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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
He is a member of the Chinese regime, just as Governor Carney is. https://t.co/FUEOfBU5Rt
— Katewerk (@katewerk) March 26, 2026
Carney blows Xi.
Update: Michael Ma says his comments came across as ‘dismissive of the serious issue of forced labour’
VANCOUVER — At a moment when Canada is reassessing its economic sovereignty and Prime Minister Mark Carney is charting what he describes as a deeper strategic partnership with China, a long-running but poorly understood vulnerability is quietly advancing — one that cuts across the most sensitive fault lines in Canadian public life: Indigenous land rights, natural resource development, and Beijing’s patient, methodical campaign to secure the commodities it needs without ever having to negotiate with Ottawa.
The strategy, as intelligence documents obtained exclusively by The Bureau reveal, is not new. It is simply becoming more consequential.
OTTAWA — Yuen Pau Woo, a Canadian senator who denounced a landmark American think tank report on Chinese Communist Party influence networks in Canada as disinformation, has himself been found to head an advocacy group that the report’s researcher now classifies as a United Front Work Department-linked organization — the 576th identified in Canada.
As Can Force One moved toward Chinese airspace, the delegation’s electronic devices were powered down and secured in signal-blocking bags. Burner phones were passed out: the only machines the public servants, staff and journalists would be allowed to use for the duration of their stay. The Canadian Prime Minister’s security team was taking no risks.
But Mark Carney himself was on his way to do something many back home would consider very risky indeed: signing agreements with Chinese President Xi Jinping on trade, global governance, energy, media access and law enforcement. The country Carney had called, only one year ago, Canada’s “biggest security threat,” was about to accomplish a magical transformation from frog to prince, from interfering foreign power to “strategic partner” in the “new world order.”
Americans will soon catch a glimpse of something North American politicians once tried to keep far away: cheap Chinese electric vehicles.
As Canada begins importing the EVs, U.S. residents in border cities like Detroit and Buffalo, New York, may see their northern neighbors at the wheel. Or American tourists visiting Canada may experience brands like Xiaomi, Leapmotor and BYD when taking a ride-share.
It’s a situation that the U.S. and Canada sought to avoid for years, worried that the introduction of China’s low-cost, high-tech EVs would undermine domestic automakers and lead to Chinese surveillance. But President Donald Trump’s 25 percent tariff on Canadian autos and auto parts has scrambled the North American auto market.
This is the supposedly superior Chinese self-driving technology of the BYD Han. 🤡
The car has been going round and round at the airport for hundreds of laps nonstop. 😅😂
The driver keeps pressing the brakes, but nothing happens. 😱 https://t.co/mkiAAPQSD6 pic.twitter.com/8Ogp55Xp9E
— Pseudo Prophet (@Pseudo_Prophet_) March 17, 2026
Canada’s Conservative opposition leader Pierre Poilievre on Sunday unveiled a plan to double the country’s vehicle production.
Polievre called for a tariff-free auto pact with the United States while pledging to scrap both the Liberal government’s Chinese EV import quota and its electric vehicle mandate.
OTTAWA – A senior official from the Chinese Communist Party’s International Department met with former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and Trudeau-appointed Senator Yuen Pau Woo during a four-day visit to Canada in March — a significant development given that Germany’s domestic intelligence service warned in 2023 that the body effectively operates like an intelligence service of the People’s Republic of China. The meetings were documented in a readout and photographs published on the department’s official website.
Chinese electric vehicles present risks for Canadians who are critical of Beijing, as the vehicles are capable of sending camera, microphone, and location data back to China, a former senior government official told MPs.
Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, a China expert and senior fellow at the University of Ottawa, told MPs on the House of Commons international trade committee on March 12 that Chinese-made vehicles include software from the Chinese technology company Baidu, which collects data from the vehicles and transmits it back to China.
China scholar and former Canadian diplomat Charles Burton says Beijing expects that its strategic partnership with Ottawa means Canada will refrain from disrupting its espionage and foreign interference operations.
The partnership suggests Canada “won’t disrupt China’s operations in Canada, and espionage and influence operations, so that they can continue to expand their influence in Canada for the future when, from their point of view, China becomes the dominant power on the planet,” Burton said.
Carney will do whatever Xi says.
When Prime Minister Mark Carney stood in Beijing last month to announce a new “Strategic Partnership,” he spoke of stability and pragmatism. But for those of us watching the fine print, one document stands out as a glaring threat to Canadian sovereignty: the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on cooperation between the RCMP and China’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS).
Prime Minister Mark Carney has touched down on Tuesday in Sydney, Australia — the next stop on his Indo-Pacific tour aimed at shoring up investment in Canada and building new trade alliances.
On the agenda is a meeting with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, a leader with whom Carney shares much common ground.
Carney will also address Australia’s parliament, becoming the first Canadian prime minister to do so in nearly 20 years. His remarks are expected to echo the themes of his widely noted speech in Davos, which urged “middle powers” to stand together.
