OTTAWA’S PLEAS FALL ON DEAF EARS
TALKS WITH ENVOY Nova Scotia premier silent on China detainees
OTTAWA • At a time when Canada’s federal government is engaged in a fullcourt press to demand the release of two Canadian detainees in China, the premier of Nova Scotia appears to be prioritizing his province’s economic interests over the federal foreign minister’s pleas to raise the issue with Chinese officials.
Liberal Premier Stephen McNeil did not raise the consular cases at a meeting with Chinese ambassador Lu Shaye in Halifax on Wednesday, the premier’s spokesman told the National Post, despite Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland’s office asking him to use the rare face time with Chinese officials to do just that.
“Global Affairs Canada and the minister’s office have spoken with and briefed elected Canadian officials visiting China, including the office of Premier McNeil, to underscore how important these cases are and the importance of raising them with the Chinese,” Freeland’s press secretary Adam Austen said.
Instead, coming off several years of successful efforts to improve the province’s business ties and increase seafood exports to China, the two discussed “regional issues,” McNeil’s spokesman David Jackson said, and the detentions “did not come up.”
Shaye told journalists during a photo opportunity that McNeil is a “great friend,” and Nova Scotia is at the forefront of co-operation between China and Canadian provinces.
It was a far cry from the picture Lu painted during a speech last week, when he said Canada-China relations had hit “rock bottom.”
Things have been deeply fraught since Canadian authorities arrested Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou last December for possible extradition to the United States. China demanded her release but Canada insisted it is following its treaty obligations. Kovrig and Spavor were detained in apparent retaliation, two Canadian citizens have since been sentenced to death in China on drug charges, and China has used non-tariff trade barriers to ban Canadian imports of canola and pork.
There are longstanding disagreements within Canadian politics on how best to navigate relationships with China, which, despite its position as the world’s second-biggest economy and a major trade partner, is ruled by an authoritarian government that routinely tramples on its citizens’ rights. McNeil and Lu were both scheduled to speak on Wednesday evening at the launch of a new Halifax branch of the Canada-China Business Council. Their meeting earlier in the day had been “an opportunity to continue building on the positive working relationship,” Jackson added.
Regardless of the “freezing point” Lu described last week, some sectors of the Canadian economy continue to rely on China for export growth, and Nova Scotia in particular has had reason to celebrate. Exports from the province to China reached $794 million last year from $420 million in 2015. Most of those gains came from the export of seafood. According to a March press release from the provincial government, Nova Scotia shipped $524 million of seafood to China in 2018, an increase of 36 per cent over the previous year.
Meanwhile, the feds are “seized” with calling for the release of Kovrig and Spavor, Austen said, what has become “a top priority for the whole government.” International allies including Australia, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States, the EU, the G7 and NATO have publicly supported Canada on the consular cases.
Freeland’s parliamentary secretary Rob Oliphant was in China last week with a delegation and raised the cases directly with the Chinese officials he met. And Freeland said during a House of Commons committee hearing on Tuesday that Canadian diplomats in China have made the best of their limited consular access to Kovrig and Spavor. “I hear after every visit that it makes a real difference to them to know that we are fighting for them and standing up for them, and to know what we are doing,” she said.
But for months the Canadian government has been unable to secure high-level meetings, or even phone calls. Although Freeland said she has spoken “on a few occasions” with Lu, Freeland confirmed during a parliamentary committee hearing on Tuesday that she has not spoken with the Chinese foreign minister since before Meng’s arrest. She extended another invitation via her committee testimony, saying, “we are prepared for that conversation at any time.”