Politicians push for boycott
MPs want Canada to minimize presence at Games, but can’t agree on how
All three official opposition parties are pressuring the Liberal government to diminish Canada’s presence at the upcoming Beijing Olympics, as Ottawa talks behind the scenes with other countries about how to participate in the Winter Games hosted by an economic superpower with an abysmal human rights record.
The Bloc Québécois is taking the hardest line, denouncing Canada’s willingness to send athletes to the Games without guaranteed access of human rights observers to China’s Xinjiang region, where the documented oppression of Uyghur Muslims has been deemed a “genocide” by the United States and Canada’s House of Commons.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday morning, Bloc Leader Yves-François Blanchet lambasted the notion of a “diplomatic” boycott, which would see Canada participate in the Games but refrain from sending government officials to the marquee global event this winter in the Chinese capital.
Blanchet said it makes “no bloody sense” for a democracy like Canada to fail to take a stronger stand, and pointed to an effort by his party — that was shot down in the Commons this week — to call for the delay and possible relocation of the Olympics until Beijing lets observers into Xinjiang.
“The Olympic Games, it carries the name ‘Olympic Games’ — we’re going to play,” Blanchet said in French, adding that he understands the Games mean a lot to athletes who devoted their lives to their respective sports. “But it’s not more important than the survival of a people, a nation, a culture,” he said.
Other opposition parties are supporting calls for a diplomatic boycott of the Games. “I don’t want to see the athletes suffer, so I think we should boycott diplomatically,” Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole said Wednesday.
The New Democrats also want Canada to stage a diplomatic boycott, though party Leader Jagmeet Singh said Wednesday that his top concern is the safety of athletes in an authoritarian country where two Canadians were recently imprisoned for more than three years in an act Ottawa denounced as “hostage” diplomacy.
The Liberal government, however, has signalled it won’t act alone but is considering a diplomatic boycott alongside allied countries like the U.S.
Sports Minister Pascale St-Onge said Wednesday that those discussions continue and no decisions have been made.
At the same time, Heritage Canada spokesperson Daniel Savoie deferred any decision on the participation of athletes to the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Committees, which have publicly rejected calls for a total boycott of the Games. But the statement left open the possibility of a diplomatic boycott.
“We’re looking for a way to both have athletes fulfil all their hard work, while continuing to demonstrate our concerns with the human rights situation in China,” the statement said.
Neither the Canadian Olympic nor Paralympic Committees responded to interview requests from the Star on Wednesday.
Liberal MP Adam van Koeverden, who was Canada’s flag bearer at the last Beijing Olympics in 2008, said Canada should go no further than a diplomatic boycott because “our athletes are not tools of diplomacy,” and argued their participation in the Games can actually draw attention to human rights violations in China.