Defending the security and integrity of the Canadian state from external and internal threats is a key federal responsibility. But it seems the federal government has its priorities backward.
Ottawa unleashed the Emergencies Act on the fictional premise that the truckers’ Freedom Convoy protest was an existential threat to Canada’s security. But when it comes to threats from hostile regimes like China, the Liberals have been dragging their feet.
Witness the recently divulged statement by U.S. sources in which the prime minister is quoted saying that “Canada will never meet its NATO defense spending target” commitment of 2 percent of GDP. Considering Russian behaviour and their desire to challenge Canada’s Arctic sovereignty, it is an irresponsible stance. The statement compromises Canada’s security in that it alienates our security partners and simultaneously but unwisely invites the predatory Russians and the Chinese regime into a vacuum of defence.
Adding to the increased potential for undermining national security from without, the government has also ignored security threats from within. It has failed to react promptly, and in the right measure, to hostile actions from the communist regime in Beijing.
China has aggressively increased its influence in international organizations like the U.N. and the WHO, and it is actively undermining Western states wherever it sees weakness. And weakness they have found in the Trudeau government, not least the prime minister’s declared fondness for the political efficiency of the Chinese dictatorship.
Paradoxically, Canadians know very little of these exploited security weaknesses because the government regularly invokes national security to obstruct Parliament from asking questions and to cover up its mismanagement in security affairs.
Canadians remain in the dark, four years later, about events at the high-security National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg. Chinese scientists were escorted off the premises in 2019 and later fired. The federal government has refused to answer questions about apparent breaches in national security and repeatedly blocked parliamentarians’ bids to learn what happened. The expelled researchers also had links to the Wuhan Lab in China, where SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused COVID-19, is suspected to have originated.
The same national security excuse is used to prevent Canadians from knowing more about, and learning why, Chinese police stations operate extraterritorially in Canada. Canada’s sovereignty is at stake when hostile foreign enforcers act with impunity inside its borders, intimidating individuals.
Whether those being targeted are exclusively Chinese nationals is irrelevant. The protection of the Charter of Rights applies to all living within Canadian borders. So the federal failure to account for foreign police actions on Canadian soil is an affront to the country’s sovereignty. Ottawa ignored reports of these foreign police stations until recently, when the Mounties were embarrassed into action as American authorities prosecute similar activity on U.S. soil.
Finally, the infamous cases of election interference sponsored by Beijing since at least 2019 have been personally obfuscated by the prime minister. For months, Trudeau refused admitting knowledge of Chinese meddling in Canada’s elections, only to acknowledge recently that Beijing interference was regularly discussed inside his government. Still, he seems to have ignored it because the meddling benefited the Liberal Party.
There is more. A gush of nearly uniform election-time donations from B.C. residents to the PM’s constituency office in Montreal give the impression of third-party involvement, added to the huge donation to the Trudeau Foundation from a source linked to the Chinese Communist Party. All questions surrounding these activities remain unanswered under the excuse of a national security shield.
Given the Trudeau government’s propensity for secrecy, it is not difficult to imagine that there may be more of these situations.
With all the threats facing Canada, Canadians should demand change.
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