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Written by: Aidan Jonah

With Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s recently passed Bill 5, the ‘China threat’ narrative has began used as designed, to create a panic under the cover of which democratic rights can be crippled or annihilated in Canada.

As US President Donald Trump was actively speaking of making Canada the 51st US State, Ontario Premier Doug Ford proposed a ‘Fortress Am-Can’ with the US “to accelerate strategic resource development, including Ontario’s critical minerals in the Ring of Fire region”.

Ford’s justification for such planning came from the ‘China threat’:

“Ontario and Canada have critical minerals in abundance and America needs them. At a time when China is winning the race to dominate these resources while also restricting the sale and shipment of critical minerals to the U.S., Canada and Ontario need to urgently get our critical minerals out of the ground, processed and shipped to the factory floors that are building for the future.”

Premier Ford’s desperate ‘China threat’ fearmongering

Days earlier, Ford had played into Trump’s pressure tactics by baselessly blaming China for the US’ economic struggles, pleading with the US for a bi-lateral deal, rather than annexation threats. And after throwing China under the bus to please Trump, Ford released his dream deal with the US, with China bashing central to its justification.

In February, Ford’s desperate anti-China rhetoric and Trump-pleasing moves were still going strong, as he promised, if re-elected – he was later that month – Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party would “ban Chinese components from all future energy procurements”. Such a move would include “banning any Chinese state-owned enterprise from buying or taking equity in any Ontario government funded energy, critical mineral or major infrastructure asset.”

In March, Ford’s bid to bash China to get Canada a reprieve from Trump’s targeting came to CNN. Ford told the US news network, “Let’s stop the bleeding on both sides of the border, as China is sitting there laughing at both countries.” Then days later, Ford defended the foolish 100 per cent tariffs on Chinese-made EVs levied by Canada’s government last year, at the US’ behest.

Bill 5 sets the table for targeting democratic rights in Ontario

It should be of little surprise that Ford has since fiercely pursued his dream ‘Fortress-AmCan’, at a devastating cost to Ontarians.

The dream of a ‘Fortress Am-Can’ provided Ford the grounds to push Bill 5 – becoming law this June - which allows the government to “create special economic zones, where cabinet can exempt companies or projects from having to comply with any provincial law, provincial regulation or municipal bylaw.” The bill was passed earlier this month, a guarantee given the Progressive Conservatives, of whom Ford is leader, obtained a majority government in this year’s provincial election.

Allowing a government in Canada to have this power opens the door for mass suppression of democratic rights and crushing of opposition from Indigenous nations to environmentally dangerous projects that could harm ordinary people.

While China does have a history of special economic zones, China also has had an anti-colonial, anti-imperialist government trusted by the vast majority of its citizens since the Communist Party of China (CPC)’s victory over the Kuomintang (KMT) in the Chinese Civil War, and the founding of the PRC in 1949. These zones can thus be safely trusted to be properly managed by the Chinese government. With a government of the opposite character in Canada, such trust can’t be had at present.

But how did the ‘China threat’ emerge to be used by Ford?

CSIS creates a Chinese ‘foreign interference’ panic

CSIS’ rhetoric on a ‘China threat’ began in December 2018, after the narrative – starting with attacks on Huawei - began being pushed by the US national security agencies earlier in the year.

This author explained how an ex-Conservative MP, without evidence, claimed that he lost his seat in parliament because of ‘Chinese interference, in 2021, providing the trigger for the long-term development of the ‘Chinese foreign interference panic’:

“CSIS ramped up its campaign to brief MPs about supposed Russian, Chinese and Iranian “interference” in Canadian politics, beginning in September 2021, after Conservative MP Kenny Chiu lost his seat in British Columbia. Chiu, without evidence, claimed Chinese Canadian organizing to defeat his candidacy, after he tabled a bill for the creation of a foreign influence registry in April 2021, only happened because of a Chinese government disinformation campaign.

In the following months of 2021, CSIS began to brief MPs about alleged foreign interference plots, by China in particular, in view of generating fear.”

While momentum was lost for most of 2022, the CSIS briefings continued to strong effect:

“While CSIS redacted the names of MPs and the specific talking points crafted for them, the documents reveal that among those briefed were an unnamed Liberal cabinet minister and the Minister of Public Safety, Marco Mendicino. Interviews cited for Fife and Chase’s Globe and Mail article corroborate that Conservative MP Michael Chong and NDP MP Jenny Kwan were likely among the group of MPs briefed by CSIS.”

In 2023, after ‘leakers’ piled up in the halls of the Globe & Mail and Global News, the Canadian government gave into the panic. Universities were pressured to cut research ties with PRC universities as much as possible. The government brought in David Johnston as a special rapporteur to investigate alleged ‘Chinese foreign interference’ in Canada. When Johnston didn’t call for a foreign interference inquiry desired by CSIS, anti-China diaspora activists and the unofficial alliance of MSM journalists and other activists, he was successfully pressured to resign.

Then, months later, Canada’s foreign interference inquiry began, led by Justice Marie-Josee Hogue. The end result in December 2024 was, while vindicating for MP Han Dong, Michael Chan and others – who Hogue said didn’t enable foreign interference – and embarrassing for ex-Conservative MP Kenny Chiu and NDP MP Jenny Kwan, it was still a moment which Hogue used to make many recommendations damaging for internal democracy within Canada (and erroneously call the Taiwan area a ‘country’).

Now, with fears of a US annexation of Canada, the ‘China threat’ is of a low priority to most Canadians. CSIS doesn’t want the channel to change however, still referring to China as “the greatest counter-intelligence threat to Canada”, in its 2024 report.

Meanwhile, sick of their abandonment by the broader Canadian left, the anti-imperialist faction of the Chinese Canadian community is building a national organization against McCarthyism. The organization will work to “protect the democratic rights of Chinese Canadians, protect community organizations and fight back against Canadian state McCarthyism”, according to leading organizer in the fight for an apology and compensation for the Chinese Head Tax, William Ging Wee Dere.

The organization’s founding is being led by Senator Yuen Pau Woo – formerly targeted by NED-funded Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project in retaliation for not supporting their ‘Ugyur genocide’ motion in the Senate -and is “tentatively called Rights and Freedoms of Chinese Canadians”.

Canadian anti-imperialist workers should look towards anti-imperial/pro-Chinese sovereignty Canadians as key potential allies to assist in their opposition to Canadian-state McCarthyism. This faction of Chinese Canadians has a better chance than many of grasping anti-colonial, anti-imperial politics (which have built a powerful and sovereign state), given the history of the Chinese nation. The aforementioned workers should take the required risks to stand alongside them without guarantee of organizational benefit.

Horrible slander against the People’s Republic of China is being used by Canadian political elites to set the table for the crippling of democratic rights for Canadians of all spades, anti-China, neutral and pro-China. This author hopes Canadians can understand how slander against foreign ‘enemies’ is a usable pretext for attacks on their domestic lives, under the guise of protecting their ‘safety’, and resist such slander accordingly.

Aidan Jonah is the Editor-in-Chief of The Canada Files, an independent news outlet covering Canadian foreign policy with a strong focus on Canada-China relations. Jonah wrote a report for the 48th session of the UN Human Rights Council, held in September 2021.

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