinsey. Around him, other alumni filled senior posts: Steve Robins, now head of strategy; Aneil Jaswal, director of strategic sectors; even Cory’s executive assistant came directly from McKinsey, according to notes prepared for Gregor Robertson’s August testimony and obtained by The Bureau.

Running alongside this McKinsey chain is a side branch that loops back into the heart of Ottawa. Sabia, Barton’s colleague from the Advisory Council, now serves as Mark Carney’s right hand in the Prime Minister’s Office.

Seen this way, the CIB is not just a Crown corporation with a neutral mandate. It is an institution shaped from the start by Barton’s hand, nurtured by Sabia, and still run day to day by McKinsey-trained managers. The government’s defensive claim — that McKinsey’s influence ended in 2017, as set out in notes for Robertson’s testimony — is impossible to believe. It is as false as Chrystia Freeland’s June 2025 letter to David Eby’s government.

The continuity of influence is not just structural — it’s personal. On June 23, 2020, while serving as ambassador to China, Barton joined a CIB “strategic refresh” meeting. He says it was at Sabia’s invitation. But emails tabled in committee show McKinsey staff helped arrange the call and even discussed limiting participants so “Dom” could “speak freely.” Pressed in Parliament during May 2023 testimony, Barton initially failed to disclose the meeting. Only after documents surfaced did he confirm it.

That evasiveness set off a bruising clash. Conservative MP Leslyn Lewis told him flatly: “We have testimony that you gave before, and that was false indeed.” She added: “Mr. Sabia, the former chair of the CIB, testified here on Tuesday that you participated in a McKinsey seminar, led by McKinsey, while you were ambassador — and you have now confirmed this information today.”

Garnett Genuis drove the point home: “Mr. Barton is clearly lying to this committee. We have the emails in black and white. It seems McKinsey was able to infiltrate the government and shape decision making. Your presence and close relationship with the government allowed that to happen.”

Three years earlier, Barton had faced an even higher-profile grilling before the Canada–China Committee — testimony with direct geographical and geopolitical relevance to the CIB’s mysterious $1-billion loan to CMC Weihai.

Back in 2020, Genuis pressed him on McKinsey’s advisory work for Chinese state-owned enterprises, including the China Communications Construction Company — sanctioned by the World Bank for corruption and implicated in Beijing’s militarized islands in the South China Sea. Barton ducked, dissembled, and insisted he was unaware.

“At the time you were in charge of McKinsey, from 2009, it’s my understanding that you advised almost two dozen Chinese state-owned companies. According to The New York Times, one of those companies was the China Communications Construction Company,” Genuis prodded. “When you signed the China Communications Construction Company as a client in 2015, they were still under World Bank sanctions because of the corruption and bid-rigging they engaged in in the Philippines.”

Next, the Conservative MP asked directly: “McKinsey was advising a company that was carrying out the Chinese government’s policy of building militarized islands in the South China Sea. Was it your position that those islands are a violation of international law?”

“What I would say is that I am not familiar at all with our being involved in designing the islands in the South China Sea,” Barton answered. “If you want to talk to someone at McKinsey to find out more information, I’m sure we’d be happy to get someone to talk to you about it.”

McKinsey did not return with information on China’s military action in the South China Sea — the very same theater where Beijing now threatens Taiwan with its civilian ferry buildup plan.

Genuis also asked: “Would you be prepared to submit to this committee a list of all of the Chinese state-owned companies that you did work for at McKinsey?”

“McKinsey’s pretty careful about client confidentialities,” Barton answered. “I’d be happy if there were some mechanism so that it isn’t in the public domain but that some people could look at it. I’m open to that.”

That list was never provided, based on The Bureau’s follow-up in Ottawa. Given the questions surrounding the CIB’s loan to fund CMC Weihai ferries, this lack of transparency takes on a more ominous colour.

The historical record of testimony, going back to the Genuis–Barton stand-off, now casts a long shadow. There is a clear through line to the questioning still to come for Carney’s responsible ministers in the BC Ferries deal — Chrystia Freeland and Gregor Robertson. After revelations that Freeland and her staff staged their supposed shock at the deal with a Chinese military-linked shipbuilder, Freeland has been recalled.

Savvy questioners will likely look beyond her — and above her — in their probing. The CIB, seeded by Barton, staffed by McKinsey alumni, and previously steered by Mark Carney’s chief of staff Michael Sabia, has financed a project that objectively strengthens Beijing’s naval-industrial complex. Who really profits, in conjunction with Beijing? Certainly not Canadian workers, shipbuilders, or citizens, who are left carrying the burden of their government’s deals with China.

This is not just about procurement missteps or potential conflicts of interest. It is the culmination of a decade of weak, negligent thinking on China’s military aggression — stretching from the South China Sea to Canada’s Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic coasts. Until Canadians confront Barton’s enduring imprint on the CIB, they will continue to discover — too late — that their money is underwriting Beijing’s rise.

Editor’s Note: These records were obtained via FOI by Stanley Tromp