Liberal Leader Mark Carney says as Canada looks to diversify its trading partners, any potential partners in Asia would need to share Canadian values, which he says doesn’t include China.
Carney made the comment during a campaign stop on March 26 in Windsor, Ont., where he expanded on how he thinks Canada should diversify its trading partners.
The Liberal leader said Canada has to diversify its trade because it’s “over-reliant” on its southern neighbour. This diversification, however, should be done with “like-minded” partners, said Carney, who noted he visited France and the United Kingdom almost immediately after becoming prime minister.
Carney said deeper ties can also be built with Asian countries, while adding that potential partners in Asia that share Canada’s values “don’t include China.”
“There’s certain activity that we could have with China. We obviously do have a large amount of trade with them, but we have to be very careful, very deliberate, and they need to meet Canadian standards,” he said.
The Trudeau government had a similar approach, as outlined in its Indo-Pacific Strategy, which calls China an “increasingly disruptive global power.” Ottawa said it would challenge Beijing in some areas while seeking to cooperate in others, such as on climate change and nuclear proliferation.
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Carney was also asked by reporters about comments by the Conservatives the previous day saying his previous company has a sizeable loan with a Chinese state-owned bank. Tory Leader Pierre Poilievre had criticized the move, saying the debt could be used by China as tool of influence over the government.
When asked by reporters about the loan, and whether he is beholden to China as the Tories charge, Carney replied “absolutely not.”
“I’m beholden to absolutely no one except to the Canadian people,” he added.
Carney said Poilievre “doesn’t understand how the world works,” while noting that China is Canada’s second-largest trading partner. He said the government currently needs to engage Beijing on the trade dispute between the two countries.
Ottawa slapped tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, steel, and aluminum in the fall in lockstep with the United States, and China responded this month by imposing duties on Canadian agricultural products and seafood.
Carney said the auto sector was an example of where Ottawa would need to assess “where China is, where China is going, whether or not there’s any room for partnership in that.”
Poilievre the previous day had said that in October 2024 when Carney was still board chair of Brookfield Asset Management, an investment firm, he had met with the deputy director of China’s central bank. Brookfield later secured a US$276 million loan from the state-owned Bank of China to refinance a loan backing its purchase of a Shanghai-based office tower complex, Bloomberg News reported in November.
“How is he ever going to stand up to foreign interference when he is so financially compromised,” said Poilievre.
Carney said he quit all his corporate roles when he launched his Liberal leadership bid. Carney has repeatedly said he doesn’t know what the blind trust contains and has refused to publicly disclose what the assets included before he put them into the trust. He has said he has set up set up conflict-of-interest screens with the ethics commissioner around Brookfield and payment processor Stripe, for which he also had a board role.
Pressed by reporters again on the issue on March 26, Carney said all he has is “cash” and “personal real estate.”
He said all his assets were “divested into a blind trust, which is managed by a trustee, and it literally means exactly what it says: I don’t know what’s in it.”
Poilievre also responded to question on foreign interference on March 25, after The Globe and Mail earlier that day published a report based on an anonymous source saying that Indian agents had fundraised and organized on behalf of Poilievre during the 2022 Conservative leadership race.
The information from the source, said to have a top-secret security clearance, reportedly came from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). The source added that CSIS had no evidence Poilievre or his inner circle were aware of the meddling, and that the information was not shared with Poilievre because he does not have the required top-secret security clearance, as opposed to other party leaders.
The subject of China’s interference in Canadian elections and other democratic institutions has been under more scrutiny in recent years following intelligence leaks about Beijing’s extensive meddling attempts.
The Foreign Interference Inquiry set up to look into the issue noted that then-Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole, who had an elaborate platform to confront China’s aggressions on the world stage and its influence activities in Canada, was targeted by Beijing for interference.
The inquiry also noted that other politicians who were critical of China’s rights abuses, including Conservative MPs Michael Chong and Kenny Chiu, as well as NDP MP Jenny Kwan, were targeted by Beijing as well.
