National
Preston Manning: “Appearing to Cope” – Is This The Best We Can Do?

Many years ago, when I was in the consulting business, I visited Washington DC to re-connect with some Republican contacts I had previously made in California and who had since risen to positions of influence with the Nixon administration. In their California days they had been idealistic advocates of change, but when I met them in Washington most of that idealism had evaporated. As they ruefully explained, “ Here in Washington DC, the real name of the game is simply “appearing to cope”.
And how do politicians in high office play this game? When issue X arises, hold a news conference or give a speech acknowledging X’s existence and expressing deep concern. Convene a hearing or a conference on X, calling for decision makers and experts on X to attend and testify. Issue an executive order or send a draft bill to Congress with X in the title, the preamble, and the news release. In other words, substitute announcement for action, conferencing and discussion for results, and appearance for substance.
Flash forward 50 years and regrettably the “appearing to cope” strategy is very much alive and now practiced in Canada by the newly elected Carney government.
Is Infrastructure Development, long neglected and even obstructed by the discredited Trudeau administration, a pressing issue? Of course. So, borrowing from the Conservative platform, now make Infrastructure Development a theme of speeches and commentaries by Liberals seeking and winning election. Post election, convene a federal provincial conference with Infrastructure Development high on the agenda and post-conference communiques announcing “cooperation” on the subject. Introduce a bill in parliament purporting to facilitate Infrastructure Development by reducing federal regulations and interprovincial barriers while prophesying billions of dollars of investment in Infrastructure Development. As yet no actual infrastructure development has occurred – there are no shovels in the ground – but the appearance has been given that the federal government is successfully addressing the issue.
“Appearing to do” as a substitute for actually doing is now complemented and amplified in this age of social media by the ease with which governments and politicians can also “appear to be” something or someone they are not. The exhortation to “Do, rather than appear to do” should now be accompanied by that of the old Latin motto – Esse Quam Videri – “Be, rather than appear to be”.
As the contractors complete the future Chamber of the House of Commons in the refurbished Parliament Building in Ottawa, maybe they should carve into the ceiling of the Chamber – in a prominent place visible to all members of the House. “Do, rather than appear to do. Be, rather than appear to be.” Would not the acceptance and practice of those two exhortations render our politics and our government more worthy of public trust?
Business
Canada should already be an economic superpower. Why is Canada not doing better?

From Resource Works
Tej Parikh of the Financial Times‘s says Canada has the minerals but not the plan
Tej Parikh is the economics editorial writer for The Financial Times, a British daily newspaper. He joins our Stewart Muir for a Power Struggle interview. And we include in the following report some points from a guest column by Parikh in Canada’s National Post, which carried the headline ‘How Canada can unlock its economic superpower potential.’
Parikh begins the Power Struggle interview with this: “There’s an enormous economic potential here, very much the same geographic advantages that have underpinned America’s economic emergence over the last 100 years. . . . Given everything we understand about the advantages that countries need to grow, why is Canada not doing better economically?” He added: “When you break it down and you look at why income per capita in Canada has perhaps not increased as fast as we might expect on the basis of those advantages, it really kind of breaks down to three components. One is investment, so how much capital goes into the country?
The second is labour, and not just the amount, the size of the workforce you have, but how well you utilize the workforce. And then the third component is something that economists like to call a total-factor productivity, which is essentially your innovative ability and your ability to bring together capital and people. “And when you look at Canada as opposed to other large economies . . . you begin to see that actually there are a lot of restrictions in Canada, not just because of its vast geography but because of regulation, that it actually can’t combine its capital and labour as productively as it could.
“It’s about creating those supply chains and critical minerals that the Western world is currently short of. Given it (Canada) has these vast raw material resources, there is a massive scope for it to become even more integrated into Western supply chains in particular and to become a supplier of these things.” From Parikh’s National Post column: “The country is energy independent, with the world’s largest deposits of high-grade uranium and the third-largest proven oil reserves. It is also the fifth-largest producer of natural gas.Canada boasts a huge supply of other commodities too, including the largest potash reserves (used to make fertilizer), over one-third of the world’s certified forests and a fifth of the planet’s surface freshwater. Plus, it has an abundance of cobalt, graphite, lithium and other rare earth elements, which are used in renewable technologies. “But the nation has lacked the visionary leadership and policy framework to capitalize on its advantages.”
Watch the full interview here:
Business
While China Hacks Canada, B.C. Sends Them a Billion-Dollar Ship Building Contract

This is like finding out your house was broken into and, instead of calling the cops, you hire the burglar to remodel your kitchen because he offered a good price.
Just days—days—after British Columbia Premier David Eby shrugs off federal concerns over awarding a billion-dollar ferry contract to China, and I’m quoting here, tells Ottawa to “honestly, just mind your own business”… we learn that China is hacking Canadian telecommunications infrastructure.
Let that sink in.
So here’s the story. British Columbia, a province of Canada that still pretends to care about sovereignty and jobs—just handed a massive, publicly funded ferry contract to China. Yes, China. Not a B.C. shipyard. Not a Canadian company. But a Chinese Communist Party–owned industrial complex. Because apparently, in the year 2025, a G7 nation that once built warships and railroads can’t even build a ferry. The country that designed the Avro Arrow now outsources its boatbuilding to Beijing.
Why? According to BC Ferries, the Chinese bid was the “strongest” and “most cost-effective.” Translation: they were the cheapest totalitarian regime available.
And to justify that? We’re told Canadian shipyards didn’t even bid. Why? Because they don’t have the “capacity.” Which sounds an awful lot like: we’ve let this industry rot for decades and now we’re pretending it’s just the market doing its thing.
Now, Premier Eby didn’t deny it. He didn’t fight it. He didn’t try to fix it. He just said, “It’s not ideal. But it’s too late.” Five years of procurement, so we’re locked in. No turning back. As if surrender is somehow a neutral policy.
And Chrystia Freeland? She called it “dismaying,” which is Canadian for we’re not going to do a thing about it. No federal funding, she said, and please make sure it’s cybersecure. From a Chinese state firm. Sure.
Meanwhile, here’s the part no one wants to say out loud: China is actively attacking Canada’s digital infrastructure. This isn’t some distant cyber operation. It’s happening now. Salt Typhoon, a Chinese state-linked group, exploited a Cisco vulnerability to compromise three core telecom devices. They siphoned data. Created a GRE tunnel. Pulled configuration files. They were inside the system. Watching. Collecting. Spying.
And while that’s going on, B.C. writes them a check.
This is like finding out your house was broken into and, instead of calling the cops, you hire the burglar to remodel your kitchen because he offered a good price.
Now business analysts, the same people who said NAFTA would be great for everyone, argue this is “industry standard.” They point out Canadian firms have used Chinese shipyards for years. Yes—and look where that got us. No shipbuilding capacity, no strategic leverage, and no national pride.
BC Ferries insists it’s not a total sellout. They’re spending $230 million on local refits and maintenance. Great—so we send the billion overseas and toss the leftovers to local workers. That’s not industrial policy. That’s industrial hospice care.
Unions and domestic builders like Seaspan have said clearly: We can do the work. We want to build. But they need policy. They need backing. And instead of standing up and saying, “Let’s build ships in Canada again,” David Eby shrugs and signs the dotted line.
And what does B.C. Premier David Eby say when the federal government dares to ask a reasonable question—like, “Hey, is sending a billion-dollar infrastructure deal to a Chinese state-owned company while China’s hacking your telecoms and stealing your IP a smart move?”
Eby’s response?
“Honestly, just mind your own business.”
That’s not spin. That’s what he said—on the record, during a Jas Johal radio interview. He told Ottawa, Chrystia Freeland, and every single Canadian taxpayer footing the bill: Stop asking questions. Don’t expect accountability. Just sit quietly and watch us outsource the building blocks of our own sovereignty to an authoritarian regime.
Eby then admits—almost casually—that the deal is “not ideal.” Right. Because funneling public funds to a hostile regime that’s openly undermining your democracy and infiltrating your critical infrastructure isn’t ideal. But he claims the decision can’t be reversed. Why? Because it would cost too much, and we don’t have the capacity to build our own ferries anymore.
Let that sink in. This isn’t Somalia. This is Canada. A G7 country. And the Premier of one of its most important provinces is now saying: We’re too broken to build ferries, so let the CCP do it.
While B.C. writes checks to a Chinese Communist Party–controlled shipyard to build vessels for public service, Chinese state-sponsored hackers are already inside Canadian networks—pulling data, monitoring traffic, and spying on political officials. These aren’t amateur criminals. These are agents of a foreign authoritarian regime. And they’re not looking for cat videos. They’re not trying to intercept your hockey stream. They’re looking for call metadata, SMS content, real-time location tracking, and political communications. You know, espionage.
This isn’t some speculative post from a blog or a heated Reddit thread. This is straight from a government-issued cyber intelligence bulletin, published on June 19, 2025, by the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, Canada’s frontline cyber defense agency, in collaboration with the FBI. The bulletin confirms that a sophisticated Chinese state-sponsored threat actor, known as Salt Typhoon, orchestrated a targeted cyberattack in mid-February 2025, exploiting vulnerabilities in Cisco’s IOS XE software to infiltrate critical telecommunications infrastructure in Canada.
Specifically, Salt Typhoon zeroed in on a critical flaw, CVE-2023-20198, which allowed them to gain unauthorized access to three network devices registered to a major Canadian telecom provider. For those unfamiliar, this vulnerability is a remote code execution flaw that grants attackers admin-level privileges—essentially handing them the keys to the network. Once inside, they didn’t just poke around. They retrieved sensitive configuration files, which are like the blueprints of a network’s operations, and modified at least one to establish Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) tunnels. If you’re not a techie, GRE tunnels are a clever technique to create virtual pathways that bypass standard security controls, allowing attackers to quietly siphon off network traffic—think of it as tapping a phone line, but for entire data streams.
This wasn’t a smash-and-grab job. The bulletin details how Salt Typhoon’s actions were methodical, aimed at enabling long-term surveillance and data collection. By rerouting traffic through these GRE tunnels, they could access bulk customer data, including call metadata, location information, and potentially even the content of SMS messages or other communications. The targets? High-value individuals, such as government officials and political figures, whose data could fuel China’s broader espionage objectives. The bulletin warns that this is part of a global campaign, with similar attacks hitting telecoms in the U.S. and dozens of other countries, compromising providers like AT&T and Verizon.
The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security doesn’t mince words: Salt Typhoon is “almost certainly” backed by the People’s Republic of China, and their campaign is expected to persist, targeting Canadian organizations, especially telecoms and their clients, for the near and present future.
Now here’s where it gets interesting. Or infuriating.
Let’s look at CSIS’s own public report, released in 2024. Salt Typhoon isn’t named, no. But China is named. Over and over. Page 6 reads like a war warning that no one in Ottawa even bothered to read. It says, and I quote, “The People’s Republic of China continues to engage in sophisticated espionage and foreign interference… especially in critical mineral sectors and technology supply chains.”
Translation? They’re not just watching your data—they’re coming for your economy, your elections, and your sovereignty. This is more than cybercrime. This is geopolitical warfare. And China is winning because we’re too weak or too afraid to say no.
The CSIS report goes on: Chinese actors are infiltrating elections, immigration channels, even using AI and front groups to manipulate discourse and policy. Not someday. Now. Right now.
Let’s be completely clear: In February, China penetrated Canadian telecom infrastructure.
In June, we paid them to build ships.
How is that not a national scandal?
How do you allow that?
This is the collapse of common sense in real time. National security is not a partisan issue. It’s not theoretical. It’s not about trade. It’s about who holds the keys to your data, your infrastructure, and your future.
And right now, Canada’s government—and yes, its provinces—are not just letting that fall into China’s hands. They’re delivering it.
On a silver ferry.
Let that sink in.
Now ask yourself—what exactly are we getting in return? Where’s the national benefit? Where’s the plan? Where’s the damn spine?
David Eby says “BC First” like it means something. But how does it square with shipping public contracts straight to Beijing while China’s hacking your telecoms and eyeing your elections? You can’t call it “BC First” when you’re literally bankrolling Chinese state-owned industry while Canadian shipyards rot on the sidelines. That’s not leadership. That’s surrender.
And here’s the kicker—Eby’s been in multiple meetings with the feds. Four major First Ministers’ meetings, plus two sit-downs with Mark Carney, the man Liberals are touting as their next economic messiah. And you’re telling me not one person at those tables could put two brain cells together and say:
“Hey Mark, B.C. needs ferries. You want a manufacturing revival. Let’s cut a deal. You give us federal subsidies, we build these ships here at home. Yeah, it costs more up front, but it proves we’re serious about national industry. And we’re not handing vital infrastructure contracts to the same regime that’s compromising our telecoms and undermining our democracy.”
Would that not be common sense? Apparently not—because neither Carney nor Eby made that deal. They let it slide. They let the CCP win a contract while Salt Typhoon was actively hacking Canada’s backbone.
That’s not “hard choices.” That’s strategic failure. It’s cowardice masked as pragmatism.
Eby isn’t a dealmaker. He’s a decline manager. He’s the guy who shrugs and says, “Well, we can’t do it here,” and then signs a billion-dollar check to a foreign power with no accountability, no dignity, no leverage.
And Carney? The guy trying to pitch himself as the future of Canada’s economic revival? The guy who says we need to build, invest, strengthen? He let this go. Either he didn’t care, or he wasn’t paying attention. Either way—it’s incompetence at the highest level. And it proves the Liberals and the B.C. NDP are fully aligned in managing decline, not reversing it.
They told us Donald Trump was the threat. They told us he would sell out our values, undermine democracy, and abandon national interests. David Eby said it. Mark Carney echoed it. They told you they were the adults in the room—the ones who would put Canada first.
And what did they actually do?
They handed a billion-dollar public contract to a Chinese state-owned shipyard—while China is actively hacking our telecom networks and undermining our elections. They outsourced jobs, security, and dignity to the same regime their own intelligence agencies are warning us about.
David Eby said “BC First.” Mark Carney talks about reviving Canadian industry. But when the opportunity came—when they could have drawn a line, invested in our workforce, and told Beijing “no”—they caved. They chose cheap. They chose weak. They chose decline.
This is not leadership.
It’s not “strategic.”
It’s not “pragmatic.”
It’s pathetic.
And if this is what the NDP and Liberal vision looks like—deals for China, excuses for inaction, and silence while Canadian industry is gutted—then it’s time for an election.
We need real leadership. We need people who will fight for Canadian workers, Canadian infrastructure, and Canadian sovereignty. Not performative speeches. Not hollow slogans. Results. Accountability. Courage. This government has failed. Let the people decide. Call an election—before we lose more than just jobs and we can let someone lead who actually wants to make Canada First.
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