Mr. Speaker, it appears that a member of the Conservative Party would rather do publicity stunts than engage in frank discussions with Chinese officials.
During the Prime Minister's trip to China there were two occasions where I raised the issue of governance and human rights: at a meeting of the Chinese Communist party international and with representatives of the Canada-China Legislative Association. Had the member attended, he would have had an opportunity to address his concerns. It is clearly impossible to do that when one does not attend.
The death announcement of Zhao Ziyang was controlled by Chinese government officials, but trying to make cheap political points is not the way to advance the issues of human rights and democracy. If the member were truly interested in paying his respects, why the media entourage? Death for the Chinese is a private affair.
The actions of the member will not advance the issues he claims to be concerned about. The Prime Minister directly raised these issues as did other parliamentarians. The member clearly is not interested. It is about time he came clean on what he did in China, which was very little.