It’s time Canada had a prime minister who won’t fall for China’s lies. Build jobs at home, not in China
Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole’s speech at the party’s convention was an opportunity to attract Canadians wanting change. Unfortunately, as John Ivison reported in his March 24 National Post column, six in 10 Canadian voters remain politically homeless after the speech. Here’s my version of a speech that would have resonated with many of those politically…
Local access is crucial if we are to ensure the long-term viability of our technology sector
The Canadian mining sector has been a vital cog in the country’s economy during the pandemic, with the importance of the industry growing steadily over time. Operations and exploration continued during the COVID-19 outbreak, collaborations with Indigenous communities expanded, technological sophistication accelerated, and, at a time when environmental assessment processes deter investment in Canada, international…
The Chinese government wants to dominate all other nations, seeking submission on its terms. We must resist
The vote by Canada’s Parliament to declare the actions of the Chinese government a genocide against the Uyghur people highlights the growing discordance between Western democracies and the increasingly repressive and aggressive Chinese regime. The Chinese government also engages in cultural repression, surveillance or discrimination against its Tibetan, Mongolian and Korean minorities. China has benefited…
Follow Australia's example and take a stand against China’s bullying and human rights violations
By Andrew Pickford and Jeffrey Collins Macdonald-Laurier Institute Last week, U.S. President Joe Biden joined his Japanese, Indian, and Australian counterparts at the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (or Quad) summit. This informal grouping remains the most powerful collection of countries focused on confronting the security, economic, and geostrategic challenges posed by China. Canada may not have…
Genocide is the outcome of nationalistic, populist movements that tolerate hate speech and discrimination and incite violence
If left unaddressed, the rising extremism and persecutions in China and India will undermine the well-being of millions of people. These acts will also set a precedent the international community will regret for generations, both in terms of the human cost and the undermining of many gains made in human rights over the past several…
Apologists lured with lucrative board memberships, and other associations with the Chinese party-state
Recently, Robert Oliphant, parliamentary secretary to the foreign affairs minister, told the House of Commons that Canada is considering creating a registry of foreign agents, along the lines of Australia’s Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act and the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act. It seems like a no-brainer to expect transparency whenever someone takes a foreign…
We can reduce our economic vulnerability to China by deepening our ties with the world’s largest democracy
Too often, the relationship between Canada and India has been about our past. It’s become about how, through the years, we have failed to connect with each other. Some stories, like the Komagata Maru or Air India, are profound tragedies that we must never forget. I firmly believe that the key to a secure future…
Declaring what China is doing to Uighurs genocide is a good first step. But will Canada follow through?
Canadian Parliament recently took a stand on a human rights issue as courageous as Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney’s opposition to South African apartheid in the 1980s and Stephen Harper’s apology for residential schools in 2008. On Feb. 22, by a vote of 266 to zero, the House of Commons voted to recognize China’s treatment…
We can no longer adopt a Taiwan policy based on appeasing communist China
It has now been over fifty years since the representatives of the Kuomintang government in Canada were told to pack up their Embassy in Ottawa and return to Taiwan to make way for Canada's diplomatic recognition of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in October 1970. Over the past 50 years, the political context that…
His response to the Uyghur genocide motion stands out simply because it put all his hypocrisy on display at once
Political failures usually come in one of two flavours. The first are acts that expose a gap between reality and the stories politicians tell about themselves. Sometimes this occurs when a politician’s criminality is exposed. But much more often, it is the banal things that display glaring hypocrisy and enrage voters. Remember Bev Oda? I…
Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole’s speech at the party’s convention was an opportunity to attract Canadians wanting change. Unfortunately, as John Ivison reported in his March 24 National Post column, six in 10 Canadian voters remain politically homeless after the speech. Here’s my version of a speech that would have resonated with many of those politically…
