GROUP WILL TREAD CAREFULLY IN CHINA: SENATOR.
The Liberal senator leading the Canadian parliamentary delegation travelling to China says his group will tread carefully in calling for the release of the two Canadians detained there.
Sen. Joseph Day said that engaging directly with Chinese lawmakers is crucial but his group doesn’t want to do anything to hurt Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.
“We will first of all do nothing to harm their situation, and we’ll do everything we can to make sure that they’re treated fairly and hopefully the result of -indirectly of our visit - will be that the judicial and executive branches in China decide to release these two gentlemen,” Day told The Canadian Press by phone on Friday from Montreal before boarding a flight to the People’s Republic. The two countries may have different views about what constitutes the rule of law but both need to find common ground on some basics, he said.
“Sometimes little expressions like ‘rule of law’ take on different meaning for different people. We go back to the fundamentals,” the senator said. “One of the fundamentals is if they’re being detained they have a right to representation. They have a right to know what’s being alleged against them, and how they’re going to defend themselves.”
So far, none of that has been afforded to Kovrig and Spavor, each of whom has had only one visit by the Canadian ambassador in China since being arrested last month. The detentions are in apparent retaliation for Canada’s arrest of high-tech executive Meng Wanzhou at the request of the United States. On Thursday, a Chinese government spokesman said it was not “convenient” to discuss the allegations against the two Canadians despite an assertion by the country’s top prosecutor that they broke the law.
China’s chief prosecutor, Zhang Jun, told a separate briefing on Thursday that “without a doubt” Kovrig and Spavor broke the country’s laws and are being investigated.
Day said his delegation has been well briefed by Global Affairs Canada, and he’s not worried about its members’ personal security, and adds that a firmer travel advisory for Canadians would be counterproductive. Day is leading a six-member delegation of the Canada-China Legislative Association on a trip that had been planned before the current controversy erupted.
The delegation includes a Conservative senator, three Liberal MPs and one Conservative MP.
They are travelling to Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hong Kong and will meet with counterparts from China’s National Peoples’ Congress.