Diane Francis: Trudeau’s inability to stand against China is a stain on Canada

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Final 12 months, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s authorities despatched tens of millions of {dollars} to the Individuals’s Republic of China — within the type of contracts and international support — even supposing Beijing has been holding two Canadians hostage for greater than two years and has threatened Canadians residing in Canada for opposing the regime’s mistreatment of the Uighur individuals and its takeover of Hong Kong.

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Conservative Chief Erin O’Toole not too long ago launched a compelling four-minute video on social media that must be required viewing by all Canadians. In it, O’Toole, a former army officer and company lawyer, particulars the thriller surrounding the 2 Chinese language scientists who have been fired from Winnipeg’s Nationwide Microbiology Laboratory and the lab’s connections to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, together with the Trudeau authorities’s makes an attempt to cover the reality from Parliament.

“In 2019, members of the Chinese language army have been escorted out of Canada’s Stage 4 laboratory,” he mentioned. “It is a story about a number of the world’s most harmful pathogens. It is a story about espionage. And it is a story in regards to the Trudeau authorities being completely disconnected in regards to the dangers within the trendy safety setting. What went incorrect within the Winnipeg lab?”

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What’s identified is {that a} husband and spouse workforce with deep ties to China and the Chinese language army have been employed by the Canadian lab and have been in a position to usher in Chinese language college students and collaborate with different Chinese language scientists, earlier than they have been eliminated, investigated after which fired two years later. Throughout their tenure, they visited the Wuhan lab many occasions and despatched harmful samples there.

“Who approved the transfers of harmful, lethal viruses” asks O’Toole. “Who approved this excessive stage of co-operation and collaboration with the Chinese language army? CSIS informed Mr. Trudeau to not do it. He was suggested that one of these partnership, due to the chance of bio-weapons analysis, shouldn’t be going down.”

The federal government ignored the warnings and this has harmed Canada’s relationship with its allies within the 5 Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance and NATO, together with with our most essential ally and largest buying and selling companion, the USA.

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“The Trudeau authorities is doing something it may to cowl this up. They’re in contempt of Parliament. An order of Parliament, for the primary time, is totally disregarded by Justin Trudeau and, within the course of, hiding the reality from Canadians about what partnership was being carried out within the Winnipeg lab by scientists with deep connections to the Chinese language army,” O’Toole mentioned.

Canadians deserve solutions to different points, as properly. Why, for instance, did Trudeau appoint Dominic Barton to be Canada’s ambassador to China, figuring out full properly that the agency McKinsey & Firm, the place Barton spent almost a decade appearing as managing director, had intensive financial pursuits within the nation? Why did the Trudeau authorities give away mental property to a Chinese language vaccine maker and never pursue remediation after it reneged on the deal? And why is Canada the one 5 Eyes member that hasn’t formally banned Huawei from its 5G community?

O’Toole is true: Canada’s world fame has been badly broken by Trudeau’s inappropriate kid-glove remedy of China. And so has Canada’s democracy.

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