Canada’s deal on Chinese EVs shows ‘strong national security’: experts – National
China’s electric vehicles still pose a national security risk despite Canada’s proposed tariff ban, security experts warn, adding that nothing has changed since the previous federal government raised concerns nearly two years ago.
But those experts also warn that cybersecurity and privacy threats extend beyond cars made in China to any car connected to the Internet, requiring a strong response from Ottawa.
The new trade agreement signed by Prime Minister Mark Carney and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Jan. 16 we allow up to 49,000 Chinese EVs to enter Canada at a significantly reduced tariff rate of 6.1 per cent so that China can raise prices on Canadian agricultural goods.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has dismissed the deal, warning not only of the impact on the province’s auto sector but also of safety concerns about China’s EVs, calling them “spy cars.”
“If you get to your cell phone, the Chinese – and I’m not making these things up – will be listening to your phone conversation,” he told attendees at the Rural Ontario Municipal Association conference in Toronto last week.
Experts say the ability of governments or Chinese businesses to use internet-connected cars to eavesdrop on drivers’ driving or record their movements remains a real threat, especially to the Chinese diaspora in Canada.
There are also broader concerns about cybersecurity, said Neil Bisson, director of the Global Intelligence Knowledge Network and a retired intelligence officer with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
“It just allows another portal in our infrastructure, in communication and energy use, because we will be connecting these vehicles to our electric infrastructure,” he said in an interview.
“The opportunities to carry out cyberattacks, to shut down critical infrastructure, are there.”
Carney said the EV deal with China, which includes a provision that half of those imported vehicles must cost less than $35,000 by 2030, will make electric vehicles more affordable for Canadians.
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“I think trade has increased national security,” Bisson said, especially with Carney’s efforts to isolate Canada’s economy from the US.
“The sad thing is that with the decision to do this, we are separating ourselves from other partners of Five Eye, including the United States, who also say that electric cars made in China are dangerous to the security of the country.”
In June 2024, as Ottawa weighed whether to match US tariffs on Chinese EVs to stop those cheaper models from flooding the North American market, former deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland made it clear the concern was not just economic.
“We’re also looking at the national security aspect of this: the security aspect, including cybersecurity, when it comes to China’s exports of high-tech items like EVs,” Freeland said.
Not long after those comments, Canada followed suit by slapping a 100 percent tariff on all electric vehicles made in China.
In September of that year, Freeland said Ottawa was “definitely” considering following the United States’ lead in banning Chinese automotive software from all vehicles sold in Canada, although that ban has yet to materialize.
During Freeland’s comments, David Shipley, CEO of New Brunswick cybersecurity company Beauceron Security, called those EVs “rolling spy vans” because of the technology they contain, including microphones and cameras.
That assessment has not changed 18 months later, he told Global News in a new interview.
“The concern for China is that China is motivated to do this,” he said, “and they have the power and the legal infrastructure and the requirements for their companies to cooperate” under China’s national security laws.
Those authorities are following the surveillance and national security issues surrounding TikTok, which is prompting efforts in the US to try to shut down the popular video-sharing app or divest part of the American business from Chinese owner ByteDance.
Yet Shipley said there is a bigger problem facing Canada: that any similar EV or other vehicle connected to the Internet — regardless of where it’s built — is vulnerable, which Chinese government-sponsored cyber actors can exploit.
“If they want to test a connected car, they’re not just going to test their own cars – they’re going to test every car that’s connected to the internet because they’re smart enough, they can figure it out, and they can absolutely do it,” he said.
“So it’s myopic to focus only on cars made in China because the issues we’re talking about are different. I’m not comfortable with Tesla’s ability to listen to me like I did in Beijing.”
In 2021, China banned Tesla vehicles from parking or driving near certain government and military companies due to similar inspection concerns posed by China-made EVs.
Shipley added that he raised these concerns and the need for regulation to protect the privacy of Canadian drivers’ data with senior federal government officials, but those warnings were not heeded.
“The response of our leadership has been to focus on all the other problems of the day,” he said.
“This is one of those things where Canadian public policy fails miserably. Low probability, high impact event. We’re very good at dealing with normal low impact events, but bad when we think about the consequences of this.”
In an interview with the Toronto Star this week, Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree said the federal government does not share Ford’s concerns about Chinese EVs testing Canadians.
“I’ll let the premier of Ontario give his opinion, but from the safety and security of Canada, from a public safety perspective, we have no concerns,” he said.
“Any cars that come in will have to comply with Canadian standards.”
Anandasangaree’s office did not respond to Global News’ questions about those comments, including how the government reached that conclusion or removed its position from Freeland’s 2024 remarks.
Shipley said he proposed a bill of consumer rights for every car connected 24-7 to the Internet, which would include requiring manufacturers to issue security updates when software bugs are found and mandatory testing for new and emerging cyber threats.
Drivers should also be able to disconnect their vehicles from the internet in the event of a security breach and be able to drive normally, he added.
“There was a heist that I watched in Las Vegas where someone figured out how to hack into a car dealership network and track individual cars, find their location and so on,” he said. “And that creates all kinds of privacy, but also safety, risks for people as victims of intimate partner violence. This is obvious.
“We’ve known for 10 years that remotely, via the Internet, you can control certain vehicles and create life-threatening situations. And we’ve done nothing.”
With files from Global News’ Sophall Duch and Touria Izri
