Tasha Kheiriddin: Liberal inaction permitting China to colonize Canada
Public inquiry into foreign interference needed now. Our sovereignty is at stake
Author of the article:Tasha Kheiriddin
Published Aug 22, 2023
When will Prime Minister Justin Trudeau call a public inquiry into Chinese interference in Canadian elections? Answer: never, if he can help it. There is no upside in this exercise. It is like getting a root canal for a rotten tooth or fixing a leaky sewer system: a lot of pain, disruption, and expense for no visible improvement. Few see what lies beneath the surface, and most won’t appreciate it when it is fixed.
But if left to fester, the rot slowly undermines the entire structure. In the case of Canada, that structure is sovereignty, the ability to make decisions in the best interest of our citizens, freely and without interference from foreign governments. You don’t realize how precious sovereignty is until you lose it, and by then, it can be too late to get it back.
Ask Canadians today about sovereignty and they’re unlikely to say it’s a high priority. Housing, food prices, health, and public safety top the list. People are fleeing wildfires and battling drug addiction. There are so many concerns crying for attention, “sovereignty” doesn’t really rate.
But it should, because the erosion of our sovereignty by foreign powers, notably the Chinese communist government, contributes to many of those problems. On housing: Chinese money laundering inflated Canadian property values for decades and helped push home ownership out of reach for today’s buyers. On drug addiction: China is the main source country of fentanyl found in Canada, paving the way for thousands of overdose deaths. On the economy: China has targeted a host of Canadian industries for control, from lobsters to lithium.
As for individual pocketbooks, remember Nortel? The Ottawa company was a global leader in the tech business in the 1990’s, its stock a fixture in the retirement portfolio of millions of Canadians. They lost their shirts in a scandal that fingered Nortel’s chief executives, but evidence has revealed that Chinese state-sponsored hacking was really to blame, for the benefit of none other than… Huawei.
So yes, sovereignty is a big, big deal.
Not everyone feels this way, of course. Foreign interference has benefitted generations of Canadian politicians, corporations, and individuals. Canada’s elites have profited from China’s interest in our country, whether by winning seats, making money, or just enjoying a whole lot of flattery.
But our elites should think twice about continuing down this path. It’s not just that the same people who love you today can loathe you tomorrow (just ask Jack Ma, Peng Shuai or any other figure who runs afoul of China’s regime). Here and around the world, the gap between the elites and the masses is growing. Anti-elite politicians are exploiting that gap to take power. And when they do, they may enact a host of policies you don’t like, or that favour their friends, not yours.
The final irony here is that Canada has always been embroiled in the fight for sovereignty. We came to nationhood under the dominance of the British Crown, from whom we are still not divorced. The province of Quebec’s quest for sovereignty dominated national politics for fifty years, and the Bloc Québécois and the Parti Québécois are still with us. At the same time, Canadian nationalists from George Grant to Maude Barlow decried American cultural and economic domination, most notably during the free trade debate of the 1980’s. Today, Indigenous activists call for “decolonization” in everything from education to employment, questioning Canada’s history and its treatment of first peoples.
In other words, Canada’s entire history has been one long, multi-layered fight for sovereignty. So why would we let ourselves be colonized again, especially by an authoritarian state that ruthlessly represses its citizens and threatens states who challenge its hegemony?
Unless we know the extent of Chinese foreign interference in Canada, we cannot combat it. It will continue to erode control over our economy, democracy, and security. Sovereignty is not a subsidiary issue. It underpins all others, and our country itself. If this government won’t call a public inquiry, then it’s time to replace it with one that will.
Tasha Kheiriddin is a Postmedia political columnist and the author of In My Opinion on Substack
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/tasha-kheiriddin-liberal-inaction-permitting-china-to-colonize-canada
