The government of the province of Quebec has proudly blocked construction of new pipelines in eastern Canada because, we are told, there is no “social licence” for them, even though there are tens of thousands of kilometers of existing pipelines delivering energy to its consumers. Likewise they will not permit fracking, even though they readily use natural gas extracted by others, elsewhere. You might think they are overly risk-averse. Yes, but only to imaginary ones: not to real risks. In a story that seems to have received no attention outside the French-language Quebec media, and not much even there, Hydro-Québec, amid various difficulties connected to the alleged green energy transition, is subsidizing the purchase and installation of “onduleurs solaires” from Communist China that are banned even in Europe, never mind the US due to security risks associated with surreptitious communications technology built into them. And it’s the usual story: they are suspected of including backdoor access to critical systems for the Chinese military, or to be technical the Communist Party of China military since the “People’s Liberation Army” is a branch not of the government but of the Party. So what the heck. Familiar domestic energy is not to be considered. But technology from foreign adversaries with obvious security risks, so obvious even the EU and Ottawa won’t run them, never mind Washington? Allons-y!

Even Canadian federal authorities have acted to ban Chinese-made components from a number of key systems, even though Prime Minister Carney just appointed Dominic Barton Chair of the Board of Directors of Invest in Canada, despite his history as a singularly pro-Beijing Ambassador and a long career with McKinsey & Company, again a famously pro-Beijing consulting firm, as well as serving as chair of mining multinational Rio Tinto, a position of which the National Post observes:

“While the job change raised eyebrows over Rio Tinto’s extensive activities in China, Barton was able to avoid an ethics probe into the matter.”

Our government is prone to unreasonably favourable views of the PRC including on the environment and indeed Carney has boasted of “Canada and China’s new strategic partnership.” But even we don’t want them embedded in critical infrastructure.

The American government was actually a bit late to the ban, having deemed them harmless as late as this January only to declare them “an extraordinary threat” in August. But since even Chinese-made cars are such a security risk that the British Ministry of Defence doesn’t want them parked near its facilities, it’s the latter assessment that makes far more sense. As, again, the fact that European authorities won’t have them around, and the EU isn’t exactly fertile MAGA ground, surely tells you something. For instance, that La Presse article quotes a January report by the European Union Institute for Security Studies, that in its original English reads:

“The risks to the energy system are clear. Beijing has already demonstrated its willingness to weaponise industrial dependencies, especially in critical raw materials. It is increasingly acting against European interests through close alignment with Russia in its war against Ukraine and in hybrid attacks on EU countries. Meanwhile in the cyber domain, Chinese hackers such as Volt Typhoon have shown that they are preparing for attacks on critical infrastructure by establishing footholds within key systems.”

The more of that report you read the scarier it gets, especially the usual wilful blindness of Western authorities to a threat that isn’t well-hidden and in many ways isn’t hidden at all. As the document also says:

“Nevertheless, until now, Europe has underutilised its considerable strengths and expertise in the energy system as well as several powerful de-risking tools, from public procurement to trade measures. It should leverage these assets with far greater resolve.”

Whereas in Quebec they’re subsidizing the invasion. Bizarre, n’est-ce pas?