Mark Slapinski

00:00:00.000 Put bluntly, that's essentially asking, how does Canada sell more to a country

00:00:03.800 when at the same time its authoritarian government has a largely hostile agenda

00:00:08.500 against Canada and other democracies and often does harmful things to Canadian citizens and residents?

00:00:14.440 Canadian Prime Minister needs to be very careful in China, according to a former political prisoner.

00:00:19.340 Mark Carney is currently in Communist China, looking to talk trade with senior government officials

00:00:24.180 and also looking to resolve the trade war between both countries.

00:00:27.680 The Canadian government imposed 100% tariffs on Chinese electrical vehicles back in 24,

00:00:33.280 causing the Chinese government to retaliate, imposing 100% tariffs on canola products from Canada.

00:00:38.980 However, in light of Trump's ongoing trade war with Canada and the rest of the world,

00:00:43.300 the Liberal government in Canada is looking to increase and build trading relationships across the Pacific and the Atlantic.

00:00:49.900 Michael Kovrig was unlawfully detained in China for around three years on trumped-up charges of espionage,

00:00:56.200 and he knows a thing or two about the bad side of the Chinese government.

00:01:00.660 He laid it all bare during a recent interview with Miranda Anthesol of Global News.

00:01:04.940 Let's listen in.

00:01:05.800 Given your experience and everything that you went through while you were detained, Michael,

00:01:09.900 how do you view Carney's trip to Beijing, which, as I mentioned, is really being touted as this step forward

00:01:16.060 in restoring and rebuilding relations between our countries?

00:01:19.440 Sure.

00:01:21.440 Yeah.

00:01:21.760 Talking with China is necessary, so I support Prime Minister Carney going.

00:01:25.980 The reality is there are several foreign leaders going to China this year, right?

00:01:30.940 France's Macron just went, South Korea's Lee, and right after Mark Carney, we have Keir Starmer.

00:01:36.700 So we don't want Canada to be left out.

00:01:39.080 Canada has to be part of those diplomatic dialogues.

00:01:41.620 It's a G7 country.

00:01:43.440 If we want our voices and interests and perspectives to be heard and respected,

00:01:48.980 then Mark Carney needs to be in the meetings.

00:01:51.120 And since Xi Jinping isn't traveling very much these days, aside from the occasional APEX summit,

00:01:56.220 if you want to talk to him and get things done in China and solve problems,

00:01:59.880 you have to go to Beijing and you have to talk to President Xi.

00:02:03.140 So talking to China is necessary, but doing it without illusions is essential.

00:02:07.340 Well, that leads me to my next question.

00:02:09.600 I mean, let's talk about sort of the blurred lines between politics and trade

00:02:13.120 when it comes to our relationship with China.

00:02:15.080 I mean, how can our government balance strengthening trade ties but also addressing security concerns?

00:02:22.100 I mean, are there concerns that this trip can maybe sweep legitimate concerns

00:02:26.160 like political interference allegations under the rug and leave those unresolved?

00:02:31.880 That's exactly the key question.

00:02:33.560 How does Mark Carney balance the stronger economic ties with China without compromising on Canadian values?

00:02:40.820 Put bluntly, that's essentially asking, how does Canada sell more to a country

00:02:45.040 when at the same time its authoritarian government has a largely hostile agenda against Canada and other democracies

00:02:51.740 and often does harmful things to Canadian citizens and residents?

00:02:55.880 Short answer, very carefully with a lot of safeguards.

00:02:59.380 So keeping Canadians safe, protecting their rights, protecting their democratic processes

00:03:04.520 and ensuring that national security, all of those things have to be red lines in any negotiation.

00:03:11.360 Both sides in Beijing right now, as they sit around the negotiating tables,

00:03:14.580 are going to be setting out the boundaries of what they can accept.

00:03:17.280 The Chinese have red lines as well. 0.92

00:03:19.360 Mark Carney has to stay firm on Canada's.

00:03:22.020 Within those boundaries, he has some room to negotiate on areas where mutual interests overlap

00:03:27.040 in order to drive economic benefits that bring jobs and economic growth and prosperity to Canada.

00:03:32.880 But he has to stay firm and recognize that trade with China comes with a lot of complications

00:03:37.980 that make a lot of it not worth the trouble.

00:03:40.500 A big part of the complication today is the tariffs on canola, seafood and pork that China's put in place

00:03:45.520 as it tries to coerce Canada to let it dump subsidized EVs, steel and aluminum on the Canadian market.

00:03:51.640 But Mark Carney needs to negotiate very carefully on that to make sure that he doesn't hurt one sector

00:03:56.880 in order to save another.

00:03:58.280 Now, Kovrig makes some excellent points here.

00:04:01.260 While the Canadian Prime Minister is looking to make new friends in light of an increasingly erratic

00:04:06.440 and unstable American president, he ought to be careful in not replacing one unstable friend

00:04:11.980 with another unstable friend.

00:04:13.900 Now, most right-wing political commentators in Canada are describing this as Carney's selling

00:04:18.360 out her country to communists, one of those people being right-wing commentator Jasmine Lane. 1.00

00:04:23.560 Let's take a look at a recent video she put out.

00:04:25.600 So just to clarify, Canada is panicking over Trump annexing us while actively warming relations

00:04:32.720 with a country that's actually trying to annex somebody?

00:04:36.860 Seriously, what?

00:04:37.820 We're told by mainstream media predominantly and the liberal government that Trump's 51st state

00:04:43.100 comments are an existential threat to our sovereignty.

00:04:46.440 There's endless panels, endless headlines, endless lectures diversifying our trade.

00:04:52.300 But then at the exact same time, Canada is promoting closer ties with China.

00:04:56.800 But China isn't joking.

00:04:58.600 China isn't just riffing.

00:05:00.280 China is running active military drills around Taiwan, threatening force, isolating them diplomatically

00:05:06.640 and punishing countries that support them.

00:05:09.320 So let me get this straight. 1.00

00:05:10.700 Donald Trump says something stupid and there's a national meltdown that is still continuing almost 1.00

00:05:15.720 a year later. 1.00

00:05:16.920 China threatens democracy with invasion and it's careful diplomacy and we should really 1.00

00:05:21.600 get away from the U.S. and closer to China. 0.93

00:05:24.260 We are so terrified of something that Donald Trump isn't even doing while accommodating and

00:05:29.200 wanting to get closer to something China openly says it will do and is pressuring and low-key

00:05:35.880 threatening other countries who try to intervene in it.

00:05:38.720 Now, Lane's argument is more or less in line with what other right-wing commentators in Canada

00:05:42.940 on both YouTube and X are saying.

00:05:45.400 However, I really don't like her argument.

00:05:47.360 She's basically trying to equate China's threats to annex Taiwan with Donald Trump's 0.99

00:05:51.280 threats to annex Canada.

00:05:53.220 However, I don't really like this argument and it's easily debunkable.

00:05:56.540 First of all, to state the obvious, we don't live in Taiwan.

00:06:00.100 We live in Canada.

00:06:00.940 And China isn't threatening to take us over.

00:06:04.020 Donald Trump is.

00:06:05.320 Now, if you think Donald Trump was joking about that, I encourage you to listen to what he

00:06:09.780 said again really closely.

00:06:11.720 Real fast, you said you were considering military force to acquire Panama and Greenland.

00:06:17.680 Are you also considering military force to annex and acquire Panama?

00:06:21.300 No.

00:06:22.020 Economic force.

00:06:23.600 Because Canada and the United States, that would really be something.

00:06:27.940 You get rid of that artificially drawn line and you take a look at what that looks like.

00:06:34.160 And it would also be much better for national security.

00:06:36.540 Don't forget, we basically protect Canada.

00:06:38.500 Now, to me, that doesn't sound like a joke.

00:06:40.540 It's not funny.

00:06:41.820 I'm not laughing.

00:06:43.160 Most Canadians are not laughing.

00:06:44.960 And it sounds like he's 100% serious.

00:06:47.340 And that wasn't the first or the only time he said something like that.

00:06:50.340 When he threatened to take over a country with economic force, that is the textbook literal

00:06:55.080 definition of annexation.

00:06:56.620 Now, the second problem with Lane's argument, and many of the other arguments I'm seeing

00:07:01.000 and hearing online, is that Trump is acting in good faith, and he's the one that wants

00:07:05.700 a good deal with Canada.

00:07:07.040 But Trump has made it pretty clear as of late that he's not interested in any sort of trade

00:07:10.640 deal with Canada.

00:07:11.680 Listen to this right here.

00:07:12.960 All of them.

00:07:13.620 General Motors is doing really well.

00:07:16.600 Stellantis is doing really well.

00:07:18.120 We're really happy about it.

00:07:19.420 I just wanted to build their product in the USA.

00:07:22.060 You don't think you're going to renegotiate USMCA?

00:07:25.880 Well, I can.

00:07:27.080 It expires very shortly.

00:07:29.340 And we could have it or not.

00:07:30.760 It wouldn't matter to me.

00:07:31.760 I think they want it.

00:07:33.300 I don't really care about it.

00:07:34.940 So, it might go away.

00:07:36.040 No real advantage to it.

00:07:43.280 It's irrelevant to me.

00:07:45.300 Canada would love it.

00:07:46.720 Canada wants it.

00:07:47.660 They need it.

00:07:48.720 Because we don't need Canada product.

00:07:50.560 That's the thing.

00:07:51.120 You know, I want to be a nice person, but we don't need...

00:07:53.540 I want to build the cars here, not in Canada.

00:07:55.740 We used to build cars in Canada.

00:07:57.400 Now, the Canada cars, the Canadians are moving here to build cars. 0.97

00:08:01.740 Same thing with Mexico.

00:08:03.020 Same thing with Japan.

00:08:05.100 Japan's paid us billions and billions of dollars for the privilege of making cars here and selling

00:08:11.860 cars.

00:08:12.360 Now, I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like someone who wants a trade deal with

00:08:15.340 Canada. 0.97

00:08:15.680 That sounds like someone who's a bully, who's also economically illiterate. 0.83

00:08:20.460 And I checked today, and to my surprise, the United States still has tariffs on every

00:08:24.980 single one of its major trading partners.

00:08:27.320 So, when people try to spin this around as if it's somehow just a problem between Canada

00:08:31.460 and the United States, they're wrong.

00:08:33.900 Regardless of what Donald Trump says, the United States is still heavily reliant on Canada.

00:08:38.080 They need us more than they think they do.

00:08:40.160 And of course, the United States is the stronger, bigger power, but that doesn't mean they don't

00:08:44.740 need us.

00:08:45.260 That is not true.

00:08:46.680 Donald Trump treating his allies like this, it's only going to hurt him and his country

00:08:51.080 in the long run.

00:08:52.200 Now, contrary to what you may have heard, it was Donald Trump that picked a fight with

00:08:55.640 Canada, and it put us in this unfortunate position of having to find new, reliable trading

00:09:01.100 partners.

00:09:01.880 The biggest threat to Canada right now, it's not China. 0.92

00:09:05.200 It's not Russia. 0.79

00:09:06.600 Aside from our own government, it's the United States of America.

00:09:09.700 If Trump is able to fulfill his imperialistic ambitions of taking over Greenland, I'm pretty

00:09:15.060 sure Canada is going to be next.

00:09:17.220 Look, I'm tired of right-wingers in Canada simping for Trump.

00:09:20.800 Grow a spine and call it out.

00:09:23.120 Call it out.

00:09:24.200 Just do the right thing for once in your lives and call it out.

00:09:27.660 Donald Trump has gone full authoritarian, and he's acting less like a friend to us and

00:09:32.960 more like an enemy.

00:09:34.040 And in my opinion, he's the biggest threat to Canada since Nazi Germany. 0.85

00:09:38.360 And I'm not being hyperbolic.

00:09:39.900 That is the reality we're facing.

00:09:41.720 And yes, there is genuine criticism of Mark Carney.

00:09:44.260 And if you've watched my videos, you would know that I am highly critical of Mark Carney.

00:09:48.740 But just because there's genuine criticism of Mark Carney doesn't mean that Donald Trump

00:09:53.020 gets a free pass to do whatever he wants.

00:09:55.560 The way a lot of my other fellow commentators are framing this is that just because Carney is

00:10:00.140 bad, and just because the liberal government is and was bad, everything that Donald Trump

00:10:04.680 does is irrelevant.

00:10:06.220 I don't like that argument.

00:10:08.040 Multiple things can be true at the same time.

00:10:10.580 You can criticize Carney and still criticize Donald Trump.

00:10:14.260 These two things are not mutually exclusive, at least to anyone who has an IQ over 80.

00:10:19.900 And I would like to think that the majority of people that watch my videos, if not all,

00:10:23.920 have an IQ that's at least a little bit higher than 80.

00:10:26.780 I play the rest of the interview with Kovrig and Global News.

00:10:29.180 I don't necessarily agree with everything that Kovrig says, but I think it's worth watching.

00:10:34.040 So, Michael, do you think that real progress, or some progress at least, can be made here?

00:10:39.660 And what exactly would that look like?

00:10:43.160 Sure, yeah.

00:10:43.860 Progress, I think, is definitely possible.

00:10:46.100 I think some incremental progress, probably on the issue of electric vehicles and canola,

00:10:51.300 which is the hardest one to negotiate.

00:10:52.820 And then probably some further progress in other areas that are not as sensitive or that are more negotiable, shall we say.

00:11:00.620 So, progress, for example, on selling energy to China, selling other agricultural commodities to China.

00:11:06.560 China is already taking oil through the TMX pipeline, and there's capacity for more.

00:11:11.240 Canada is increasing the capacity to sell liquid natural gas to China.

00:11:15.860 That's largely a win-win that is not very politically contentious.

00:11:19.540 It's a question of capacity and the political framework that makes it possible.

00:11:23.700 The crucial thing in any sector is to make sure that we don't sell too much to China,

00:11:29.300 that Canada's government oversees sectors and doesn't interfere necessarily in the business operations,

00:11:35.260 but makes sure that no one company or sector becomes so dependent on China

00:11:39.260 that the Chinese government can then weaponize that to put pressure on Ottawa to change Canadian policies

00:11:45.180 and constrain Canadian freedom and autonomy.

00:11:48.160 That is the trade security balance that he has to keep.

00:11:52.220 And Michael, what did you learn from your time in China that you think could serve as advice for our government on this particular trip?

00:12:01.920 Well, a lot of things, but I studied China for a couple of decades as well as spending time inside its system.

00:12:08.940 First of all, don't mirror image.

00:12:11.200 The Chinese, particularly people inside the Chinese Communist Party in the state,

00:12:15.880 have a radically different worldview from people who grew up and live in liberal democracies.

00:12:20.540 They see things very differently and they also mirror image.

00:12:24.460 They have different negotiating styles.

00:12:26.560 So you need to start with understanding their worldview, have strategic empathy for their perspectives,

00:12:31.720 even if you don't agree with them, to understand why they think the way they do,

00:12:35.500 what makes them act the way they do, because they're not unpredictable.

00:12:38.240 What's unpredictable, or in many cases erratic, has been Canada's policy on China,

00:12:44.160 which seems to go through this cycle of excessive hope and optimism to frustration to bitterness and then back again.

00:12:52.100 Instead, we need to have a long-term strategy that takes a holistic whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach

00:12:59.360 to understanding China deeply, understanding that we're not going to change China,

00:13:04.440 and so we need to protect ourselves and seek areas where we can cooperate on China.

00:13:09.840 I would expect a lot of discussions on economics, on climate and climate finance that could go fairly well,

00:13:15.900 possibly even public health issues, people-to-people ties, increased tourism,

00:13:20.220 some academic exchanges within areas that are not sensitive for research security, for example.

00:13:25.200 So do you think Canadians are safer with improved relations between our country and China,

00:13:31.940 or do you think we should always be wary of that government, and it may always serve as a threat to us?

00:13:38.500 I think the reality is citizens of open societies and democracies always need to be wary of any government

00:13:44.260 that doesn't have checks and balances, that doesn't obey the rule of law.

00:13:48.380 And in China, the Communist Party makes the law.

00:13:50.600 It sees the law as a tool of its own political objectives.

00:13:53.980 So any country that functions like that, you're never going to be entirely safe visiting,

00:13:58.660 and you always have to be extra cautious in dealing with it.

00:14:01.940 And that's why you need careful safeguards.

00:14:04.340 You need efforts to do further policing and intelligence around transnational repression,

00:14:10.480 around espionage, cyber security issues, foreign interference, investment screenings.

00:14:18.000 You need all those measures to protect Canadians.

00:14:19.840 But at the end of the day, yes, if you have better diplomatic relations,

00:14:23.900 then that does make Canada safer and more protected,

00:14:26.360 because ideally, more and more things then can be raised by Prime Minister Carney and his ministers and officials,

00:14:33.660 and managed diplomatically.

00:14:35.680 The crux of the problem in the crisis that I got pulled into was that Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou on a U.S. extradition warrant,

00:14:42.460 and China, instead of trying to solve the problem diplomatically,

00:14:46.200 tried to solve the problem through hostage-taking, blackmail, and trade sanctions and threats,

00:14:50.660 and it cut off all communications.

00:14:53.060 So Canada's been trying to talk to China all along.

00:14:55.640 What's changed since Mark Carney came into office,

00:14:58.560 with a fig leaf for China, the change,

00:15:00.960 is that Xi Jinping became willing to talk to Canada again.

00:15:04.140 So we should use that opportunity.

00:15:05.600 But we should have no illusions that if another crisis happens,

00:15:09.440 once again, the Chinese Communist Party may not pick up the phone.

00:15:13.680 Well, Michael, you got caught up in that system.

00:15:16.300 You were essentially a pawn.

00:15:18.160 How do you view China years on, years later?

00:15:22.100 What is your perspective on that country and that government?

00:15:25.960 I think the critical differentiator that all the Canadians, 1.00

00:15:29.580 and indeed every citizen who wants to understand China,

00:15:31.780 needs to understand,

00:15:32.380 is there are the people of China and the nation of China.

00:15:36.500 And they're as wonderful and diverse as any other nation.

00:15:39.820 Many of them have become Canadian citizens or residents and go back and forth.

00:15:43.660 So the challenge there is simply that it is an extremely large country, right?

00:15:48.200 There are more people living in China today

00:15:50.160 than there were on the entire planet in the 19th century.

00:15:53.400 So that makes any country of that size vast and powerful and complicated to deal with.

00:15:58.080 And it has a lot of complicated interests.

00:16:00.360 That would be normally manageable.

00:16:01.740 The real challenge that makes China unique is its one-party state.

00:16:06.660 It's fundamentally a Leninist, bureaucratic, authoritarian state

00:16:10.360 that has very different ways of functioning.

00:16:14.080 And it has an agenda.

00:16:15.380 And it sees an opportunity, particularly in this decisive decade,

00:16:18.860 when the world is in disorder,

00:16:20.660 to put itself in a dominant position

00:16:22.920 and to break up the West,

00:16:24.860 to break up Western alliances like NATO,

00:16:27.200 and to weaken the bonds between Western countries

00:16:29.960 so that it can shape global affairs more.

00:16:32.880 And that's the crux of the challenge that Canadian citizens need to understand,

00:16:36.380 that that agenda is fundamentally hostile

00:16:38.680 if you like to live in a liberal democracy.

00:16:41.020 And so we need to protect ourselves from that

00:16:43.560 and constrain those aspects of the Chinese state,

00:16:48.240 not of the people.

00:16:49.380 And that's the balance that Mark Carney also has to help us strike.

00:16:52.580 Continuing relations with the people of China

00:16:54.880 while limiting and carefully managing relations with the Chinese government.

00:16:59.340 Well, it's such a delicate balance.

00:17:01.920 He really has to tread carefully

00:17:03.100 because speaking about diplomatic relations,

00:17:05.460 I mean, let's look at our neighbours to the south.

00:17:07.220 What do you think some of the risks from this particular trip could be?

00:17:10.520 Because Washington is going to be watching very closely here.

00:17:15.260 Sure. Well, yeah, the challenge, right,

00:17:16.940 is that, first of all,

00:17:18.600 Canada cannot trade its way out of security dependence on the United States, right?

00:17:23.160 Replacing US dependence with China dependence would be worse, not better.

00:17:27.040 As challenging and problematic as the US has become

00:17:30.080 under the Trump administration,

00:17:32.000 it still has checks and balances.

00:17:33.780 There are still other centres of power and influence in US society, right?

00:17:37.540 There's business, there's non-governmental organisations.

00:17:41.040 So there's all kinds of other perspectives.

00:17:43.320 In China, everything is controlled,

00:17:45.360 at the end of the day, by the party state.

00:17:47.960 And it can bring so much more power to bear of China's power 0.54

00:17:52.060 than the US government can from the United States.

00:17:54.580 At the same time, Canada is right next to Washington,

00:17:57.520 to the US, of course.

00:17:58.880 And so Washington can apply much more leverage and pain on Canada

00:18:02.420 than China can if Canadian policy drifts too far out of bounds.

00:18:06.640 And President Trump has demonstrated a pretty strong willingness to do that.

00:18:10.460 So the risk is, when Canada says diversification,

00:18:13.340 because Canada does need to diversify its partners,

00:18:16.220 the risk is US President Donald Trump hears betrayal.

00:18:19.720 Imagine if your spouse started talking about wanting to diversify partners.

00:18:24.180 That could be taken the wrong way.

00:18:26.140 And so that relationship needs to simultaneously be managed in a triangular way.

00:18:31.100 We need to build as much as unity as possible in North America

00:18:34.220 and with relatively like-minded states,

00:18:36.720 and then ideally engage with China

00:18:38.800 with a common set of trade principles and rules and norms.

00:18:43.900 That's what the rules-based order is all about.

00:18:46.120 And we need to maintain as much of that as possible

00:18:48.380 by carefully working with the United States

00:18:50.940 and ideally coordinating policies with China,

00:18:53.820 even as it gets more complicated to do so.

00:18:56.500 I think you said it perfectly earlier on, Michael,

00:18:58.780 that the world is just in such disorder these days.

00:19:01.380 There's a lot of broken relationships.

00:19:02.820 So let's see what 2026 brings.

00:19:05.080 Thank you so much for joining us and for your insights today,

00:19:07.960 your invaluable insights.

00:19:08.920 We very much appreciate them.

00:19:10.320 And credit where it's due.

00:19:11.340 That was a great interview by Global News.

00:19:12.900 So that's all I have for today.

00:19:15.480 Thanks for tuning in.

00:19:16.640 I love you all.

00:19:17.620 Talk to you tomorrow, Patriots.

Why Is Mark Carney Making Deals With China？

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