Parliament passes Conservative motion requiring Government to act on China

[FJAG]

Somehow this slipped past me last week but looks like the Government has been given 30 days to come up with a plan similar to what Australia has implemented.

Parliament passes Conservative motion to demand government decision on Huawei and 5G
Motion also calls on Liberals to develop plan to curb intimidation of Canadian citizens by China
The Canadian Press · Posted: Nov 18, 2020

A united federal opposition has supported a Conservative motion to insist the Liberal government take a harder line against what it says are national security threats from China.

The motion, sponsored by Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong, passed Wednesday by 179 votes to 146 and calls on the government to decide within 30 days whether to allow China's Huawei Technologies to supply equipment for Canada's next-generation 5G wireless networks.

It also calls on the government to table a plan within 30 days to deal with growing intimidation by China of Canadians within Canada's borders.

...

See rest of article here.

:cheers:

 

[CBH99]

Somehow this slipped past me last week but looks like the Government has been given 30 days to come up with a plan similar to what Australia has implemented.

See rest of article here.

:cheers:

Goodness gracious. 

For some reason I thought the LPC had already made a decision to ban Huawei from providing 5G tech to our networks...they STILL haven't made a decision on this?  By all means, take your sweet frickin' time.

I'm curious as to how 146 MP's actually voted AGAINST protecting Canadian citizens from intimidation & stemming China's influence on our policies, internal & external.  I imagine most are just loyal to the party and have to vote a certain way, albeit I suspect one or two of them may have some contact/pressure from Chinese 'factors' within their constituencies...


**EDIT -- it was some telecom providers that made the decision not to use their tech, essentially getting the government off the hook, I remember now 

 

[ArmyRick]

This particular brand of Liberals has acted very irrationally. With everything I see them voting against, its either blatant partisan politics or their is something dirty going on behind the scenes.

 

[Remius]

Or maybe they are close to a deal on releasing the two Canadians being held in China and didn’t want to rock the boat.  The vote was clearly whipped.

There could be a number of reasons why they voted that way. 

That being said, why this has not been resolved (the 5g thing) is beyond me.  Seems like a no brainer to tell China to pound dirt.

 

[brihard]

Or maybe they are close to a deal on releasing the two Canadians being held in China and didn’t want to rock the boat. 

I highly doubt it. Not with Weng Manzhou still in custody for probably the next year.

 

[Remius]

I highly doubt it. Not with Weng Manzhou still in custody for probably the next year.

My point is that there could be any number of sensitive reasons why they decided to vote that way.

Don’t get me wrong I am totally against China getting into our 5g network or anything else for that matter.    But there could be any number of background things happening.  And not all of it has to be nefarious.

 

[MarkOttawa]

The opposition motion has no binding force. The government can just keep on doing--or not doing--what it wants.

Recent stories:

Telus to build out 5G network without China’s Huawei
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-telus-to-build-out-5g-network-without-chinas-huawei/

What an Australian-style push against Chinese interference might look like
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/china-canada-australia-espionage-1.5813364

Champagne warns tough talk on China could hurt efforts to free Kovrig, Spavor
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/champagne-china-committee-1.5813826

Former envoy to China says it’s not necessary for Canada to monitor foreign influence via a registry
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-former-envoy-to-china-says-its-not-necessary-for-canada-to-monitor/

Canada leads multilateral move to fight China's ‘hostage diplomacy’: foreign affairs minister
Like-minded countries could agree that hostage-taking by China (or any other country) would trigger automatic sanctions, to be applied by all signatory nations
https://nationalpost.com/news/canadas-multilateral-move-on-fighting-chinas-hostage-diplomacy

Mark
Ottawa
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-former-envoy-to-china-says-its-not-necessary-for-canada-to-monitor/

 

[Navy_Pete]

Or maybe they are close to a deal on releasing the two Canadians being held in China and didn’t want to rock the boat.  The vote was clearly whipped.

There could be a number of reasons why they voted that way. 

That being said, why this has not been resolved (the 5g thing) is beyond me.  Seems like a no brainer to tell China to pound dirt.

I believe the network providers decided on their own not to use Huawei (after the various bans in the US and the uncertainty while they were planning upgrades) so became a moot point. That's a bit of a minefield while our citizens are held as political hostages, so can see why they didn't make a formal decision when it was effectively already made for them by 'the marketplace'.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Conclusion of a piece Terry Glavin:

Canada’s China policy is still a shambles, whatever the minister says
The China of 2020 is a gruesome state-capitalist autocracy, just as it was in 2015 and in 2018. The Chinese Communist Party’s boot is still on the necks of the Muslim Uighurs of Xinjiang and the Bhuddists of Tibet and China’s human rights defenders...

It was only three years ago that Justin Trudeau was boasting about his intention to have Canada usher China into its first free-trade agreement with a G7 country. It would be an historic, world-changing act that Trudeau described this way: “I know that as we look to building a better future for the entire world, the friendship between Canada and China will play an important role in setting the tone and the approach that will characterize the 21st century.”

The Beijing regime was sufficiently pleased with this sort of acquiescence and brown-nosing that it released the Garrratts. While Trudeau and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang hammed it up in Montreal Canadiens jerseys on the ice at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Xi was embarking on a full and final assault on what little remained of Deng Xiaoping’s reforms. The very day that the imprisoned human rights activist and Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo breathed his last dying breath in 2017, governor general David Johnston was smiling for the cameras, taking tea with Xi Jinping in Beijing.

The main thing that has changed since 2015 and 2018 is that the revulsion of ordinary Canadians with these sleazy goings-on has made the Trudeau government’s embrace of Xi’s China an embarrassment, a disgrace and a crippling liability. The latest public opinion polling, from the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, shows that only seven per cent of Canadians have a positive view of the Beijing regime.

So we’re all left to hope that U.S. president-elect Joe Biden can lead the liberal-democratic world into some sort of consensus about how to deal with the increasingly belligerent Chinese Communist Party, and that Canada will at least quietly go along. In the meantime, don’t expect any leadership from the federal government, where nothing is being done, there’s nothing new, and nothing is in the offing – at least nothing the Trudeau government wants anybody to know about.
https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/glavin-canadas-china-policy-is-still-in-shambles-whatever-the-minister-says

Mark
Ottawa

 

[CBH99]

I believe the network providers decided on their own not to use Huawei (after the various bans in the US and the uncertainty while they were planning upgrades) so became a moot point. That's a bit of a minefield while our citizens are held as political hostages, so can see why they didn't make a formal decision when it was effectively already made for them by 'the marketplace'.

True.  I realize that when it comes to the China file, any decision that doesn't cater to what the Chinese want will probably be put on hold until our citizens are released, for their own safety.

 

[Haggis]

The opposition motion has no binding force. The government can just keep on doing--or not doing--what it wants.

Recent stories:

Mark
Ottawa
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-former-envoy-to-china-says-its-not-necessary-for-canada-to-monitor/

Given the Liberal's culture of impunity, that will be the likely outcome, whether the motion were binding or not.