FELDSTED – As a supposed leader of the free world on the international stage, Canada is a bust ... all talk and no action

Our government’s dealings with China are flat-out bizarre.

We have a Chinese executive of the Huawei technology giant, Meng Wanzhou, under house arrest for extradition to the US for trial on fraud charges there.

House arrest? For a foreign national? It seems odd that Ms Wanzhou owns not one but two multi-million-dollar mansions in Vancouver. Her aircraft allegedly landed in Vancouver to refuel on rout to Mexico when she was arrested. Now she is under house arrest, but hires her own body guards (at her cost) to keep watch over her while she is under detention. That is highly unusual.

Why has Ms. Wanzhou’s security detain not taken her to the airfield and sent her off to freedom in a private jet? Why are Canadian security people not keeping watch over her? Could it be that it is in China’s interests to keep Ms. Wanzhou under very soft arrest conditions as a bargaining chip?

Ms. Wanzhou’s company builds 5G internet network routers it wants to sell to our government. The Huawei routers are suspected of containing espionage capabilities and have been banned by several nations. Our major telecom companies have opted to purchase Ericsson (Swedish) and Nokia (Finnish) 5G infrastructure equipment.     

The Canadian government has not made a decision on whether to buy Huawei routers. Canada’s five eyes allies have decided against Huawei routers and will not allow us to remain in the intelligence sharing network if we buy those routers. Something smells rotten.

We have two former diplomats in prison in China, grabbed after the Wanzhou arrest. China claims their arrests are unrelated to the Wanzhou arrest, but suggest that it could trade them for Wanzhou’s release. The China file stink is even higher.

China has been pressuring Hong Kong to knuckle under to Chinese rule in violation of agreements made when transfer of power from Great Britain to China was arranged. China has passed new and onerous ‘security legislation’ over Hong Kong and Canada is strangely silent.

As a supposed leader of the free world on the international stage, Canada is a bust, all talk and no action. Small wonder we lost the election for a seat on the UN Security Council. Our UN reputation is another Trudeau illusion.

Even more troubling, we are collaborating with China on development of a COVID-19 vaccine through CanSino Biologics Inc. located in Tianjin, China. Health Canada approved clinical trials of a vaccine on adult Canadians May 15, 2020. We apparently missed the government press release. 

Considering the controversy over China’s actions during the early months of the coronavirus outbreak, it is inconceivable that we would trust China to develop a safe COVID-19 vaccine, let alone expose Canadians to clinical trials. Someone took the phone off the hook in the brains department.

Nothing in the China file adds up or makes any sense. On the China file, like other controversial files, our Prime Minister tells us that he and his minions are working hard in the background, and that we must trust them.

We need to give him that opportunity – a fourth place spot in Commons would seem appropriate to allow him to honestly ‘work in the background’ and do much less harm.

 

John Feldsted ... is a political commentator, consultant, and strategist. He makes his home in Winnipeg, Manitoba.