Mr. Burton, I'd like to get your thoughts on something you referenced—that is, this government's pursuing a strategic partnership with the PRC.
During the English-language leaders debate in the last federal election, Mark Carney said that the PRC is Canada's biggest security threat. He went on to say that it is “one of the largest threats with respect to foreign interference”. Consistent with this, the director of CSIS stated just two weeks ago that the PRC is a major threat to Canada's security because of its foreign interference activities, yet we have Mark Carney's foreign affairs minister talking about a “strategic partnership” with the PRC, including on matters of security.
How can we square, on the one hand, Mark Carney's saying that the PRC is Canada's biggest security threat, backed up by CSIS, and on the other, all the while, his government's pursuing a strategic partnership with a hostile foreign state that is a threat to Canada's security?