"When he used his title in a letter supporting a friend's, client's, or potential client's immigration application, [Kalisa] did so in an effort to increase the chances that it would be approved."

"If it was approved, and the client or potential client became able to travel to Canada to view properties, [Kalisa] could gain a personal and business advantage, whether in the short or long term."

It seems unlikely to me that that trend would continue for 13 years ... if the grievor was merely confirming to those concerned that their applications were  being processed."

"I find that it is more likely than not that he shared additional information not available to the public about the status of the applications in question."

Labour Tribunal

Photo: Bohao Zhao

 A recently published online February decision of the federal labour tribunal confirmed the firing in 2017 of a longtime Canada Border Services Agency employee, while Placide Kalisa, who was contesting  his dismissal, characterized it as discriminatory, given his ethnicity. He plans to contest his firing confirmation by filing discrimination lawsuits against the CBSA and  his former union which had refused to represent his grievance against his firing.

Placide Kalisa was found, for 13 years of his employment with the federal border services, to have accessed government databases improperly, passing confidential information on to immigration applicants, among them some who would become his clients as an after-work real estate agent. Kalisa was a senior program officer, his job was to recommend whether the agency could safely remove inadmissible foreign nationals to certain countries. 

 

Deeply connected to the Rwandan community in Canada, Kalisa had emigrated decades earlier from Rwanda, and worked as a part-time real estate agent and manager. The tribunal had found that Kalisa had committed dozens pf "worrisome" unauthorized searches of  sensitive CBSA and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada databases from 2003 to his suspension in 2016. Some of those who benefited from his illegal intervention later became his real estate clients.

 

Canada Border Services Agency patch

In the space of two months, Kalisa had searched an IRCC database on 32 occasions after a Rwandan identified in the decision as "A.K." contacted him to ask why it was that his visa application had been denied.  Once he confirmed that A.K.'s background cleared any suspicion of having been involved in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Kalisa undertook an invitation letter for the man and his spouse, asking a colleague to sign in his stead. 

 

Kalisa was aware that A.K.'s purpose in coming to Canada was to acquire a condominium, and his invitation letter would support the visa applicant persuasively. Indeed, Kalisa had admitted he had written invitation letters and had conducted database searches for some seven individuals at the very least; each letter identified him as a CBSA employee which his agency title made clear.

 

While Kalisa denied wrongdoing throughout the grievance process, the tribunal dismissed his explanations for his actions, terming his testimony "implausible or unpersuasive". Kalisa, who required a top-secret security clearance for his CBSA work, had somehow forgotten to inform his employer that one of his friends happened to be a suspected criminal. The Rwandan embassy had given Kalisa a list of suspected war criminals with his friend's name on it.

 

Placide Kalisa, Realtor

Because Kalisa said he was certain his friend was not a war criminal, he failed to disclose his relationship, he explained to an unimpressed tribunal. "It was not for [Kalisa] to decide whether the embassy was right or wrong to include D.N.'s name on a list of suspected war criminals ... He was obligated to inform his manager of his association with D.N. He did not", the tribunal wrote. 

 

A series of trips that Kalisa took to Rwanda booked by D.N. led the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to begin an investigation that motivated CBSA to look into the work activities of its employee, in 2014. Two years on, CBSA reviewed Kalisa's security clearance, and his unauthorized searches in CBSA and IRCC databases were revealed, leading to his suspension and finally, his firing. 

"Since 2015, database usage -- including all adds/moves/changes/deletes -- are captured, logged, and stored to a repository which is accessible for internal auditing functions."

"Any new or updated systems are required to record to this system for auditing purposes."

Canada Border Services Agency spokesperson Rebecca Purdy 

Canadian Hypocrisy at the United Nations

Canada’s misleading denial that it nominated Iran to UN body addressing women’s rights & terror prevention   UN Watch

 

"There have been incorrect reports on social media about Canada’s position on the nomination of Iran to the United Nations Economic and Social Council Committee for Programme and Coordination – an advisory body with no decision-making role. Iran was nominated as part of the Asia-Pacific Group."

"Canada is not a member of the group and did not endorse or vote for this nomination. There was no vote, as per established procedures."

"Canada does not support Iran for positions of influence within the United Nations. We will continue to actively work with partners to counter Iranian candidacies."

Global Affairs, Canada  

 

"Canada’s foreign ministry made a misleading statement on X.com to mask the fact it allowed the nomination of the Islamic Republic of Iran to a UN committee that addresses critical issues including women’s rights and terrorism prevention — failing to object as the US did, and as Canada and EU states have done in the past."

"The fact is that Canada, as a member of the 54-nation UN Economic and Social Council, participated in the consensus nomination of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the UN Committee for Programme and Coordination on April 8, 2026."

"This committee deals with budget priorities and program coordination on critical issues, and will meet soon, May 14-21, to address women’s rights, human rights, and terrorism prevention."

"At a minimum, Canada should have taken the floor to object that it is wrong to nominate a regime that only months ago massacred thousands of protesters, and that brutally oppresses women, tortures political prisoners, and systematically violates basic human rights."

"This is exactly what the United States did in that meeting. It was the only country that formally objected and disassociated itself from the consensus decision, citing Iran’s appalling record on women’s rights.

Canada and other Western democracies, however, remained silent and allowed the consensus to pass in ECOSOC, a body of which Canada is a member."

UN Watch

 

"The United States disassociates from consensus on the nomination of Iran to the Committee on Program and Co-ordination."

"The regime threatens its neighbours and has for decades infringed on the Iranian people's ability to exercise their basic human rights."

"Due to these and other concerns, we believe Iran is unfit to serve on a body advising member states on program and budgetary matters."

U.S. Ambassador Dan Negrea 

The Security Council chamber at the United Nation in New York City. Photo by Spencer Platt /Getty Images

 

Canada obligingly assisted  in the approval of a motion for the Islamic Republic of Iran -- that would be the Iranian regime that just a few months earlier responded to nation-wide protests against the regime by dispatching police, the IRGC and Basij to violently disband the protests by all and any means, leading to the killing of an estimated 30,000 Iranians and the arrests and death sentences of untold numbers of 'enemies of the Islamic Republic' -- to a position on the UN's Committee for Program and Coordination.

 

Iranian-Canadians who desperately wish for the Ayatollah-led, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-enforced Republic to fall, and yearn for the freedom from oppression that would mean for their families in Iran, would have reacted to the news of this incredible betrayal with disbelief. While at the same time, the infiltrated members of the regime and the IRGC that have made a home for themselves in Canada would have beamed with pleasure. Just as Hamas has on occasion congratulated the ruling Liberal government for some of its decisions, now the Iranian regime was given the same opportunity.

 

Officially, for internal consumption, the Liberal government of prime minister Mark Carney denied any such reports; that they did no such thing. The actual facts belie that assertion. Canada gave aid and comfort to a regime under the duress of a conflict brought by the State of Israel and the U.S. military launching an aerial war on the regime, its military, the IRGC, their weapons depots and rocket launchers and nuclear sites. While the Iranian regime presents a distinct danger with its nuclear ambitions and its sponsorship of terrorist groups to the world at large and the Middle East in particular, Canada's government calls for a ceasefire so the regime can survive.

 

Canada's decision at the April 8 meeting of the UN Economic and Social Council enables Iran to have an advisory and oversight role on programs as diverse as gender equality and terrorism prevention, as well as 'peaceful uses of outer space'. Global Affairs Canada's insistence that Canada's role in the event has been misunderstood, is an evasive and shameful tactic in a bid to shield the government from the shame and blame it most certainly deserves for betraying the most elemental foundations of human rights against tyrannical rule. 

 

Official video from the UN Economic and Social Council, most recently chaired by Bob Rae, Canada's ambassador to the UN, showed an official chairing a plenary session of the council where the Islamic Republic of Iran was included on a list of countries set to be appointed to a three-year term on the Committee for Program and Co-ordination. With no objections from the representatives of the assembled countries, the officiating individual bangs a gavel and declares: "It is so decided". 

 

And Canada helped in that decision; not a word of doubt expressed of the inappropriateness of a corrupt, terror-promoting, nation known for persecuting its own people -- much less its violence visited upon Iranian women who dare to oppose strictures placed upon their most basic of human rights -- sitting on such a committee from Canada.

 

Screenshot from a UN live stream showing the precise moment that a plenary session of the UN Economic and Social Council approved the nomination of the Islamic Republic of Iran to a UN oversight committee. Photo by UN

 

"They [Chinese space exploration] may be early. And recent history suggests we might be late."

"This time the goal is not flags and footprints [in returning astronauts to the moon]."

"This time the goal is to stay [sustaining a permanent presence on the moon]."

Jared Isaacman, NASA administrator 

The United States, considering itself the alpha nation in scientific innovation and advances was somewhat chastened and humiliated when it was Soviet Russia, whose own scientific entrepreneurship was considerable enough to enable it to be the first nation on Earth to send a cosmonaut into space to orbit Earth in 1961, advancing space exploration through a 108-minute mission to orbit Earth, making Yuri Gagarin the first human to leave the bounds of the planet.   

 

It took another eight years for the United States to catch up with Russia's space mission, when the Apollo 11 Mission carried three astronauts to the surface of the Moon, resulting in first Neil Armstrong's famous walk on the Moon, followed by Buzz Aldrin's, while Michael Collins remained in orbit. No country has since returned to the Moon. China has developed its own space program and ambitions for the Moon. Although Neil Armstrong planted the American flag during his 2-hour walk on the Moon's surface, the race is now on to see who will plant the next flag. 

 

Buzz Aldrin on the Moon in a photograph taken by Neil Armstrong, who can be seen in the visor reflection along with Earth, the Lunar Module Eagle, and the U.S. flag^.

 

The present era in space travel sees China and the United States in a competition over who will first land humans on the Moon not merely for continued exploration purposes and greater familiarity with its surface and conformations and minerals, but to advance development plans for a permanent presence there, a manned station from which other missions further into the depths of outer space to reach Mars and possibly establish a colony there. 

 

CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen – in the center of the image – peers out the window of the Orion spacecraft on day 3 of NASA's Artemis II mission. The controls over the commander and pilot seats are illuminated in the foreground, but the cabin is otherwise dark to avoid unnecessary glares on the windows.  Image Credit: NASA

China's space mission has already distinguished itself for having landed an unmanned mission on the never-before seen far side of the Moon where a robotic probe programmed to retrieve mineral samples succeeded in bringing them back to Earth for Chinese scientific study identification. China plans its seventh robotic mission to explore the lunar south pole, with its Chang'e 7 space capsule. Chinese astronauts are to revisit that part of the Moon where the Apollo 11 mission landed.

 

In April U.S. astronauts were sent by NASA on a ten-day lunar flyby, doing a figure-8 loop around the Moon and back, then returning to Earth, having flown further and higher than any other manned mission. As a prelude to plans to once again land astronauts on the Moon where both China and the U.S. plan to build nuclear reactors to power the lunar bases they intend to build as space-launch sites. 

 

China's plan is to build outposts around the south pole of the Moon, planning to tap frozen water, hydrogen and helium in that region. China's target for a return with a manned mission has a date of 2030. NASA hopes to beat them at it, knowing it's a long shot, but they plan on returning to the Moon with astronauts in 2028, two years sooner than China. The reality is that China with its centralized control funding projects decades ahead, has been where the U.S. has not yet ventured.

 

And it is the south pole that the U.S. too plans to return to, a competition that may determine, according to which country first reaches its target, which will be able to assume the greater authority over the region. NASA's plan is to launch six-month missions, arranging for a sustained presence. The U.S. spacecraft Orion carried the four astronauts (one Canadian) on the Artemis 11 mission this month. 

 

The lunar robot initiative is part of China’s broader 'AI in steel' strategy—embedding artificial intelligence into physical machines for real-world tasks.

 

Artemis 111 is to be launched next year, to test a lander being developed by SpaceX called Starship, while Blue Origin has another lander in development. Whichever lander is completed will be tested by NASA first. Artemis could be sped up in a new timescale through a recent program overhaul to include more launches to test components, lower risks and gain confidence.

 

China has two programs; crewed missions under the purview of the military, and civilian robotic missions. The Long March 10 is a Chinese government-built rocket, half as tall as a 30-story building, with seven engines at its base. The United States has the jump on China with rocket technology in that China cannot match SpaceX's reusale Falcon 9 rocket. 

 

A new spacecraft called the Mengzhou ('Dream Boat') is being developed by China to carry up to seven astronauts, designed for lunar missions and trips to the Chinese space station, some 450 kilometers above Earth. 

 

The Mengzhou is to carry astronauts to a lunar orbit where a rendezvous with a lander to take the astronauts to the moon's surface will be carried out. Once the Chinese astronauts get to their Lanyue lunar lander, it will turn toward the lunar surface where on landing it will become the astronauts' temporary home, data center and energy source. 

 

Artist's illustration of astronauts on the moon planting a Chinese flag. (Image credit: 3DSculptori/Stock/Getty Images)

 

International Rescue Committee

 

"Even before the war in Sudan erupted in April 2023, the country was already experiencing a severe humanitarian crisis that left 15.8 million people in need of aid. Now, three years of war have drastically worsened these conditions, displacing approximately 14 million people and leaving 33.7 million people—two-thirds of the population—in need of humanitarian support."

"The country’s food system has been pushed to the brink, with millions of families now surviving on just one meal a day, or less."

"Sudan is the largest humanitarian crisis in the world in terms of number of people who need humanitarian aid. It is also the largest and fastest displacement crisis."
International Rescue Committee 

 

As Sudan marks three years of war, MSF teams continue to treat people whose lives have been devastated by the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

A lack of basic services and constrained humanitarian access are compounding people's suffering.

The warring parties must protect civilians and be held accountable for their violations, and the international community must use diplomatic pressure to prevent further crimes. 

Medicins Sans Frontieres  

Patient Saidal Altaher, 2 months old, being treated for malnutrition at the pediatric hospital stabilization center in Port Sudan on Wednesday.  Bernat Armangue / AP

 

Described as the world's largest humanitarian challenge in terms of displacement and hunger, Sudan is suffering a crisis of abandonment with the world's attention turning to the Middle East and the standoff in Iran, and its blockade of the Hormuz Strait. In Sudan, 13 million people have been forced by the threat and violence of a bloody conflict to flee their homes, becoming internally displaced. Food and medicines are scarce and diseases like cholera are running rampant. 

 

The number of  dead from the conflict stands at 59,000 with 6,000 having perished over three days alone, as the RSF (paramilitary Rapid Support Forces) bulled their way through the Darfur outpost of el-Fasher in October, an offensive that the UN considers alike "the defining characteristics of genocide". Black Darfurians once again in the rifle sights of the horsed Arab Janjaweed as they were in the early 2000s.

 

Severe acute malnutrition is set to afflict 800,000 people in parts of Sudan, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. Two of every three Sudanese require assistance, according to the United Nations. Health facilities have been impacted to the point where only 63 percent remain fully or partially functional to deal with the conflict's wounded and emerging disease outbreaks. 

 

Denise Brown, the UN's top official in Sudan, criticizing the international community for its failure to press for the end to the conflict, stating: "A plea from me: Please don't call this the forgotten crisis. I'm referring to this as an abandoned crisis", she corrected. 

 

People fleeing conflict in Sudan's Darfur risked being hit by drone strikes   Reuters

 

Following the deposed dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2019, a power struggle emerged between the Sudanese military under General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and RSF commander General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who was initially Burhan's deputy at the ruling sovereign council of Sudan. Sudanese "have become powerless and are subjected to foreign dictates", claimed a Sudanese journalist and researcher.

 

Germany undertook to host a  conference in Berlin, welcoming governments, UN agencies and aid groups to take part, with a goal to rally donors to assist in funding strained humanitarian responses and to "promote an immediate ceasefire", according to the German Development Ministry. For its troubles, the Khartoum government condemned the conference as an 'unacceptable' interference on Sudan's internal affairs. 

 

The Sudanese military has control over the country's north, east and central regions, its oil refineries and pipelines, and Red Sea ports. The RSF and its allies control Darfur and the region at the border with South Sudan. Regions that both include oilfields and gold mines. Egypt supports the Sudan military, and the United Arab Emirates has been accused by the UN of providing arms to the RSF, which it emphatically denies. 

 

In the three years of conflict, widespread atrocities are known to have occurred;  rampant sexual violence in gang rapes and mass killings, among them. According to the WHO, hospitals, ambulances and medical workers have been attacked, claiming over 2,000 have been killed.  Most atrocities have been placed at the feet of the RSF and the Janjaweed, notorious for atrocities committed in the early 2000s against Black Sudanese farming communities. 

 

Sudanese army soldiers sitting atop a parked tank after their capture of a base used by the RSF, after the rival paramilitary group evacuated from the Salha area of Omdurman, the twin city of Sudan's capital, in May 2025.  Ebrahim Hamid / AFP via Getty Images

 

"Many want Beijing to play a larger role as a defender of stability diplomacy, and an open global economy."

"World leaders are heading to Beijing because they increasingly see China as a hedge against an unpredictable United States." 

Neil Thomas, fellow, Chinese Politics, Asia Society Policy Institute Center for China Analysis 

 

"Beijing also has concerns about managing its own relationship with Washington."

"More direct and active involvement in negotiations [with the Islamic Republic] could win the Trump administration's affirmation as much as earn its ire and blame."

Ja Ian Chong, associate professor of political science, National University of Singapore 

 

"It is very easy to criticize the U.S. Even America's allies are at odds with Trump and Washington these days."

"But sooner or later, China needs to go beyond the position of critic, and get some real diplomatic skin in the game."

Richard McGregor, senior fellow for East Asia, The Lowy Institute

Spain struck a trade deal with China on Tuesday

 

China no longer viewed by the West as an economic ogre, one whose finesse at hostage diplomacy, whose penchant for cybertheft and purloining foreign industrial/commercial formulae and government secrets for its benefits; a gargantuan, omnivorous threat to the well-being of other nations' wealth and aspirations? What a swift transition. And to think that it has been occasioned by the president of the United States of America's belligerence over trade tariffs and unity in Western security over threats poised by Xi and Putin!

 

Yet in one week alone Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamnmed, Vietnam's president To Lam, all came visiting one after another. Impressed, no doubt over President Xi Jinping's turning the leaf on his book of global exploits in presenting China as a source of dependable stability and (newfound) respect for international rules. As, for example in contrast to President Trump's unspeakably dire threat to bomb Iran "back to the Stone Ages", a bit of bluster to match Iran's own, that horrified Pope Leo XIV. 

 

In fact, the contrast is a deep and unfolding reality, where Trump's unchecked pronouncements on his social media site has served to further confound, affront and distance erstwhile staunch supporters in Europe, North America and Asia of U.S. policies and allied support. Italy's Giorgia Meloni, the U.K.'s Keir Starmer were this week recipients of President Trump's ire; not that it was undeserving, simply a trifle undiplomatic, as is his inimitable style. Nor did Pope Leo come away unscathed for his penchant at being "terrible for foreign policy"; that too not far from reality.   

 

Oh, and Italy's foreign minister also visited Beijing this week, coming away with a pledge that China is prepared to deepen ties with Rome. Mr. Trump's frustration with allies over their disinterest in teaming up with the U.S. military to open the Strait of Hormuz to normal shipping so that energy can continue to flow from the Persian Gulf to the people who most need and use it, including those allies, has deepened with their continued hands-off negativity.  

"Donald Trump’s second Administration is bringing about a historic reconfiguration of transatlantic relations, compelling the EU and its member states to reassess multiple dimensions of their foreign policy. In response to the deepening rift with Washington, Europe is adopting a hedging strategy by strengthening ties with other global actors, including China."

"This approach was underscored by Ursula von der Leyen at the World Economic Forum, referring to the 50^th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations with Beijing as ‘an opportunity to engage and deepen our relationship with China, and where possible, even to expand our trade and investment ties’. "

Mario Esteban, Elcano Royal Institute  

They've chosen instead to go-it-alone as a group, sans the U.S. and that purpose saw the U.K.'s Starmer in Paris to host a video conference alongside Emmanuel Macron, steering a coalition of some 40 countries planning to help independently restore free transit through the Strait of Hormuz, South Korea, Japan and Australia included -- all supporting a ceasefire in return for intervention. Nations in Southeast Asia have been given support in their energy crisis by a $10-billion financial package promised by Japan's Sanae Takaichi on a new "Power Asia" initiative.

 

An aerial view of the cityscape of Beijing, China Photo: VCG

 

That China stoutly maintains its support of Russia, despite its full-fledged conflict in Ukraine makes the entire scenario somewhat bizarrely Byzantine; even as European leaders, fixed in their support of Ukraine's battle to sustain its sovereignty, visit China to explore lucrative trade agreements, Xi met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to pledge deeper bilateral coordination. Not to be forgotten is Russian and Chinese backing of Iran, their major oil supplier, despite global sanctions.

 

As the world's largest oil importer, China has vast commercial oil reserves to tide it conveniently over the current shortage afflicting its neighbours. China is content with taking an observer's back seat with the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Officially it calls for restraint and de-escalation. Business as usual, for China.

 

INVESTING IN CHINA

Powered by China Briefing, the experts at Dezan Shira & Associates, and their partners

 

"Unless this trade is tightly constrained, it’s likely to undermine Canada’s industrial base."

"If we take a wrong turn, an entire industrial ecosystem could be hollowed out or captured, leading to a dependency that erodes economic security, sovereignty, and democratic values."

Deeper economic entanglement with China is not a long-term route to achieving any of those goals. It's a dead end." 

"The fundamental problem is that the Chinese Communist Party has an agenda that is hostile to Western democracies because it seeks to weaken our governance and our societies."

"Tilting toward China is a risky bet that is likely to carry more negative costs for Canada than the positive benefits that it could potentially bring."

Michael Kovrig, geopolitical adviser, former diplomat 

 

"It's a massive risk."

"Canada's auto industry depends on our integration with North America and the U.S. specifically. That's been the foundation of the sector, going all the way back to the auto pact."

"An estimated hourly wage at a Chinese [plant] is between U.S. $2 and $4 an hour. Compare that to a unionized vehicle production plant in Canada, where your average wage is about $45 an hour, and that also includes pensions and benefits and a whole range of other advantages." 

Brian Kingston, president, CEO Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association 

 

"We should welcome Chinese car manufacturers but set the rules similarly to what GM Canada had to do when it went to Shanghai in 2009."

"We should say, you are welcome to come to Canada, but you will have, after three years, to have about 30 percent of Canadian content, and after ten years, it has to be 100 percent content."

Guy Saint-Jacques former Canadian ambassador to China 

Models pose near the BYD Seal 06 Dmi, unveiled during the Auto China 2024 show in Beijing, on April 25, 2024. China's largest EV maker has been expanding rapidly into overseas markets and could reach Canadian shores shortly following Ottawa's recent deal with Beijing. (Ng Han Guan/The Associated Press)

Second-guessing Prime Minister Mark Carney's triumphant visit to Beijing in January when he came back home to Canada with a prize; Beijing's agreement to lower tariffs on Canadian canola and pork. That didn't come out of the goodness of China's trading-heart, but it mightily pleased the Canadian agrifood industry after a trade spat that close to destroyed their always-dependable Chinese market. Canola, seafood and pork are important comestibles for the Chinese, but they are products considered in trade talk to be fungible; they can be acquired elsewhere. In return, the negotiators in Beijing smiled broadly when Mr. Carney agreed to drop the 100% tariff Ottawa levied on Chinese electric vehicles and to allow the entry under a favourable tariff rate, an initial 49,000 of the vehicles for the Canadian market.

 

The Canadian auto industry was anything but pleased. Chinese electric vehicles are priced very reasonably in comparison to their counterparts produced in North America. The Canadian auto industry has gone through an agonizing few years thanks to the Trump administration's decision to punish its neighbour for taking the U.S. for a trade ride for far too long, according to their logic. The heavily intertwined industry where parts go back and forth between Canada and the U.S. in production of vehicles had suited both countries very well in the past, where the new tariffs have left Canada's auto industry on its knees.

 

Carney loosens Chinese EV tariffs

Mark Carney smooth-talked the situation as an opportunity for Canadians to consider the purchase of a less expensive option where the market of such vehicles struggle with soaring prices. In five years, he said with confidence, over 50 percent of vehicles in North America will be available at an import price of less than $35,000. More affordable options at a potential cost to tens of thousands of auto industry jobs in Canada. "It's clear that this will be a delicate and sometimes difficult relationship to manage with risks and opportunities that must be carefully weighed, as we heard from the earlier witnesses today", noted director of policy and strategy at Clean Energy Canada, acknowledging the risks associated with Chinese companies accessing the Canadian auto market.

 

Michael Kovrig, whose experience with China was rather less than idyllic, when he was taken into custody while in China, accused of a conspiracy against China, and was imprisoned in less than stellar conditions, with 'soft' torture for almost three years for espionage, as was Michael Spavor, during a different, diplomatic drama when China was polishing up its hostage-diplomacy credentials, warns against any Canadian involvement with Chinese trade.  

 

He addressed the issue of harmful environmental practices and abuses of human rights well known to exist in the supply chains of Chinese production, inclusive of Chinese EV companies. Allegations of using forced labour in the construction of vehicles by BYD, include its plants located in Brazil and Hungary. The U.S.-based non-profit China Labor Watch recently reported evidence of brutal labour conditions for Chinese migrant workers at its facility in Hungary. BYD was also listed by Brazil on its registry of employers subjecting workers to slave labour conditions.

 

Former senior bureaucrat Margaret McCuaig-Johnston last month during testimony before a House of Commons committee cited a Human Rights Watch report that aluminum used in dozens of auto parts in Chinese EVs is likely to be produced by Uyghur forced labour. China-based Zhejiang Leapmotor Technology Co. discussed the potential with Stellantis of building Chinese EVs at their idled Brampton, Ontario plant. The plan involving "knock down" kits assembled in Canada, parts produced and shipped from China. A plan that would wholly diminish Canadian auto parts' and workers' importance in total auto production.

 

While the prime minister claimed Canadian legislation is designed to force companies to report on their supply chains, recognize forced labour elements and keep them out of the Canadian supply chain, critics point out that the Canada Border Services Agency since 2021 halted a mere two shipments containing forced labour, both from China. "The legislation is world class; the enforcement of the legislation is possibly less than world class", former Liberal MP John McKay stated. 

 

A BYD vehicle is assembled on the production line of the company's factory in Camacari, Brazil, on Oct. 9, 2025. (Joa Souza/Reuters)

"I think there are a number of concerns when it comes to this expansion of Chinese companies and their presence in the Canadian market."

"And human rights is one element of it, but economic security and national security concerns must also be considered."

Vina Nadjibulla, vice-president of research and strategy, Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada 

"From the General Assembly resolution 3379 in 1975, which called Zionism 'a form of racism'; through the 2001 Durban human rights conference; to the 2003 election of a representative of Libya's Col. Qaddafi as chair of the Human Rights Council, the UN's veneer of legitimacy has worn thin."

John Ivison, journalist, National Post 

The Security Council chamber at the United Nations in New York City. Photo by Spencer Platt /Getty Images

 

Once a year the UN's Economic and Social Council's [ECOSOC], 54 members which centrally coordinates the UN's work on economic, social and environmental issues, nominates a list of countries to join the UN Committee for Program and Coordination [CPC], which are generally confirmed. Currently the ECOSOC membership includes the United States, Germany, France, Spain, the United Kingdom and Canada, among many other countries. A week ago nominations for the CPC came up for debate. The Islamic Republic of Iran was one of those nominated. And the United States was the only ECOSOC member to dissent over its nomination, declaring Iran unfit to sit on the CPC.

 

In another month the CPC will take to reviewing United Nations programs that address gender equality, disarmament and terrorism prevention. Certainly, Iran knows a great deal about all three issues. And as a world-leader in abuse of women's rights, and the ultimate resistor-country to disarmament, as well as the globally-acknowledged leader in the promotion of terrorism, it could conceivably act as a poster for all that has gone wrong in human rights under its theistic rule. Other than that, what could it possibly add of any value to those items? 

 

Canada was one of the ECOSOC members, along with Germany, France, Spain, and the U.K. to rubber-stamp the Iranian nomination to the CPC -- and just coincidentally Iran had been elected to the group previously, in 2014, 2017, 2020 and 2023, as astonishingly corrupt as that might appear to any befuddled mind that continues to cling to the belief that the United Nations is a global institution whose mandate is one of promoting human rights and world peace. 

 

United Nations Headquarters   Image courtesy of Nils Huenerfuerst on Unsplash

 

The following Tuesday in the House of Commons, Opposition Conservative MP Michael Chong, foreign affairs critic, questioned Canada's supine agreement for Iran. Foreign Affairs minister Anita Anand informed  him that there was nothing Canada could do: "As the position was uncontested, there was no opportunity for a vote", she explained. But the opportunity was there to object and Canada failed that metric of responsibility. "Canada will continue to work closely with partners to actively counter Iran's candidacies in UN bodies and will do so on all occasions", she emphasized, having just done otherwise. 

 

But then, of course, she was only relying on the outstanding leadership example of the leader of the Liberal party, Prime Minister Mark Carney, to lead the way on sanctimonious cynicism, as when in January his speech in Davos included this humdinger: "There is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along. To accommodate. To avoid trouble. To hope that compliance will buy safety. It won't."

 

According to Canadian lawyer Hillel Neuer of UN Watch in Geneva, Anand's position  was "misleading". Canada could have acted with principle, but failed to. It had the opportunity to force a vote on the nominations, at the very least could have done what the U.S. did, to disassociate from the consensus that rubber-stamped Iran's committee membership, once again. The U.S. ambassador to ECOSOC made that abundantly clear, and included Cuba and Nicaragua. 

"To be clear, Canada joined the consensus in endorsing Iran and others, and it was not obliged to."

"I would say this is typical. Much of what happens at the UN is very cynical. If you want to be principled, you are going to be very busy and it is going to be unpleasant."

"Diplomats believe it is good to get along with as many countries as possible It is much easier to go along to get along."

"[Placing] serial abusers [at the helm of human rights at the UN is] like putting Al Capone in charge of fighting organized crime".

Hillel Neuer, UN Watch 

Iran secures UN role with backing from UK, France, Canada, Australia as US stands alone