Interview with Charles Burton: Two Former Mounties Charged: Unpacking Chinese Foreign Interference in Canada

 

Interview with CTV News Channel on Charges Against Ex-Mountie

 

Burton: Is anybody out there protecting us from China’s agenda?

 Burton: Is anybody out there protecting us from China’s agenda?

 https://www.ipolitics.ca/opinions/is-anybody-out-there-protecting-us-from-chinas-agenda

 

As if to underscore Ottawa’s paralysis, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino’s much touted public consultations on creating a Foreign Interference Transparency Registry has so far has gone nowhere. Likewise, Canada’s much-delayed Indo-Pacific Strategy statement last spring — which seemed designed to reassure our allies that Canada will stand up and respond to China’s threat to world peace — has apparently ended up in the bottom of a drawer in the Prime Minister’s office, along with other feel-good statements of intent. And Canada’s dismal 1.29 percent of GDP spending on NATO means we’re not only stiffing those allies but leaving our Arctic essentially undefended, as China is already doing the type of surveillance activities that would precede the deployment of nuclear submarines in our northern waters. 

Ottawa has made no clear commitment to help defend Taiwan, whose sovereignty and freedom has been under growing threat from Beijing year by year. China has also been incrementally making South Korea more susceptible to economic coercion, as their economies increasingly intertwine. For Beijing, the allure of a unified pro-China Korean peninsula would be a huge geostrategic game changer, and bode very badly for Canada and the free world.

Unfortunately, so long as vested interests in Ottawa quietly do Beijing’s bidding while they remain in positions of public trust (so as not to jinx any post-political career law firm appointments or lucrative board memberships), China will continue to enjoy what amounts to veto power Canadian sovereignty and security.