The United States and Canada must unite to confront communist China’s growing global influence, panelists at the National Conference in Ottawa concluded last Friday, discussing, in part, this mutual goal.

The panel, titled “U.S.-Canada Friendship: Fortress North America Shared Threats to Security and Sovereignty,” included Jamil Jivani, Member of Parliament (MP) for Bowmanville-Oshawa, as well as Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle.

Speaking of the U.S.-Canada relationship, Jivani said his constituents are growing frustrated with the lack of progress of a trade deal.

“We have seen very little progress or updates provided by the federal government. Prime Minister Carney’s vision for Canada appears to many to be a debate between being controlled by bureaucrats in Brussels or bureaucrats in Beijing,” he said, expressing that a “Canada First” approach would actually force one to acknowledge that a “strong economic and security partnership with the United States is integral.”

“It’s just the reality of this country,” he said, emphasizing that a Canada First approach is complimentary to President Donald Trump’s America First approach. Both of these approaches involve recognizing communist China as a threat and doing something about it. Specifically, Jivani brought up manufacturing concerns in his country and explained that Canadians are witnessing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) “grow its foothold in North American Railway manufacturing, now having about $4.3 billion in contracts in North American Railway manufacturing.”

This brings major national security concerns from a standpoint of the technology that the CCP would use in the railway system. A true Canada First approach, he continued, would recognize that threat and not tolerate it. Further, he said this should be a priority of the U.S. government as well. This serves as just one example of American and Canadian interests overlapping.

Boyle pointed out that Americans, too, despise globalization but noted that “several American presidents helped aid and abet the rise of the Chinese Communist Party” over the last several decades in America. As a result, the U.S. has seen a “hollowing out of the industrial middle class in the United States, and all these jobs and factories moving overseas, moving to China from America, and China has become a superpower.”

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Because of this, Boyle explained, the world faces a choice.

“The sad fact of the matter is that we live in a world where there’s going to be one or the other – the two systems: The United States and the West, generally speaking, democracy or democratic republic, freedom, etc. They’re not compatible with the system that exists in China. There’s no such thing as a private company in China. There’s no such thing as ownership in China. There’s only what the CCP allows,” Boyle said, explaining that the world must decide what side it is going to be on, and allies need to rally around the U.S.

“That is the fight of our of our century. Which side wins is going to determine the future of the world. Everybody is focused on the Strait of Hormuz right now. Guys, imagine what happens when China closes the Taiwan Strait, or when China closes the South China Sea. It’ll make what’s happening in the Strait of Hormuz right now look like nothing,” he said, reemphasizing the importance of U.S. allies, including the Canadians, to rally behind this shared interest.

“I think what we want to see and what President Trump wants to see from the Canadians – whether it’s a liberal or a conservative Prime Minister up here … he wants to see someone who is willing to work with him on building a trade arrangement that helps him confront this world challenge,” Boyle said.

Jivani added that working with the U.S. to confront CCP influence “should be a uniting thing” in Canada.

“I do believe that it has been incredibly frustrating as a guy from Oshawa to see the lack of public outrage to policy changes like importing BYD vehicles, which on many, many levels, produced a series of problems, not the least of which is that we are now seeing Canadian Auto Workers who make on average about 45 bucks an hour have to compete with Chinese auto workers who make on average two to $4 an hour,” he said, emphasizing how “infuriating” it has been to watch these Canada last policies – which are “placating a the growing communist government in China, giving it a stronger foothold in North America” – come to fruition.