Juno News - January 09, 2026Carney UNDER FIRE as looming China trip raises security concerns
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Summary
PM Carney is heading to China next week, hoping to warm up relations with a country he once called our biggest threat, a country that interfered with our affairs. But is there a security risk to improving our relations with China? And is it possible that China is spying on us?
Transcript
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Well, Canada's economy continues to spin its wheels as far as job creation goes.
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It created 8,200 jobs last month, not enough to keep the unemployment rate from rising,
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Canada's unemployment rate rose in December to 6.8%.
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The private sector lost jobs while government hiring went up.
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The number of jobs for young people fell by 27,000.
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Full-time jobs rose by 50,000, while part-timers lost 42,000 of them.
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Prime Minister Carney is heading to China next week,
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hoping to warm up relations with a country he once called our biggest threat,
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Here's what Carney said about China during last year's election campaign.
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We didn't have a chance to talk about anything internationally.
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I think the biggest security threat to Canada is China.
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Freelance, last night at the debate, you said the single greatest threat facing Canada was China.
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I'm hoping you can expand on that a little bit.
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And tell me a bit about how our current relationship with the U.S. impacts that threat,
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and specifically how you would stand up for the sovereignty of Taiwan,
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It is also, and I'll choose my words carefully,
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given that I'm briefed on these matters and have my security clearance and do that,
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but it is one of the largest threats with respect to foreign interference,
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which we have to counter, and we are countering.
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So why would we want to have a closer relationship with one of the world's bad actors,
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a country that interfered with our elections, stole our intellectual property?
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Well, for one thing, our trade relations with the United States have soured,
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and so Kearney wants to lessen our dependency on the U.S. market.
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But is there a security risk to improving our relations with a country that spies on us?
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There are an estimated 2,500 undeclared foreign agents in Canada.
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There is no doubt some, if not many of them, are from China.
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And Sam Cooper will be joining us shortly to talk about that.
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This headline in the Globe and Mail is reporting that Ontario has urged Kearney
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If he does, China may decide to keep its tariffs on Canadian agricultural products like canola,
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The PM will travel to China January 13th and wrap things up on the 17th.
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He'll be taking along a former Conservative MP for the ride.
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Liberal MP Michael Ma, who defected from the Conservatives in December,
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will be among those accompanying Mark Kearney to Beijing next week.
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Question, was that one of the goodies the Liberals dangled
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in order to convince Ma to cross the floor last month?
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He's the author of Willful Blindness, Election Interference, Elite, and State Capture.
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You can also check out his terrific journalism at thebureauatsubstack.com.
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Sam, Prime Minister Kearney, as you know, is off to China next week
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looking to normalize relations with a country that has spied on Canada,
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interfered with our elections, and stolen our intellectual property.
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President Trump extracting Chinese ally Nicolas Maduro over the past week.
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And the U.S. Congressional Committee on the CCP said
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that was a victory against Xi Jinping's influence in the Western Hemisphere.
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That committee will continue to investigate Xi's influence across the Western Hemisphere with its allies.
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This is a powerful U.S. committee saying she's the real bad guy in that picture.
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And here we have Canada's government going off to make nice with what it calls its strategic ally.
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Yeah, what a great point, because, of course, they were spanked when the United States went into Venezuela
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I mean, really, apart from Maduro, the biggest loser, I think, was China.
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And so they're going to be looking for someone else to cozy up with in the Western Hemisphere.
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And here's Carney, you know, Johnny on the spot going over there saying,
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There's no question in my mind he's walking into a trap.
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But as an expert on this subject, I've seen the timeline that's concerned me
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ever since Mark Carney ran against Chrystia Freeland to be the Liberal nominee.
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And as you know, as I've reported, Canada's election threat monitor said Chinese propaganda
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It was supporting Carney as a tough fighter, quote unquote, against President Trump and his,
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And look, I reported along with The Globe and Mail that Mark Carney met with the Toronto Chinese
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He denied that meeting, but the notes on that meeting from the Mandarin sources said China
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China believed Mark Carney was the person to do it.
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So I think election interference helped Mark Carney.
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And look, Michael Ma, the conservative, crossed the floor.
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We just learned yesterday from Stephen Chase of The Globe and Mail.
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Michael Ma will be traveling with Mark Carney to Beijing.
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Mark, as you know, I reported that the Michael Ma floor crossing looked suspicious.
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I reported that he had been meeting with pro-Beijing community leaders in his riding of Markham.
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I can tell you and your viewers, Mark, that the people that Michael Ma was meeting with
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are of concern to Canadian and American intelligence.
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But now this man is traveling to Beijing with Mark Carney.
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It's just a laundry list of bad moves by Canada that will not help us at all.
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Some people were saying that that meeting that he had with Communist Party officials, everybody's
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You know, it's part of doing politics in that part of the country.
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I will put myself on the line here and say the people that Mark Carney was meeting with
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and then denied meeting with, I had been investigating myself for a while.
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This Chamber of Commerce has overt acknowledged ties to Beijing's foreign influence arm, the
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These people that Mark Carney shook hands with, signaling to the Chinese diaspora that he's
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the good guy to vote for in the election, these people should be on Canada's foreign agent
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registry among the estimated 2,000 entities in Canada that should disclose themselves as
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So I'm not buying the argument that Mark Carney has to meet with what should be, you know,
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And by Mark Carney going over and shaking hands with Xi Jinping, I think we're fair to ask the
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question, will China want some concessions in terms of any intelligence or investigative
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actions Canada will take against its proxies in Canada in return, you know, for a trade deal
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or better trade between Canada or Ottawa and Beijing.
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I'm certain that that will be on Xi Jinping's wish list.
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And speaking of that registry, Sam, of course, you know that Gary and Anandas Andri is watering
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it down, you know, trying to suggest that a $50 fine might be good enough.
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You know, I mean, that's not even a slap on the wrist.
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There's no question in my mind that they have been dragging their feet just as the Trudeau
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government dragged its feet on Huawei and I believe had to have their arms twisted by
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Washington, rightfully, that we know Huawei is a Chinese intelligence spying platform.
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We know how Huawei relates to the detention of Manwanzhou and the, you know, the imprisonment,
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the kidnapping of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.
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So, look, you cannot get away from the fact that China has many active spy platforms, human
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And Mark Carney traveling over there, again, I can't stress enough that this will set Canada
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There's so much we could talk about, including, of course, Chrystia Freeland, the fact that
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And this came after accepting this offer to do work as an economic advisor for Mr. Zelensky
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Then, of course, that came just after the $2.5 billion in aid that was signed over to
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And I think Carney told Chrystia Freeland, you better go now, because he didn't want
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the stench of that scandal hanging over his government for weeks, which was the original
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suggestion by Chrystia that she was going to hang around, continue collecting her salary
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as an MP, even after she'd already accepted the position.
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The whole thing, I can see so many angles in that that bother me.
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You know, the first one, Chrystia Freeland, rightly should have signed, if we had that
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foreign agent registry that was promised, I believe now it's 19 months ago, that we're
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It's been implemented as law, but it hasn't been implemented in fact.
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Not only is it just a conflict of interest that's the easy one to see, you can't be working
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even for an allied government that we should be supporting probably in some ways against
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You can't be working for them and working for the citizens of Toronto at the same time
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Remember, I, as well as my colleague Brian Lilly and others, have been covering the story of
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how Mark Carney and his team have been trying to induce conservatives across the floor.
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Now, in hindsight, it looks like they were not only trying to get a slim majority, but probably
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to protect those seats that they knew would possibly be leaving Christia Freeland among
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And so I just think there's so much stench going on in domestic politics and international
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politics, with China being the biggest problem for the Liberal Party.
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Again, you know, I want to add right now, Michael Kovrig, now that he's back on Canadian soil,
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is becoming a good analyst and critic of what's happening in Ottawa.
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He points out that Jean Crescent, a week before Mark Carney is going over to shake hands with
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Xi Jinping, Jean Crescent, who is an admitted old friend of China, as I and others have pointed
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out, with deep business dealings, deep political ties with the Chinese Communist Party elite.
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He's over there smoothing the way, as Michael Kovrig says.
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So, I mean, Mark Carney, this is on Mark Carney, but in my assessment, there's a deeper, bigger
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picture, and that is the Liberal Party of Canada and the business industrialists surrounding
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it, many of them in Quebec, want deeper, they want to go deeper in bed with China, and that'll
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be bad for the rest of, you know, almost every Canadian that knows at the end of the day that
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our prosperity depends on trading with our natural ally, the United States, no matter if they're
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using very tough and kind of offensive rhetoric under Donald Trump.
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Yeah, I think he's playing a dangerous game as Carney.
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Now, maybe he's trying to play one off against the other, but I'm not sure he's that smart enough
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In other words, go to China, you know, maybe get some concessions in terms of the current
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tariffs on canola, 100%, and, you know, make nice with Xi Jinping, and then try to send
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the message that, you know, if we don't get this deal, if we're unable to get some kind
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of renewal of the USMCA slash KUSMA, you know, China is just waiting to do more and more
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I think he's trying to play that game, but I'm just not sure he's able to play 4D chess
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You know, let's give him the credit of being more experienced and smart than Justin Trudeau.
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So, in a standard negotiation, yeah, you try to use leverage.
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You go to the competitor so that the person you want to do a deal with sees they've got
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What happened in Venezuela this week shows that it's not an ordinary game.
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I know because I talked to senior US officials that they know very well that Chinese Communist
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Party spies, many of them, as I know, connected to organized crime that have surrounded and
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supported mainly Liberal Party politicians that are connected, I'm asserting, to those
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same business chambers that met with Mark Carney earlier this year prior to his election.
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The US government knows there's bad Chinese actors in Canada, and I think they're at the
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Their policy very clearly is not in our backyard.
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But when they say not in our backyard, they're saying no more Chinese influence in the Western
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And if Xi got beat in Venezuela, he's still trying to play his cards in Canada.
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And I just think, I agree with you, Canada, Mark Carney are playing a very dangerous game.
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And he's already served, notice as Trump, served notice to Canada that, you know, we
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know that some of the drugs are coming in through your country.
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And so he's kind of already flagged us as kind of being in the same bundle of bad actors
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when it comes to drugs, fentanyl, and et cetera, as the likes of Venezuela and Mexico.
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I think he sees us kind of in that little club of countries that have to be dealt with.
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And it's kind of troubling to have, you know, to be tarred with that brush, if you know what
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You know, and a few years ago, this would sound like, you know, tinfoil stuff.
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But we can point to actual facts that Marco Rubio talking about the Panama Canal and how
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China will not be allowed to control that through their business proxies.
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Mark, those very same shipping and, you know, banking business proxies are active in Vancouver's
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You know, I could go on and on and on and get into the weeds and talk about how the United
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Front and organized crime entities have very deep access to Vancouver's port.
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This is why FBI Director Cash Patel and my sources that I can't name privately say, look,
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China is shipping fentanyl precursors into Mexican ports controlled by these very same Chinese
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And, you know, they're shipping it up to Vancouver's port.
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The Trump administration has overtly pointed to Vancouver, British Columbia as a problem
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for Chinese Communist Party and Mexican cartel fentanyl traffickers.
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And so, you know, when you're hitting Venezuela, when you're hitting fast drug boats, when you're
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hitting port facilities, when you're extracting narco presidentes and you're pointing to Vancouver,
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I agree, Ottawa is playing a dangerous game, very dangerous game in not cracking down on those known
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With the time we've got left, I mean, complicating everything else as if it wasn't complicated
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We have Greenland and Canada setting up a consulate office there, as I understand it, almost as
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a way of kind of pointing fingers at Trump and saying, you know, not on our watch.
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And I mean, do you have any thoughts about that?
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I read it as a passive aggressive poke at President Donald Trump, much like Doug Ford's,
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whatever you think of it, Doug Ford's editing of the Reagan ad, if you remember, which appears
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to have been, according to the Trump administration, election interference.
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And the reason that they pulled out of trade negotiations with Mark Carney, look, I think
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I'm quite sure that Mark Carney at some level approved of that ad.
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And Mark, by the way, it was a similar message run by the Chinese Communist Party, who also
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focused in a sort of a dishonest way on Reagan's speech about tariffs.
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And so my point here is that passive aggressive games have not have fake elbows up or passive
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And Mark Carney talking about putting a consulate on Greenland, whichever way you look at that
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There's enough solid American politicians saying they will never support a military movement
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And Mark Carney is is not going to help anything by saying he's going to put a consulate up there
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