OTTAWA — China does not share Canadian values when it comes to trade and Canada needs to be very careful about boosting bilateral commercial ties, Liberal Leader Mark Carney said on Wednesday.
Carney, seeking to lead the Liberals to a federal election victory on April 28, made his remarks at a time when Canadian ties with China are poor. Both nations have imposed tariffs on each other’s products.
In recent interviews with domestic media, China’s ambassador to Ottawa has discussed boosting ties and raised the prospect of talks on a possible free trade deal.
“There are partners in Asia that we can build deeper ties (with) ... but the partners in Asia that share our values don’t include China,” Carney said in a press conference when asked about the envoy’s comments about boosting trade.
“There’s certain activity that we could have with China. We obviously do have a large amount of trade with them, but we have to be very careful, very deliberate, and they need to meet Canadian standards,” he said, without giving details.
Carney reiterated that U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat of broad tariffs on imports from Canada meant the country needed to diversify its trade.
Statistics Canada data shows bilateral goods trade with the U.S. totalled $102 billion in January compared to just $8.4 billion with China.
Earlier this month Beijing announced tariffs on over US$2.6 billion worth of Canadian agricultural and food products, retaliating against levies Ottawa slapped on Chinese electric vehicles and steel and aluminum products last year.
Canada said last week that China had executed an unspecified number of Canadian citizens earlier this year, and strongly condemned Beijing’s use of the death penalty.
China is likely to try to interfere in next month’s election, the Canadian spy service said on Monday.
(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Paul Simao)
