Canadians’ preoccupation with everything concerning U.S. President Donald Trump has eclipsed the growing crisis of national sovereignty brought on by the symbiotic, quid pro quo relationship between the Liberal Party of Canada and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The sordid Liberals – CCP affairs have given many to pause whether the country has become a vassal state of Beijing. The Trudeau era will be known as a decade when CCP’s undue influence in Canada increased in money laundering, terrorist financing, drug production, and security threats – not to mention the subversion of Canada’s electoral process. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s actions to date suggest he will ensure the veil of secrecy remains draped over the Liberals – CCP relationship.
The most serious, scandalous issue of the last Parliament – indeed, of the Trudeau government dating back to 2015 – is the foreign influence of the CCP in Canada. That, and the fact that the Liberals went to great lengths to conceal CCP operations within the government and on Canadian soil. The most egregious of Liberals’ – CCP secrets is the documented evidence of foreign interference on behalf of the Liberals’ political fortunes in the 2019 and 2021 elections and the fact that, according to Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) sources, there are a minimum of 11 and as many as 50 MPs and Senators collaborating with foreign countries. As news of this activity leaked out, the series of government PR exercises to reassure Canadians – the Rosenberg report, Johnston report, and Hogue inquiry – produced more questions than answers, and the reports have been widely dismissed as partisan pap contrived to excuse the wrongdoings of Justin Trudeau and the Liberals.
As it is today, Canadians still do not know the parliamentarians who were identified by CSIS as having “wittingly” assisted foreign state actors, notably China and India, in acts of political interference and espionage. There is much that remains unanswered relating to political donations that were paid for quid pro quo activities, “volunteers” organized for campaign work, privileged information passed along to foreign agents, and MPs acting on requests and direction from foreign officials. Last year a heavily redacted report tabled in the House of Commons by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) identified a list of as few as 12 MPs who were involved in a variety of nefarious activities with foreign agents. The NSICOP Report was expressly critical of the Trudeau government for failing to appropriately respond to the concerns of foreign interference.
There is seldom a week that goes by without a news story breaking on CCP influence in Canada, particularly money laundering, drugs, and public safety. Last week there was a report released by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that raised concerns about Canada being a source of fentanyl production in large-scale “super laboratories” – and it flagged the country as a destination point for imports of precursor chemicals. This week there was news from London, Ontario of a police bust of $3.2 million worth of illegal drugs, including $2.77 million of fentanyl, which is approximately 4.7 kilograms of fentanyl or enough to kill 2.35 million people.
Canadian investigative journalist Sam Cooper has reported in detail on Beijing money laundering and the North American drug trade. In a series of articles in The Bureau, Cooper has revealed the interwoven activities between the Liberals and CCP that are enabling Beijing operatives in the United Front Work Department to work in Canada and, ultimately, permitting the drug cartels to flourish. Canada’s illegal transnational money laundering activities are so well developed now that they are identified by police services around the world as “the Vancouver Model.”
On this point, though not underlined in Canadian legacy media, the key concession made by Canada to President Donald Trump in early February regarding securing tariff relief was the agreement to put in place a joint government financial intelligence initiative. The U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Canadian government are now coordinating financial intelligence targeting money laundering operations in Canada. There is now direct collaboration between U.S. law enforcement agencies, including the DEA and FBI, and the RCMP and Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC).
On the distressing issue of public safety, there has been little Canadian news on Joe Tay’s cousin and her husband, detained May 8 and again this week by Hong Kong police for questioning by the National Security Department. Recall that Joe Tay is the defeated Conservative candidate from Markham, Ontario who is wanted by Hong Kong police on charges that he is hostile against the CCP. Also recall that during the federal election, he was targeted by the CCP with a misinformation campaign, and former MP Paul Chiang “joked” that someone should kidnap his Conservative opponent and turn him into the Chinese Consulate in order to collect the $1 million bounty set on Tay’s head by the CCP.
It took days for Mark to take action, refusing to ask his Liberal candidate to step down – in fact Carney defended Chiang on multiple occasions. It was only after the RCMP formally opened a criminal investigation “counselling to commit kidnapping” that Chiang resigned from his candidacy. Then, remarkably, Carney replaced Chiang with former Toronto Police Service deputy chief Peter Yuen, who is a known supporter of CCP – and, in fact, created a stir having been videotapedsinging the Chinese communist anthem. Yeun is also known to be in tight with the United Front Work Department – something that was readily excused by the Liberal Party. (Yeun is now the elected MP for Markham).
The foreign interference that played out in Markham this election, along with the public displays of support for Carney and the Liberals by people with known Beijing associations, suggest the continuation of the working relationship between elected Liberals and the CCP (as was cited in the NSICOP report for the 2019 and 2021 elections). One specific incident from early 2025 was documented by Andy Lee on X, where 10 days after the Canada China Federation of Entrepreneurs held a promotion party for Carney, the group received $1.3 million in government funding. It appears it is the “you rub my back…”-business-as-usual for the Liberals under Carney as it was with Trudeau.
To again cite Sam Cooper of The Bureau, he has amassed facts and mapped out a schematic diagram that shows both Trudeau and Carney are linked to and, perhaps, influenced by an “elite network” of foreign entities including the CCP. Carney is entangled in “a constellation of global influencers deeply tied” to China’s trade and finance arms, particularly the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the World Economic Forum. In his work, Cooper has also traced the multiple ties between Brookfield’s financial interests and the CCP that entangles Canada’s prime minister with sensitive Canada-China investment dealings – something Carney will likely have to recuse himself from in future cabinet discussions.
All of this speaks to the larger questions of Canada-China relations and the biases (and possible conflicted interests) the prime minister and his Liberal colleagues bring to the decisions that are required on foreign affairs and international trade. Carney is on record repeatedly saying Canada’s long-standing relationship with our closest ally and trading partner to the south is over. So, what does moving on from the U.S. mean for the development of our trade and cultural relationship with China? What might we expect from a Beijing-friendly Liberal government?
The last decade has had many questionable activities with Canada-China relations, from the CCP police stations operating in Canadian cities, to the reluctance in condemning the CCP human rights violations and forced labour of the Uyghurs, from the avoidance of establishing a foreign agent registry, to the Beijing money flowing into the Trudeau Foundation. There is also the unmentionable scandal involving Winnipeg’s National Microbiology Laboratory’s firing and then disappearance of Dr. Xiangguo Qiu, and subsequent cover up of the suspected gain-of-function virus research conducted between the Winnipeg and Wuhan labs – collaborative research that served possibly as the genesis of the COVID-19 virus.
If Canadians have learned anything from the public and not-so-public dealings between the Liberals and CCP through the last decade, it is that this foreign influence has undermined our national interests and harmed Canada’s international reputation. John McKay, former longtime Liberal MP and the previous parliament’s chair of the House of Commons National Defence Committee, perhaps, has put it best when contemplating the country’s dealings with China and the CCP. McKay observed it is a critical matter of Canada’s sovereignty, “The government of China is an existential threat to Canada on a multiplicity of levels. We need as a nation to come to grips with the desire of the government of China to turn us all into vassal states.”
Chris George is an advocate, government relations advisor, and writer/copy editor. As president of a public relations firm established in 1994, Chris provides discreet counsel, tactical advice and management skills to CEOs/Presidents, Boards of Directors and senior executive teams in executing public and government relations campaigns and managing issues. Prior to this PR/GR career, Chris spent seven years on Parliament Hill on staffs of Cabinet Ministers and MPs. He has served in senior campaign positions for electoral and advocacy campaigns at every level of government. Today, Chris resides in Almonte, Ontario where he and his wife manage www.cgacommunications.com. Contact Chris at chrisg.george@gmail.com.
