Foreign Affairs committee  In terms of food security, the Chinese population has grown by three times since the regime came in and the amount of arable land has actually been reduced due to desertification and urbanization, yet we estimate that the number of people living in absolute poverty in China--thos

Foreign Affairs committee  Frankly, I don't--

Foreign Affairs committee  To respond to those points and the freedom to move from place to place, I'd mention that there still is a registration system in existence, and people who move into the cities don't have the right to register there. They're lacking membership in that city. They're basically tempo

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much. I'm very happy to be here at the Parliament of Canada. As someone who has been concerned about Canada-China relations for many years, I am particularly happy to see the China question being reviewed by Parliament, which is, of course, the most authoritative

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  With regard to the question of the diaspora organizations, in my view, one reason why it's difficult for Canada to be as effective in China as one would like is that we rely on our Canadian diplomats, most of whom do not have strong Chinese language skills and/or in-depth knowled

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  This is a difficult question because I address it in the classified part of the report, referring to a classified tell that I don't think I can characterize here. If you have an opportunity to look at the classified section, it's pretty clear about discussions that Mr. Axworthy h

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  That's a very good question. If I could say one thing off the top about the legislative exchange between the Parliament of Canada and the National People's Congress, I do think it's good for us to be engaging parliamentarians in China. However, we have to be very careful that we

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Maybe I can speak briefly and then give it to the experts on human rights here. First of all, with regard to your first part, when I started to get into this work, my feeling was that it's like the song, “To know know know her/Is to love love love her”. If we had a dialogue and

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  In terms of aid, I believe CIDA refers to it as development cooperation and doesn't see us as giving money to the Chinese regime.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Of course, as you know, China is a country that has a wonderfully rising economy. They're investing extensively in Canada. They've launched a man into space. You see the coastal cities of China and these are wonderfully modern cities. The problem of poverty in China persists bec

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  If I could say one more thing in terms of your question, the most significant thing that could happen in China would be if China adopted freedom of information and a free press that would bring these issues to the attention of the society at large. Secondly, freedom of associatio

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  My view is that there is absolutely no relationship between trade and human rights programming. The Chinese will always want to buy the best product at the best price, regardless of the source, so I really don't think it's going to make any difference. We do hear from the Chine

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  With regard to your question about CIDA programming, the CIDA programming in China is largely, as I said, on human rights, democratic development, good governance--that's one concept--and the environment. We do have some small programs like the Canada Fund, which is a small prog

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I think there may be some misunderstanding. What was removed from my report was not actually recommendations for policy. That sort of stuff was never going to be allowed to be put in, because my report touched on areas that are classified. I read a great deal of material; a lot o

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  With regard to the relationship between the CIDA programming and dialogue, from the beginning there has been CIDA funding for this activity. But in the early rounds of the dialogue CIDA was reluctant to make it known to the Chinese government that they were providing this funding