Chinese EVs Could Put Canadians Critical of China at Risk: Former Senior Government Official

China-made BYD electric cars and other car brands for export are stacked at the Taicang port in Suzhou, in eastern China's Jiangsu province on April 7, 2025. (Photo by AFP) / China OUT

Chinese electric vehicles present risks for Canadians who are critical of Beijing, as the vehicles are capable of sending camera, microphone, and location data back to China, a former senior government official told MPs.

Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, a China expert and senior fellow at the University of Ottawa, told MPs on the House of Commons international trade committee on March 12 that Chinese-made vehicles include software from the Chinese technology company Baidu, which collects data from the vehicles and transmits it back to China.

In addition to camera, microphone, and GPS data, the software is also capable of downloading the content of drivers’ phones, even when the car is turned off, she said, adding that the information is stored in China for both Chinese brands and Western brands manufactured there.

“This would not be a problem for a normal country, but China has shown malign intent toward us,” McCuaig-Johnston said. “Chinese companies are required to spy on behalf of Chinese intelligence services if requested.”

She said this issue is particularly concerning for critics of China.

“A lot of people might say, ‘well, I don’t care if somebody in China is looking at my things,’ but it’s a problem for people like me, who are critics of China,” McCuaig-Johnston said. “I certainly wouldn’t get into an Uber that was a Chinese car.”

Beijing has long targeted critics and dissidents in Canada, including MPs and political parties, university students, spiritual groups, and ethnic groups that are critical of the Chinese regime.

Canada and other G7 leaders issued a joint statement last June saying they were “deeply concerned” about foreign governments targeting dissidents outside of the country, and condemning the rise of transnational repression.

Transnational repression takes place when foreign states or their proxies reach beyond their borders to advance their interests or silence criticism or dissent through intimidation, threats, or violence. It can take various forms, including surveillance, vandalism, murder attempts, forced return by confiscation of passports, threats against relatives, and digital smear campaigns.

The G7 leaders’ statement on transnational repression came just months after Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue released her final report for the Foreign Interference Commission’s public inquiry, which identified China as the “most active perpetrator of foreign interference” targeting Canada.

Prime Minister Mark Carney visited China in mid-January and signed a deal aiming to drive new Chinese investment in Canada’s auto industry. The deal slashes tariffs from 100 percent to 6.1 percent on up to 49,000 Chinese EVs for a year, then the number increases to as many as 70,000 EVs after five years.

Carney has been seeking closer ties with China in an effort to diversify trade away from the United States. McCuaig-Johnston commended Carney’s efforts to diversify trade, but said Chinese electric vehicles pose a national security threat to Canada.

She told MPs that one way to address the issue of Beijing’s software in Chinese electric vehicles is to strip out the Baidu software when the cars arrive in Canada, and replace it with Blackberry’s QNX software, which she said is used by cars made in North America.

Garry Clement, former national director of the RCMP’s proceeds-of-crime program, also testified before the international trade committee on March 12 on Canada’s trade relations with China.

“Prosperity cannot come at the expense of national security,” he said.

Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, China expert and senior fellow at the University of Ottawa, testified before the Standing Committee on International Trade in the House of Commons on March 12, 2026. House of Commons/Screenshot via The Epoch Times

Forced Labour

Meanwhile, McCuaig-Johnston said manufacturing Chinese vehicles in Canada could pose challenges, noting that “it’s not manufacturing as we know it.” She added that Chinese companies build “highly roboticized” assembly plants, “without the large number of unionized jobs we know in Ontario.”

She added that Brazil’s government sued Chinese carmaker BYD for $10 million last year due to what it called “slave-like conditions” of the Chinese workers brought over to work in the company’s plant in Brazil. The Brazilian workers have also protested against low wages and poor working conditions at the plant, she said.

McCuaig-Johnston noted that vehicles and parts made in China have been found to be made using forced labour. Meanwhile, Canada has an obligation under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) to not import products made in whole or in part by forced labour.

International human rights organization Human Rights Watch said in a 2024 report that it found “credible evidence” that aluminum producers in Xinjiang, China, are participating in forced labour through the Chinese regime-backed labour transfer programs.

It found car companies including BYD, GM, Tesla, Toyota, and Volkswagen are “failing to minimize the risk of Uyghur forced labour being used in their aluminum supply chains.”

“Car companies simply don’t know the extent of their links to forced labor in Xinjiang in their aluminum supply chains,” Human Rights Watch senior researcher Jim Wormington said in a Feb. 1, 2024, statement.

Conservative MP David McKenzie asked McCuaig-Johnston how Canada could live up to its obligations under the USMCA if it is going to facilitate the importation of up to 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles.

“I don’t think we can ensure that they don’t have forced labour,” she responded. “Certainly, Chinese brands have to be assumed to include forced labour. We can’t take the word of the Chinese company that they don’t have any forced labour.”

She said Canada needs to uphold the provision in the USMCA on forced labour and require that China prove there is no forced labour involved.

Chinese paramilitary police march past Tiananmen Gate on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protest in Beijing on June 3, 2019. AP Photo/Ng Han Guan

Taking Action

McCuaig-Johnston said several countries have taken measures against Chinese EVs, including the United States, which has banned them from entering the country. While Chinese EVs are sold in Mexico, the country’s government prohibited BYD from building a plant there, she added.

She described the BYD plant in Brazil as Beijing’s “foothold” in South America, and said China is seeking a similar foothold in North America through Canada. China also has an auto plant in Spain, established in partnership with a defunct Spanish company that is being revived through a partnership with the Chinese firm, she added.

“Most other countries have forbidden them,” she said. “Other countries do not see this as a model that they want to follow. It’s really only in countries that are autocratic or failing democracies.”

McCuaig-Johnston said the UK and Israel have banned the use of Chinese EVs near their military sites, and said Canada needs to take similar action due to the security risks.

“We have already forbidden TikTok for the same reason on government phones, so the government already has identified this as a risk,” she added. Ottawa banned the use of TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company Bytedance, on government devices in February 2023, citing an “unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford had voiced concerns about the security risks posed by Chinese EVs at a press conference in January, saying that everyone who accompanied Carney to China, including Canadian reporters, was instructed to use burner phones for security reasons.

Carney said during the 2025 election campaign that China is the number one security threat to Canada, and suggested that China does not share Canada’s values. Meanwhile, during his trip to China, he said that Ottawa and Beijing were in a “strategic partnership,” and that relations between the two countries had entered a “new era.”

Clement told MPs that Ottawa needs to have safeguards in place when doing business with Beijing, and “go in with our eyes wide open.” To increase vigilance in dealing with China, he said, Canada needs to implement its foreign influence registry, question the Chinese Embassy on the number of individuals it has stationed in Canada, show zero tolerance for secret Chinese police stations in Canada, and recognize Beijing’s actions to suppress dissidents abroad.

Carolina Avendano contributed to this report.