Sam Cooper

Western security analysts have warned that China’s commercial shipyards routinely serve dual-use purposes, supporting both civilian contracts and the expansion of the People’s Liberation Army Navy. A 2024 report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies warned that foreign customers contracting with Chinese state-owned shipbuilders may be inadvertently “subsidizing the growth of China’s naval power.”

Stung by a political firestorm over his provincial government’s decision to hand a massive shipbuilding contract to Chinese suppliers that critics say could bolster Xi Jinping’s military capabilities and undermine Canadian national security, B.C. Premier David Eby late Friday night reluctantly released a searing letter from federal Transport Minister Chrystia Freeland.

The letter, dated June 16 and addressed to B.C. Transportation Minister Mike Farnworth, expresses Freeland’s “consternation and disappointment” over BC Ferries’ decision to select China Merchants Industry Weihai—a subsidiary of a state-owned Chinese conglomerate closely tied to Beijing’s military-civil fusion strategy and Belt and Road Initiative—to build four new major vessels.

“I am dismayed that BC Ferries would select a Chinese state-owned shipyard to build new ferries in the current geopolitical context,” Freeland wrote. She demanded that Farnworth “verify and confirm with utmost certainty that no federal funding will be diverted to support the acquisition of these new ferries.”

Freeland emphasized that the Government of Canada has provided “long-standing financial support” to British Columbia’s ferry system, including “approximately $37.8 million” annually under a 1977 agreement, $308 million to cover pandemic-related operating losses, and “a $75-million loan to BC Ferries to help purchase four net-zero emission ferries.”

“Given the value of the contract and the level of taxpayer funding that has been provided to support BC Ferries’ operations,” Freeland wrote, “I am surprised that BC Ferries does not appear to have been mandated to require an appropriate level of Canadian content in the procurement or the involvement of the Canadian marine industry.”

The letter, which had been withheld by Eby’s government for nearly a week, was quietly released to the public just before midnight Eastern Time Friday—only after repeated demands in Parliament by Conservative MP Dan Albas, who posted on social media: “People deserve that transparency.”

The political backlash mounted swiftly following Eby’s disclosure of the deal with China. BC Conservative leader John Rustad accused Eby and BC Ferries of failing to account for the broader strategic risks of contracting with a Chinese state-owned entity during a period of rising global tensions.

“There’s lots of rhetoric going back and forth between the United States and China, friction with Taiwan,” Rustad told Postmedia. “Who knows what may happen? Hopefully nothing by 2029 to 2031, which is when these ships are going to start to be constructed and delivered.”

It’s not a far-fetched concern. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government entered into a vaccine partnership with CanSino Biologics—a company with links to China’s People’s Liberation Army—only for Beijing to block shipment of the vaccine, abruptly collapsing the deal.

In her June 16 letter, Freeland warned the B.C. government that “ongoing concerns regarding threats to security, including cybersecurity, from China” required urgent attention. She asked for clear commitments that BC Ferries had conducted “a robust risk assessment” and demanded to be informed of the steps being taken to “reduce the risks of outside influence or control from cybersecurity vulnerabilities,” and to “mitigate the risks that vessel maintenance and spare parts may pose.”

Freeland further linked the deal to Beijing’s retaliatory economic measures, writing, “China has imposed unjustified tariffs on Canada, including 100% tariffs on canola oil, meal, and pea imports, and a 25% duty on Canadian aquatic products and pork. These tariffs have affected about 36% of Canadian agriculture businesses and are directly impacting the livelihood of Canadians.”

China Merchants Industry Weihai is a subsidiary of China Merchants Group, a massive state-owned enterprise that has played a central role in advancing Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative since 2013. The conglomerate operates ports and shipyards across Asia, Europe, and Africa—including strategic holdings in Greece, Lithuania, Nigeria, and Djibouti—and is a central player in the Chinese Communist Party’s military-civil fusion strategy.

Western security analysts have warned that China’s commercial shipyards routinely serve dual-use purposes, supporting both civilian contracts and the expansion of the People’s Liberation Army Navy. A 2024 report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies warned that foreign customers contracting with Chinese state-owned shipbuilders may be inadvertently “subsidizing the growth of China’s naval power.”

Valued in the hundreds of millions, the contract will see the Chinese yard begin delivering the vessels between 2029 and 2031.

Rustad further told Postmedia that the province’s reliance on foreign state-controlled suppliers for strategic transportation infrastructure was “not just irresponsible, it’s a betrayal of Canadian workers and economic independence.”

The BC Federation of Labour has also raised concerns about the use of public money to finance offshore contracts that benefit authoritarian regimes, and Canadian maritime industry groups have renewed calls for a federal policy mandating domestic content in major shipbuilding procurements.

First established in 2016 under then-premier Christy Clark through a Memorandum of Understanding with China’s Guangdong province, the B.C.–Belt and Road Initiative pact laid the groundwork for collaboration on maritime trade, infrastructure, and shipbuilding with Chinese state-owned firms. Those ties expanded under Premier John Horgan, whose NDP government promoted deeper bilateral economic relations. The BC Ferries procurement—while legally made by an independent board—proceeded within a framework Premier Eby’s administration continues to support.

New research reported by The Bureau and published by the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation adds a sharp dimension to these concerns. The Foundation warns that criminal and political networks promoting Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative have been linked to Chinese transnational organized crime and covert Communist Party influence operations.

According to the report, a global syndicate known as Hongmen—also referred to as the Chinese Freemasons—has been deeply embedded in both criminal activity and Beijing’s “united front” operations, which support the CCP’s geopolitical aims including the annexation of Taiwan and BRI expansion.

“The organization’s sprawling structure includes affiliated offices across the globe from Hong Kong and Nairobi to Toronto and Madrid,” the report states. “The Chinese Communist Party has turned a blind eye as Hongmen ventures have expanded across One Belt One Road countries, in part because these organizations serve the purposes of united front work.”

The Jamestown Foundation’s findings echo longstanding concerns within Canada’s intelligence community regarding BRI-linked actors and opaque Chinese political networks operating in the country—especially in British Columbia, which remains the only jurisdiction in North America to have signed a formal Belt and Road agreement with Beijing.

Premier Eby has not apologized for the decision. He told reporters last week that the province would not interfere with BC Ferries’ independent board, which selected the Chinese yard based on cost and delivery timelines.

Whether mounting federal pressure and scrutiny from security experts will force a review remains an open question.

By Dan McTeague

This past Tuesday, the Conservative Party put forward a motion in parliament calling on the Liberal government to immediately end their ban on gas-and-diesel driven Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles, which will take full effect in 2035.

Arguing for the motion, Melissa Lantsman rightly said, “Nobody is denying people the choice to drive an electric car. There is nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is the government mandating that everybody drive an electric car.”

Unfortunately for all of us, MPs voted 194-141 to keep the EV mandate in place.

The vote itself is unsurprising, since, despite Mark Carney’s campaign-long insistence that he shouldn’t have to answer for the policies of his predecessor, he was a Trudeau advisor and confidant for years, and there is virtually no daylight between their governments on any major issue.

Yes, even on the carbon tax.

Still, this will be the first time that many Canadians even hear about the ICE ban, the implementation of which begins in earnest on January 1st, just about six months from now. At that time, the government will mandate that 20 per cent of all new light-duty vehicles (passenger cars, SUVs, and pickups) must be classified as “zero-emisson,” or Electric Vehicles (EVs).

How, you might ask, does the government expect automakers to ensure that, come January, one-out-of-five car-buying Canadians will choose to purchase an Electric Vehicle? Especially since consumers have been skeptical of EVs thus far, with just 13.7 per cent sold in Canada last year.

(And, as Tristin Hopper recently pointed out, even that number is misleading. “These sales are disproportionately concentrated in a single province…. Of the 81,205 zero-emission vehicles sold in Canada in the last quarter of 2024, 49,357 were sold in Quebec.” That’s 60 per cent!)

Well, the answer to that question is that manufacturers will be required to submit annual reports to the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, detailing their compliance with the government’s EV targets. If they don’t meet their EV sales quota, they will face significant financial penalties.

To avoid those penalties, automakers will be forced into one option. As Conservative MP Cheryl Gallant explained, “How will carmakers ensure they sell enough electric vehicles? They will do it by drastically raising the price of internal combustion vehicles!”

That’s right, their only option will be to start increasing the price of the cars and trucks Canadians want to buy, in order to force us to buy ones we don’t want to buy.

This is madness.

To reiterate what I’ve said over and over and over again, the Liberals’ EV mandate is bad policy.

It forces Canadians to buy a product that is expensive. EVs cost more than ICE vehicles, even factoring in the government subsidies on which the EV industry has perpetually relied. Ottawa’s $5,000-per-EV rebate program ran out of money six months ago and was discontinued, at which time EV numbers really began to fall off, which is why the Liberals stated desire to toss more tax dollars at bringing it back.

And it forces us to buy a product that is poorly suited for Canada. EV batteries are bad at holding a charge in the cold, and are just generally less reliable.

We don’t have the infrastructure to support this EV transition. Our electrical grid is already strained, and doesn’t have the capacity to support millions of EVs being plugged in nightly, especially as the Trudeau/Carney Liberals progressively push us to replace reliable energy sources, like oil and natural gas, with unreliable “renewables.”

On top of all that, where do they think we’re going to get all of these glorified golf carts they’re trying to force on the Canadian public? Even with the estimated $52 billion that the Trudeau and Ford governments have thrown at the industry to subsidize the manufacture of EVs in Canada, we don’t make anywhere near enough EVs to support a full-transition.

That’s likely why left-leaning outlets have started calling on Mark Carney to lift the tariff on Chinese EVs. Taking advantage of EV mandates might be smart business for China — flood the markets of gullible nations with EVs which are cheaper than what domestic manufacturers can produce, and then jack up the price once the mandates are fully implemented and they have no competition from either traditional vehicles or other EV companies.

But us going along with that scheme is the definition of bad business. Which is probably why our automakers have started to admit that the mandates are unrealistic and call for them to be repealed.

Tuesday’s vote went the wrong way for Canadians, but kudos to the Conservatives for bringing this motion forward in the first place. I only wish they had started talking about this sooner. A national campaign would have been the perfect time to call the country’s attention to a policy which people are only vaguely aware of and which, if enacted, will make all of our lives harder and more expensive.

But there’s no time like the present. The more Canadians hear about these EV mandates, the more they hate them. If we make enough noise about this, we might just be able to change course and avert disaster.

Here’s hoping.

Dan McTeague is President of Canadians for Affordable Energy.