Why is Canada elbows-up to Trump, but arms-out for Xi and Modi?

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There was a disquieting air of jubilation from Prime Minister Mark Carney and his cabinet back in January when the government announced it had secured a new “strategic partnership” with Beijing.

Not that it wasn’t good news that Canada and China had broken their decade-long stalemate, that relief was coming to Canada’s canola farmers, and that plans were set in motion to diversify our energy, agri-food and wood product exports. But the celebratory tone and pageantry that came with the new partnership seemed incongruent with the reality of the situation, which was that renewing ties with China was a necessary evil for Canada.

Just a few years prior, China effectively kidnapped two of our citizens and held them on bogus charges. Credible reports alleged that Beijing was engaged in transnational repression of dissidents on Canadian soil, and was actively meddling in Canadian elections. And for years, China had wielded tariffs as a political weapon against Canada, not unlike what U.S. President Donald Trump is doing with tariffs now. The unfortunate reality is that those U.S. tariffs have forced Ottawa to forge new partnerships and diversify its trade, including with untrustworthy and even recently hostile counterparts.

Carney says Ottawa’s position supporting U.S., Israeli strikes on Iran was taken ‘with regret’

But the message from Ottawa was not that we had pursued a renewed friendship with Beijing out of necessity, or perhaps – to borrow Mr. Carney’s recently used phrase – “with regret.” It was that Canada had accomplished a great new feat, and that we were on the cusp of a “new world order.”

It’s a fascinating and somewhat perplexing exercise to look at Ottawa’s language, tone and rhetoric over the last few months about the U.S., and compare and contrast it to how it has spoken about our renewed relationships with China and India.

During a press conference on Wednesday, for example, Mr. Carney was clear about his consternation over U.S. and Israeli military action in Iran. He said that his initial position of support, which he first articulated in a statement Saturday, was taken “with regret,” and he lamented that the strikes were carried out “without engaging the United Nations or consulting allies,” adding that they appear “inconsistent with international law.”

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During the same press conference, when the topic switched to India (which Mr. Carney had just left after signing a $2.6-billion uranium deal), Mr. Carney equivocated. He was repeatedly asked whether he agrees with a senior government official who recently said that India is no longer meddling in Canadian affairs or involved in transnational repression, and replied only that he “would not use those words.”

When asked for a simple “yes or no,” he dodged the question, saying that Canada’s policy is one of “vigilance and engagement” and said his security clearance limited what he could say. Mr. Carney was also pressed on whether he was concerned about a recent Globe and Mail report that consular officials in Vancouver were involved in the assassination of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C., in 2023, but said that since a criminal process was under way, he did not want to comment.

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There are of course very practical reasons why Mr. Carney would not want to discuss foreign interference mere hours after inking a deal with the alleged meddler. But there are better reasons why a Prime Minister, whose priority should be the physical welfare of the diaspora communities who are subject to threats and intimidation from those foreign governments, would at least acknowledge the inherent risks of closer ties with potentially hostile partners.

A Prime Minister who professes to espouse a realpolitik approach to diplomacy – who takes the “world as it is, not as we wish it to be,” as Mr. Carney likes to say – would take a moment to speak to our new partnerships with China and India as they actually are, and not as we wish they would be.

That is: that they are forged out of necessity. That Canada’s historical overreliance on the U.S. for trade has left us economically vulnerable for too long, and that we must secure new agreements with admittedly unreliable partners because the U.S. is currently acting as the most unreliable trading partner. But that we do so with consternation – regret, even – because of belligerent actions taken by these governments in the recent past, and violations of Canada’s sovereignty they both have engaged in.

It’s incoherent that Canada would be elbows-up to Mr. Trump, but arms-out to Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi. We should have our eyebrows cocked at everyone. Canadians are grown-ups; they are capable of understanding multiple messages at once.