Carney Says China Presents Major Foreign Interference Threat to Canada

Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks about tariffs during a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on April 3, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

Liberal Leader Mark Carney says China poses one of the biggest foreign interference threats to Canada.

Carney made the remarks at a campaign stop in Niagara Falls on April 18.

The Liberal leader had been asked by a reporter to expand on his comments at the English-language leaders debate on April 17, where Carney said China is the “biggest security threat” facing Canada.

“It is one of the largest threats with respect to foreign interference, which we have to counter, and we are, we are countering,” Carney told reporters in Niagara Falls.

He said that China is “a threat within a broader Asia and to Taiwan” and that Beijing is supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“So we both have to engage with China and take steps to protect ourselves here,” he said, adding that one of the ways of doing so was to protect the Arctic.

“China is a threat, becoming an emerging threat to the Arctic, which is ... one of the reasons why we'll now have a year-round presence in the Arctic,” Carney told reporters.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has also identified China as a threat to Canada, saying that China has declared itself a “near Arctic state.”

Poilievre has also committed to building a permanent Arctic military base in Iqaluit, the Nunavut capital.

International Relations

Carney said the current U.S. tariffs are altering the world economic order and will impact Canada’s international relations.

“We'll end up with different levels of engagement with different countries, depending on the degree of which values are shared,” he said. “There’s a very large gap with respect to China, obviously, which has implications already for our trade and will be going forward.”

He said he believes there are opportunities for Canada to expand its trade with Europe, Asia, and elsewhere.

“There are huge opportunities in Europe, in ASEAN, Mercosur, other parts of the world where we can further deepen [our trade relationships]. And we should, and I think we will,” Carney said, referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Southern Common Market, a South American trade block.

The Conservatives, for their part, have raised questions about Carney’s interactions with Chinese leaders while he was in the private sector.

More recently this month, photos surfaced of Carney with representatives of the Jiangsu Commerce Council of Canada (JCCC), a pro-Beijing group with ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its United Front Work Department.

The United Front functions as the CCP’s “primary foreign interference tool” working to “stifle criticism, infiltrate foreign political parties, diaspora communities, universities and multinational corporations,” says a 2020 report by Public Safety Canada citing research by an Australian think tank.

Carney responded to an April 10 report by The Globe & Mail that said the JCCC executives had claimed they had an “in-depth exchange” with the Liberal leader, with Carney saying he meets with thousands of people while campaigning, and that this doesn’t equate to a meeting.

“If somebody happens to be in the room and takes a picture with me, that’s not a meeting,” Carney told reporters.

The Liberal Party said the JCCC’s claim about an “in-depth” discussion between Carney and the group’s leaders was false. It said it had asked the group remove the claim from its website.

Carney also faced questions over his refusal last month to remove Liberal candidate and incumbent MP Paul Chiang, who suggested that his Conservative rival, a Hong Kong democracy activist, be handed over to the Chinese Consulate in Toronto to collect a bounty.

Carney on March 31 said Chiang had apologized and would not be removed as a candidate.

Chiang subsequently resigned later on the same day.

The RCMP, in a statement to media, said it is “looking into” the comments made by Chiang, without giving further details. The national police force noted that foreign interference and transnational repression remain “pervasive” threats in Canada.

Chinese Information Operation Around Carney

Canada’s Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force said earlier this month that it had detected an “information operation” on Chinese social media platform WeChat “targeting the 45th General Election” and specifically “targeting Mr. Carney” as a candidate.

“The SITE Task Force assesses that the foreign state-backed information operation was intended to influence Canadian-Chinese communities and look to mould perceptions about the candidate [Carney],” said Laurie-Anne Kempton, assistant secretary to the cabinet for communications with the Privy Council Office, during a press conference in Ottawa on April 7.

“This kind of coordinated inauthentic behaviour is just an attempt to pollute the digital environment and try to shape opinions one way or the other,” she added.

Noe Chartier, Carolina Avendano, Omid Ghoreishi contributed to this article.