QUESTION PERIOD — Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Canada-China Relations
February 18, 2020
Honourable senators, I have a quote that I would like to read:
. . . I’m a bull on China. . . . I probably drank the Kool-Aid there for too long.
Colleagues, you may not recognize that, but it comes from our current Canadian Ambassador to China, Dominic Barton. Mr. Barton was still managing director of consulting firm McKinsey at the time, a firm that has a very close relationship with the Chinese regime. Leader, we are told by your government that those close ties are assets for Mr. Barton in his new role as our ambassador. Here we are, more than a year since two of our citizens were arbitrarily detained and taken into custody in China and have been treated abysmally. What have we done, government leader? We continue to invest in the Asian Infrastructure Bank. We continue to send parliamentary and ministerial delegations to China. It seems to be business as usual. Now we have an ambassador who admits he has been drinking China’s Kool-Aid.
That’s not Ambassador Barton’s only worrisome comment on China. We have some new ones from when he appeared before the parliamentary committee over in the House a couple of weeks ago. He testified that he did not know about China’s internment of minority Muslims, that McKinsey didn’t know about it despite the fact that in 2018, they held a corporate retreat just 6 kilometres away from one of these massive concentration camps.
Also during this testimony, Ambassador Barton acknowledged he had met with Huawei executives and discussed the case of Ms. Meng Wanzhou, when Mr. Barton assures us those talks were in no way negotiations for a prisoner swap, or so he says. The ambassador also spoke of his first meeting with Chinese officials and he described them by saying that Canada is very angry but the Chinese are very, very, very angry, as if there is some equivalency. Drinking the Kool-Aid, at this point, sounds like he’s making the Kool-Aid, in this particular case.
Government leader, is Mr. Barton Canada’s ambassador to China or is he there to be an apologist for the Chinese government? When is this government going to start taking action when it comes to defending the rights and interests of Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor?
Thank you for your question. There was a lot in your question and there is a lot in the Canada-China relationship. It’s complex. We have a long-standing relationship with China, and it is not always an easy one. We are going through some very difficult issues.
No matter what the issues are — and I will try to address the ones you mentioned — it is important that we remain clear about what Canadian values are, on the one hand, and that engagement with our large and important trade partner and major world power that is China remains constructive and open.
With regard to the Canadians, the two Michaels, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, all Canadians are troubled by their arbitrary detention and the conditions that they continue to be held in. The government continues to call for their release at every opportunity and raises this issue with them at the highest levels. It is important that we as Canadians stand together in support of our efforts that they be freed.
I’m sorry, Senator Gold, but the time for Question Period has expired.
