Records Show Anand Approved Military Training for Chinese PLA Troops
By Jason LaFace, Editor, Alberta Radio
Newly disclosed federal records are raising serious questions about Canada's military relationship with China after reports that then-defence minister Anita Anand approved Canadian Armed Forces personnel providing training to members of China's People's Liberation Army in 2023.
The revelation was reported September 15 by Blacklock's Reporter and subsequently by the Western Standard, citing records obtained through Access to Information.
According to Blacklock's account of the documents, internal correspondence stated:
“We know we will be training and we have Minister approval to do so.”
If the records are accurately characterized, that sentence deserves an explanation from Ottawa.
Not because Canada should never communicate with the Chinese military. Countries—including rivals—maintain military-to-military contacts for diplomacy, deconfliction and security reasons.
The issue is what kind of training was approved, who received it, why it was considered to be in Canada's national interest, and why Canadians apparently knew so little about it.
The timeline raises an even bigger question
Canada previously acknowledged a history of limited military cooperation with China.
The Canadian government has said the Canadian Armed Forces and People's Liberation Army operated under a non-binding Cooperation Plan Initiative signed in 2013.
In January 2018, Canadian personnel travelled to China to observe PLA winter training. The following month, a PLA delegation came to Canada and observed winter-survival training at CFB Petawawa.
But after Canada's relationship with Beijing deteriorated, that cooperation was supposed to have changed dramatically.
The federal government subsequently stated that the last formal bilateral CAF-PLA training activity occurred in February 2018 and that no bilateral military training with China had been conducted or planned since.
Canada also cancelled a planned 2019 joint winter-training observation.
Now we have newly reported Access to Information records indicating that, while Anand was defence minister in 2023, Canadian military experts were nevertheless approved to provide some form of training involving PLA personnel.
Those two accounts require reconciliation.
Was the 2023 activity considered something other than “bilateral military training”?
Was it conducted through a multinational institution or program?
What exactly did Canadian personnel teach?
How many PLA members participated?
Where did the training take place?
And, critically, what information did the minister receive before granting approval?
Canadians deserve precise answers rather than bureaucratic word games over what technically constitutes “training.”
China wasn't being treated as an ordinary partner
The timing matters.
By 2023, Canadians weren't living in the relatively optimistic Canada-China relationship of a decade earlier.
Canada's own Indo-Pacific Strategy, released in November 2022, described China as an “increasingly disruptive global power.”
Concerns surrounding foreign interference, cyber espionage and national security were already dominating Canadian political debate.
The Canadian military was simultaneously operating in the Indo-Pacific, including participating in efforts to enforce United Nations sanctions against North Korea.
Canadian officials have also publicly complained about unsafe or unprofessional encounters between PLA aircraft and Canadian military aircraft operating in international airspace.
That makes any decision to provide military expertise to PLA personnel worthy of scrutiny.
This isn't about refusing all contact with China
There is an important distinction here.
Canada cannot simply pretend China doesn't exist.
China is a nuclear-armed major power, a permanent member of the UN Security Council and one of the world's largest economies. Canadian officials will inevitably communicate with Chinese officials, including military representatives.
There can even be legitimate reasons for professional military exchanges.
But military training is different from diplomatic dialogue.
If Canadian military expertise is being provided to personnel serving the armed forces of a strategic competitor, Canadians have every right to know what was taught and why the government believed doing so benefited Canada.
The government should also explain what safeguards existed to ensure that Canadian knowledge could not contribute to PLA operational capabilities.
Parliament should demand the records
This story should not end with a few lines extracted from Access to Information documents.
The House of Commons National Defence Committee should seek the complete, unredacted record wherever national-security restrictions legitimately permit.
Anand should be given an opportunity to explain what she approved and why.
Senior National Defence officials involved should explain the nature and purpose of the program.
And the government should disclose whether similar training involving PLA personnel occurred at any other point after 2018.
There may ultimately be a reasonable explanation for the 2023 activity.
Perhaps it involved a narrow subject area. Perhaps it occurred in a multinational setting. Perhaps officials concluded that the training offered Canada diplomatic or security benefits without providing China meaningful military capability.
If that's the case, Ottawa should explain it.
Transparency would settle the question far more effectively than silence.
Canadians deserve to know where the line is
This isn't simply an Anita Anand story.
It's a question about Canada's national-security policy.
Where does Ottawa draw the line between engagement with China and strengthening the capabilities of China's military?
What Canadian military knowledge can be shared?
Who authorizes it?
What national-security assessment takes place beforehand?
And when does Parliament—or the Canadian public—get told?
Those questions are especially important because Canada's strategic environment has changed substantially since military cooperation with China began more than a decade ago.
If the newly disclosed documents show that Canadian military personnel were authorized to train PLA members in 2023, Ottawa should release enough information for Canadians to understand exactly what happened.
Because there is an enormous difference between talking to a strategic competitor and teaching its military.
Canadians deserve to know which one their government authorized.
Alberta Radio
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