The U.S. should help Canada in Meng dispute

Chinese telecom executive Meng Wanzhou wasn’t the only loser when a B.C. judge refused to halt her extradition case on Wednesday.

The ruling is bad news for Canadian businesses and farmers, indeed the country as a whole. Get ready for the economic backlash from an enraged Chinese government — it’s coming.

But the legal decision is especially bitter news for the two Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, who will continue to languish in the Chinese jail cells where they’ve been held for the past 536 days in blatant retaliation for Meng’s arrest. They may never taste freedom again unless Meng is allowed to return to China without being sent to face trial in the United States.

All this will weigh heavily on the Justin Trudeau government. After refusing to intervene and free Meng now, and after reaffirming the Canadian judiciary operates independently of politicians, it has no choice but to let Meng’s extradition hearing continue.

But it can and should immediately turn to the United States for help because it’s the reason we’re in this mess. The real dispute here is between the two superpowers. It’s the Americans who want to try Meng, not us.

Canada was dragged into their legal battle with Meng because we’re a good neighbour and honoured our extradition agreement with Washington. And because Canada is not a superpower, China saw fit to bully us rather than the U.S. to force Meng’s release.

Our American allies have a moral responsibility to help us. Their own president, Donald Trump, muddied the waters and fed Chinese suspicions that the case against Meng is politically motivated when he said he might drop the charges against her — in return for a favourable trade deal with Beijing.

Of course, if Trump can be counted for anything, it is being unreliable. Trudeau needs a Plan B.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. Canada’s relationship with China is the worst it’s been in a half century. China’s authoritarian rulers are seething because Canada is calling it out for cracking down on the citizens of Hong Kong.

Meanwhile the Chinese are impatiently waiting for Trudeau to decide whether to allow Huawei Technologies to participate in building Canada’s 5G cellular network for telecommunications. Meng is Huawei’s chief financial officer and the Chinese government sees her arrest as part of a western conspiracy against China’s growing economic prowess.

Canadians may take consolation in knowing Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes’ ruling on Meng is as sound as the day is long. They may applaud Trudeau for upholding the rule of law. But while principles matter, so does the practical reality that two Canadians are being held in cruel isolation with the lights on 24 hours a day.

For now, the federal government should let Justice Holmes do her job.

It should encourage the Americans either to drop the charges against Meng or consider some kind of out-of-court resolution. It should be prepared to veto any role for Huawei in 5G, too. China can no longer be trusted as a friendly trading partner.

But the federal government must be at least willing to consider if at some point, for the sake of Spavor and Kovrig, it will have to get involved in the extradition case itself.

The federal attorney general has the authority to overturn an extradition order.

That should be a last resort because it would be seen, in this case, as caving to Chinese pressure. But in the interest of saving two precious Canadian lives, it’s a tool that Ottawa should keep handy.