Carney cozied up to China’s authoritarian regime ahead of Liberal leadership race

Just weeks before entering the Liberal leadership campaign, Prime Minister Mark Carney was cozying up to Beijing’s mayor, pushing for “deepened cooperation” in green finance and infrastructure, according to a Chinese government report.

.@MarkJCarney only weeks before seeking @liberal_party leadership lobbied Beijing’s mayor to “deepen co-operation.” According to @EpochTimes, Carney lobbied as chair of Brookfield though cabinet had censured China for unfair trade practices.https://t.co/TBxYAcm0BX #cdnpolitics pic.twitter.com/Z76lKM994E

Carney initially met with Beijing Mayor Yin Yong on October 20, as detailed in a news release from the People’s Government of Beijing.

“Carney highlighted Brookfield Asset Management’s keen interest in seizing development opportunities in China, further expanding its business in Beijing, and deepening cooperation with relevant partners in areas such as green finance, fund management, and infrastructure investment,” it reads.

This came hot on the heels of Ottawa’s October 1 slap of 100 percent tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, which were implemented as a retaliatory measure to Beijing’s predatory trade tactics.

“The reality is China has an intentional, state-directed policy of over-capacity and over-supply designed to cripple our own industry,” then-Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said, as reported by Blacklock’s.

Despite Freeland vowing that Canada wouldn’t let its budding EV sector become collateral damage, Carney was busy singing a different tune, gushing about development prospects to Mayor Yong.

Fast forward to March 26, Prime Minister Carney faced the press. “You’ve got to understand where China is going,” he mused, dodging whether he’d greenlight more trade with the communist giant. “I am beholden to no one except the Canadian people,” he insisted. But when pressed on cozying up to China, he pivoted hard: “We need to diversify our trade… with like-minded partners.”

Reporters press Mark Carney on issues with his assets and potential financial conflicts of interest he might have from Brookfield Asset Management, the global investment firm he chaired prior to entering the Liberal leadership race and becoming PM. pic.twitter.com/pEzUmfgxQ3

Most recently, Carney has been embroiled in controversy over his defence of Liberal candidate Paul Chiang, who called for his Conservative opponent to be kidnapped and turned over to the Chinese Communist Party in exchange for a cash bounty. Chiang has since ‘stepped aside’ in disgrace.

Mark Carney’s flip-flopping rhetoric and refusal to own his actions, coupled with his failure to oust a compromised candidate calling for an opponent to be handed to China, cast Canadians as pawns in a tangled web of trade conflicts, caught between his Beijing bromance and a trade war with the U.S.