Burton: Canada must boost its security apparatus against China and Russia
Consider Cameron Ortis, former director general of the RCMP’s national intelligence unit, who was accused in 2019 of trying to share sensitive information with a foreign entity. What should we be learning from his arrest? Or the Winnipeg labs matter? Was there a failure to protect national security that should be addressed by Parliament? Then there’s Quentin Huang. Charged in 2013 with trying to sell Canadian military secrets to China, the Canadian engineer went eight years without a trial before a judge finally dismissed the case, citing lack of progress. Why is it that, unlike our allies, Canada is incapable of holding a proper trial of someone accused of transferring our military technologies to a foreign state?
If the RCMP, CSIS and CSE refuse to share intelligence assessments on where Canada is vulnerable to Russian and Chinese malign operations, the federal government must take the required steps to defend our security. Too often, Canadian police and security agencies see their role as simply curating information that they can trade with the counterpart agencies. This danger is much more pronounced in Canada than among our allies, whose security agencies have much more effective legislative oversight.
The suffering of Ukraine is not just bad weather in international relations; it’s the harbinger of geostrategic climate change led by China as well. Canada must cut the rhetoric and take action to face the new global realities.
