Mr. Speaker, I am following up tonight, seeking further information about the government's failure to respond in a serious way to the strategic and security challenge presented to our interests and values by the Government of China.
What we are seeing right now from the government, in terms of its China policy, is a significant shift in rhetoric, but barely a blip of change in substance. When the Liberals became the government, they trumpeted a new golden age with China. They also criticized the previous Conservative government for blowing hot and cold with China. The implication was, I suppose, that there was something wrong with a policy that was a mixture of warmth and pressure. Instead, they wanted to pursue a policy that was all hot and no cold. That was where they started: all hot and no cold.
Today the Liberals say that our relationship with China is complex and multi-dimensional, involving areas of co-operation and areas of conflict. This seems to me to be another way of saying that now they have decided that blowing hot and cold is not such a bad idea after all. Aside from the change in rhetoric, we have not seen any change in policy. The National Post has reported that a new China policy was brought to cabinet and rejected, so now we have a new slogan, but no new policy.
The government trumpets its suspension of the extradition treaty with Hong Kong. This is, though, the lowest of the low-hanging fruit and nobody was on the verge of being, or likely to be, extradited to Hong Kong anyway. Let us not forget that this is the same government that announced exploratory discussions with China about an extradition agreement with the mainland a few short years ago.
Liberals are sending their thoughts and prayers to Uighur Muslims in concentration camps. They say they are deeply disturbed and they are doing absolutely nothing. Their so-called immigration program for people from Hong Kong does not apply to the vast majority of democracy advocates, since most face charges that are not directly related to the national security law.
On the substance, Liberals have refused to impose Magnitsky sanctions against human rights abusers in China, refused to expel diplomats who are found threatening or intimidating Canadians, refused to stop Huawei infiltration of our networks in a timely manner and refused to withdraw from the neo-colonial Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
Why are we still funding the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank? Why are we sending cheques to a Chinese state-controlled development bank which is building pipelines in Central Asia to advance China's foreign policy goals?
The Liberal Minister of International Development once tweeted that she wanted to “landlock Alberta's tar sands”, yet she has no problem funding the construction of pipelines for China and calling it international development.
On the issue of foreign interference, I have just introduced Motion No. 55, designed to push the government to provide meaningful protection and support for Canadians who are victims of foreign-state-backed interference, including from China. Liberals say that foreign interference in Canada is unacceptable, but they are doing absolutely nothing about it. Victims testified on the Hill today that they have gotten the runaround, calling different agencies and being sent to other agencies without the kind of support and assistance that they need when faced with planned attacks by foreign states on themselves and on their activities.
When it comes to foreign interference, Liberals are like parents who tell their child not to take extra snacks and then, when their child takes a snack anyway, they just shrug and ignore it. Expressing opposition to a behaviour and then ignoring it when it happens is no way to build credibility, as a parent or as a country.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs does not have a new China policy. All he has is a new slogan: firm and smart. “Firm and smart” is what the Liberals say. Offering modest criticism of Chinese government policy, while refusing to act to block it and continuing to fund the PRC's neo-colonial policy, is neither firm nor smart. Sadly, the Liberals' China policy is not firm and smart. It is soft and stupid.