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Aerial view of spruce trees in Inuvik, N.W.T., in February, 2025. Canada’s spy agency says China and Russia are actively seeking to gain a strategic foothold in the Arctic.COLE BURSTON/AFP/Getty Images
China and Russia continue to target Canada for sensitive government and private sector intelligence and high-tech goods and are seeking to gain a strategic foothold in the Arctic, the country’s spy agency head said Thursday.
The warning about China comes as Prime Minister Mark Carney has embarked on a diplomatic effort to repair relations with Beijing, including a planned trip to the country next year at the invitation of President Xi Jinping.
“Chinese spies have tried to recruit Canadians with information and military expertise,” Dan Rogers, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, said in his annual speech on threats to Canada.
Mr. Rogers also warned that Russia and China are “have significant intelligence interest” in Canada’s Arctic.
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CSIS director Dan Rogers.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
“It is not a surprise that CSIS has observed both cyber and non-cyber intelligence collection efforts targeting both governments and the private sector in the region,” he said.
The CSIS director also singled out Moscow for using illicit procurement schemes to purchase Canadian technology for Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Mr. Rogers said CSIS has informed several Canadian companies that “Europe-based front companies seeking to acquire their goods were in fact connected to Russian agents.”
“Once in Russia, these Canadian products are then used to support Russian military efforts in Ukraine and elsewhere,” he said.
He also referred to a Globe and Mail report last month that millions of dollars of Canadian technology have been shipped through a sprawling network of Hong Kong-based shell companies to Russia’s war machine.
The Washington-based Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, in collaboration with the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, combed through Ukrainian battlefield forensics, Hong Kong public records and three years of Russian customs data.
The 49-page report maps out where Canadian electronic and aerospace parts appear in Russian weapons in Ukraine, who moves them and how Canada’s sanctions and enforcement measures have failed to stop the flow of technology to Moscow’s military.
