From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Scott McGregor

Scott McGregor warns that Chinese hybrid warfare is no longer hypothetical—it’s unfolding in Canada now. TD Bank’s closure of CCP-linked accounts highlights the rising infiltration of financial interests. From cyberattacks to guanxi-driven influence, Canada’s institutions face a systemic threat. As banks sound the alarm, Ottawa dithers. McGregor calls for urgent, whole-of-society action before foreign interference further erodes our sovereignty.

Chinese hybrid warfare isn’t coming. It’s here. And Canada’s response has been dangerously complacent

The recent revelation by The Globe and Mail that TD Bank has closed accounts linked to pro-China groups—including those associated with former Liberal MP Han Dong—should not be dismissed as routine risk management. Rather, it is a visible sign of a much deeper and more insidious campaign: a hybrid war being waged by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) across Canada’s political, economic and digital spheres.

TD Bank’s move—reportedly driven by “reputational risk” and concerns over foreign interference—marks a rare, public signal from the private sector. Politically exposed persons (PEPs), a term used in banking and intelligence circles to denote individuals vulnerable to corruption or manipulation, were reportedly among those flagged. When a leading Canadian bank takes action while the government remains hesitant, it suggests the threat is no longer theoretical. It is here.

Hybrid warfare refers to the use of non-military tools—such as cyberattacks, financial manipulation, political influence and disinformation—to erode a nation’s sovereignty and resilience from within. In The Mosaic Effect: How the Chinese Communist Party Started a Hybrid War in America’s Backyard, co-authored with Ina Mitchell, we detailed how the CCP has developed a complex and opaque architecture of influence within Canadian institutions. What we’re seeing now is the slow unravelling of that system, one bank record at a time.

Financial manipulation is a key component of this strategy. CCP-linked actors often use opaque payment systems—such as WeChat Pay, UnionPay or cryptocurrency—to move money outside traditional compliance structures. These platforms facilitate the unchecked flow of funds into Canadian sectors like real estate, academia and infrastructure, many of which are tied to national security and economic competitiveness.

Layered into this is China’s corporate-social credit system. While framed as a financial scoring tool, it also functions as a mechanism of political control, compelling Chinese firms and individuals—even abroad—to align with party objectives. In this context, there is no such thing as a genuinely independent Chinese company.

Complementing these structural tools is guanxi—a Chinese system of interpersonal networks and mutual obligations. Though rooted in trust, guanxi can be repurposed to quietly influence decision-makers, bypass oversight and secure insider deals. In the wrong hands, it becomes an informal channel of foreign control.

Meanwhile, Canada continues to face escalating cyberattacks linked to the Chinese state. These operations have targeted government agencies and private firms, stealing sensitive data, compromising infrastructure and undermining public confidence. These are not isolated intrusions—they are part of a broader effort to weaken Canada’s digital, economic and democratic institutions.

The TD Bank decision should be seen as a bellwether. Financial institutions are increasingly on the front lines of this undeclared conflict. Their actions raise an urgent question: if private-sector actors recognize the risk, why hasn’t the federal government acted more decisively?

The issue of Chinese interference has made headlines in recent years, from allegations of election meddling to intimidation of diaspora communities. TD’s decision adds a new financial layer to this growing concern.

Canada cannot afford to respond with fragmented, reactive policies. What’s needed is a whole-of-society response: new legislation to address foreign interference, strengthened compliance frameworks in finance and technology, and a clear-eyed recognition that hybrid warfare is already being waged on Canadian soil.

The CCP’s strategy is long-term, multidimensional and calculated. It blends political leverage, economic subversion, transnational organized crime and cyber operations. Canada must respond with equal sophistication, coordination and resolve.

The mosaic of influence isn’t forming. It’s already here. Recognizing the full picture is no longer optional. Canadians must demand transparency, accountability and action before more of our institutions fall under foreign control.

Scott McGregor is a defence and intelligence veteran, co-author of The Mosaic Effect: How the Chinese Communist Party Started a Hybrid War in America’s Backyard, and the managing partner of Close Hold Intelligence Consulting Ltd. He is a senior security adviser to the Council on Countering Hybrid Warfare and a former intelligence adviser to the RCMP and the B.C. Attorney General. He writes for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Lee Harding

Lee Harding warns that Ottawa’s new Federal Plastics Registry (FPR) may be the most intrusive, bureaucratic burden yet. Targeting everything from electronics to fishing gear, the FPR requires businesses to track and report every gram of plastic they use, sell, or dispose of—even if plastic is incidental to their operations. Harding argues this isn’t about waste; it’s about control. And with phase one due in 2025, companies are already overwhelmed by confusion, cost, and compliance.

Businesses face sweeping reporting demands under the new Federal Plastics Registry

Canadian businesses already dealing with inflation, labour shortages and tariff uncertainties now face a new challenge courtesy of their own federal government: the Federal Plastics Registry (FPR). Manufacturers are probably using a different F-word than “federal” to describe it.

The registry is part of Ottawa’s push to monitor and eventually reduce plastic waste by collecting detailed data from companies that make, use or dispose of plastics.

Ottawa didn’t need new legislation to impose this. On Dec. 30, 2023, the federal government issued a notice of intent to create the registry under the 1999 Canadian Environmental Protection Act. A final notice followed on April 20, 2024.

According to the FPR website, companies, including resin manufacturers, plastic producers and service providers, must report annually to Environment Canada. Required disclosures include the quantity and types of plastics they manufacture, import and place on the market. They must also report how much plastic is collected and diverted, reused, repaired, remanufactured, refurbished, recycled, turned into chemicals, composted, incinerated or sent to landfill.

It ties into Canada’s larger Zero Plastic Waste agenda, a strategy to eliminate plastic waste by 2030.

Even more troubling is the breadth of plastic subcategories affected: electronic and electrical equipment, tires, vehicles, construction materials, agricultural and fishing gear, clothing, carpets and disposable items. In practice, this means that even businesses whose core products aren’t plastic—like farmers, retailers or construction firms—could be swept into the reporting requirements.

Plastics are in nearly everything, and now businesses must report everything about them, regardless of whether plastic is central to their business or incidental.

The FPR website says the goal is to collect “meaningful and standardized data, from across the country, on the flow of plastic from production to its end-of-life management.” That information will “inform and measure performance… of various measures that are part of Canada’s zero plastic waste agenda.” Its stated purpose is to “keep plastics in the economy and out of the environment.”

But here’s the problem: the government’s zero plastic waste goal is an illusion. It would require every plastic item to last forever or never exist in the first place, leaving businesses with an impossible task: stay profitable while meeting these demands.

To help navigate the maze, international consultancy Reclay StewardEdge recently held a webinar for Canadian companies. The discussion was revealing.

Reclay lead consultant Maanik Bagai said the FPR is without precedent. “It really surpasses whatever we have seen so far across the world. I would say it is unprecedented in nature. And obviously this is really going to be tricky,” he said.

Mike Cuma, Reclay’s senior manager of marketing and communications, added that the government’s online compliance instructions aren’t particularly helpful.

“There’s a really, really long list of kind of how to do it. It’s not particularly user-friendly in our experience,” Cuma said. “If you still have questions, if it still seems confusing, perhaps complex, we agree with you. That’s normal, I think, at this point—even just on the basic stuff of what needs to be reported, where, when, why. Don’t worry, you’re not alone in that feeling at all.”

The first reporting deadline, for 2024 data, is Sept. 29, 2025. Cuma warned that businesses should “start now”—and some “should maybe have started a couple months ago.”

Whether companies manage this in-house or outsource to consultants, they will incur significant costs in both time and money. September marks the first phase of four, with each future stage becoming more extensive and restrictive.

Plastics are petroleum products—and like oil and gas, they’re being demonized. The FPR looks less like environmental stewardship and more like an attempt to regulate and monitor a vast swath of the economy.

A worse possibility? That it’s a test run for a broader agenda—top-down oversight of every product from cradle to grave.

While seemingly unrelated, the FPR and other global initiatives reflect a growing trend toward comprehensive monitoring of products from creation to disposal.

This isn’t speculation. A May 2021 article on the World Economic Forum (WEF) website spotlighted a New York-based start-up, Eon, which created a platform to track fashion items through their life cycles. Called Connected Products, the platform gives each fashion item a digital birth certificate detailing when and where it was made, and from what. It then links to a digital twin and a digital passport that follows the product through use, reuse and disposal.

The goal, according to WEF, is to reduce textile waste and production, and thereby cut water usage. But the underlying principle—surveillance in the name of sustainability—has a much broader application.

Free markets and free people build prosperity, but some elites won’t leave us alone. They envision a future where everything is tracked, regulated and justified by the supposed need to “save the planet.”

So what if plastic eventually returns to the earth it came from? Its disposability is its virtue. And while we’re at it, let’s bury the Federal Plastics Registry and its misguided mandates with it—permanently.

Lee Harding is a research associate for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.