Made In Xinjiang: How Forced Labour Will Dictate Ottawa & Beijing’s Relationship

Made In Xinjiang: How Forced Labour Will Dictate Ottawa & Beijing’s Relationship

The vocabulary of diplomacy has always struggled to keep pace with the realities of power. Today, as technoauthoritarianism reshapes global influence, Canada faces a stark test: whether its economic and diplomatic engagement with Beijing can be reconciled with mounting evidence of systemic human rights abuses, most notably the ongoing genocide against the Uyghur people. Recent public statements and testimonies have only sharpened that dilemma, exposing not just policy tensions, but a deeper moral fault line.

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Former CIA Analyst Rebukes Senator Woo’s Attempt to Discredit the Study That Has Now Captured Woo’s Own Group as Its 576th United Front-Linked Organization in Canada

Former CIA Analyst Rebukes Senator Woo’s Attempt to Discredit the Study That Has Now Captured Woo’s Own Group as Its 576th United Front-Linked Organization in Canada

OTTAWA — A former Central Intelligence Agency analyst whose Washington think tank documented a swarm of Chinese Communist Party-linked community organizations across Western democracies — and identified Canada as the most heavily penetrated per capita — told Parliament that a sitting Canadian senator’s effort to discredit the research amounted to “a kind of laziness,” after that senator’s own newly founded advocacy group was identified by the same researchers as the 576th United Front-linked organization in Canada.

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China allies paid $2,000 to attend Carney fundraiser

Several Toronto-area business people aligned in various ways with the Chinese government were among guests who paid close to $2,000 to attend a Liberal party fundraiser with Prime Minister Mark Carney last month.

The attendees included individuals and groups that have won praise from Chinese diplomats and agencies, echoed Beijing’s talking points on contentious issues and worked with Chinese Communist Party (CPP) organizations.

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Carney’s Pivot to Beijing: Did the Canada China Business Council Help Pen Ottawa’s China Reset?

Carney’s Pivot to Beijing: Did the Canada China Business Council Help Pen Ottawa’s China Reset?

OTTAWA – In a polished Beijing banquet hall on January 16, 2026, Prime Minister Mark Carney opened what is perhaps the most important and least analyzed speech of his young premiership by turning first to Olivier Desmarais and the Canada China Business Council.

“We are honored and grateful,” Carney said. After first turning to Desmarais, grandson of former prime minister Jean Chrétien and a scion of the Power Corporation milieu of Montreal, Carney thanked “the team at the Canada China Business Council for your leadership in bringing together, look at this room, this remarkable room, together.”

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Canada Risks ‘Deep Entanglement’ With Beijing by Opening Its Market to Chinese EVs

Canada Risks ‘Deep Entanglement’ With Beijing by Opening Its Market to Chinese EVs

Former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig told MPs that Ottawa’s agreement with Beijing to open its markets to Chinese electric vehicles puts Canada at risk of “deeper economic entanglement” with China and dependency that could erode Canada’s sovereignty.

Kovrig made the comments as he testified on April 16 before the House of Commons science and research committee, which is studying the implications of the Canada–China preliminary joint arrangement on Canada’s electric vehicle sector.

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‘Massive risk’: Chinese EVs are the first test for Canada’s new strategic partnership with China

‘Massive risk’: Chinese EVs are the first test for Canada’s new strategic partnership with China

OTTAWA — Criticism over Canada allowing Chinese electric vehicles access to Canada’s market is mounting, with industry and geopolitical analysts warning of the risks associated with increased engagement with China.

“It’s a massive risk,” said Brian Kingston, president and CEO of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association.

“Canada’s auto industry depends on our integration with North America and the U.S. specifically, that’s been the foundation of the sector, going all the way back to the auto pact.”

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Terry Glavin: The muddled and murky world of Michael Ma

Terry Glavin: The muddled and murky world of Michael Ma

You might have thought that the floor-crossing Liberal MP Michael Ma would have been political kryptonite after his March 26 performance at a parliamentary committee looking into the implications of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s January invitation to China to annually export 49,000 electrical vehicles into Canada.

Ma had badgered the expert witness Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, impugned the credibility of the China Strategic Risk Institute where she serves as a senior advisor, demanded to know whether she had personally witnessed acts of forced labour in China and appeared to suggest that Beijing’s persecution of the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang was merely “hearsay.”

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GOLDSTEIN: Carney’s two-faced policy on China exposes his Davos speech as nonsense

Based on what Prime Minister Mark Carney, a Liberal cabinet minister, and a Liberal MP said publicly about China’s use of forced labour, the idea they are fiercely criticizing Chinese President Xi Jinping about it in private is laughable.

Indeed, watching the performance of Carney, Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson, and former Conservative, now Liberal, MP Michael Ma on the issue over the past week, would have been hilarious if their milquetoast responses weren’t so alarming.

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Carney’s Government Is Not Failing to See China’s Threat. It Is Choosing to Look Away.

OTTAWA — During my years in the RCMP, I dealt with organized crime, national security threats, and foreign actors who sought to exploit Canada’s openness. We understood something fundamental: threats rarely announce themselves plainly. They operate in the grey space—deniable, incremental, and often dismissed until it is too late.

What concerns me today is not just that foreign interference is happening. It is that Canada still seems reluctant to call it what it is—particularly when it involves the Chinese Communist Party.

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GOLDSTEIN: Liberals’ kid gloves treatment of China is nothing new

While Liberal MP Michael Ma has belatedly apologized for questioning the veracity of expert testimony at a Commons committee hearing that China uses forced labour — claiming that was not his intent — cozying up to China has been mainstream Liberal thinking in a line stretching from Justin Trudeau to Mark Carney.

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Conservatives put pressure on Carney to clarify his position on forced labour in China

The Conservatives have written to the Prime Minister to demand that he clarify his position on the forced labour of the mainly Muslim Uyghur minority in China after a Liberal MP was accused of attempting to cast doubt on the existence of the practice.

Michael Chong, the Conservative foreign affairs critic, wrote to Mark Carney Friday asking him if his assessment is “that Uyghur forced labour has and is being used” in China.

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China denies forced labour allegations amid fallout from Michael Ma’s comments

Camp Uyghur

China is again denying claims of forced labour in the country as calls grow for Prime Minister Mark Carney to clarify Canada’s stance on the issue amid fallout from comments made by Liberal MP Michael Ma that appeared to cast doubt on reported human rights abuses.

The Chinese Embassy in Canada pushed back on the allegation that forced labour is used in the production of Chinese electric vehicle components in a social media post Friday night, calling it a “blatant lie” that some are using to undermine the Canada-China EV deal.

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As International Condemnations Mount Over Liberal MP’s Forced Labour Attack, Carney Plans $1,775-a-Head Fundraiser Co-Hosted by Michael Ma

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney has gone to ground.

Two days after Liberal Member of Parliament Michael Ma used his time at the House of Commons industry committee to demand that a sanctioned China expert personally confirm she had witnessed forced labour before her evidence could be taken seriously — a performance celebrated by Chinese Communist Party state media as a propaganda victory and condemned by international Uyghur organizations as an affront to Canada’s own recognition of genocide — Carney has issued no public statement.

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LILLEY: Michael Ma’s clarification on China questions doesn’t add up

Chicom 5th Columnist

Michael Ma is saying he was misunderstood, but you shouldn’t believe him. The Conservative MP who crossed the floor and joined the Liberals last December has not only had a change of heart politically, but he also now appears to be speaking up for China.

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Floor-crossing ChiCom 5th Columnist Liberal MP Michael Ma casts doubt on reports of forced labour in China

ChiCom assets: Carney tells Ma he came highly recommended by Xi Jinping

Floor-crossing Liberal MP Michael Ma casts doubt on reports of forced labour in China

OTTAWA – An MP who left the Conservatives to join the Liberals is casting doubt on reports of human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region.
MP Michael Ma asked an expert during a parliamentary committee hearing Thursday whether she’d seen forced labour with her own eyes.

“Have you witnessed forced labour in Xinjiang? Have you witnessed forced labour? Just a short answer — have you witnessed forced labour in Xinjiang, yes or no?” Ma said while questioning Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa.


Carney blows Xi.

Update: Michael Ma says his comments came across as ‘dismissive of the serious issue of forced labour’

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