Canada/U.S. Trade Negotiations: The Public's Need to Know

"On Trade, and in other ways, also they are among the worst Nations in the World to deal with."

"They feel entitled, and yet, WE DON'T NEED CANADA THEY NEED US!"

U.S. President Donald J. Trump

 

"Canadians must see it [the proposed agreement] to judge what options are on the table."

"[It's time for the prime minister to release the text of the deal]."

Conservative Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre

 

"If there was a draft text of any agreement that both governments have seen please release it The U.S. administration has seen [it]. Your government has seen it. Canadians deserve to see it."

"We are here to help and fight for a good result for Canadians. But we expect the Prime Minister to be transparent and open with Canadians about what the President offered and/or threatened in these talks."

"...We are asking for information that both the U.S. administration and your own government would already know, because both were involved in the back and forth. This information will allow all Canadians to debate and discuss the way forward as a country."

Conservative Member of Parliament Shuvaloy Majumder, shadow minister for Canada-U.S. relations 

Carney has a weak hand in Canada-U.S. Trade negotiations, Shuvaloy Majumder

 

What a truly awkward time for Parliament to be adjourned for its traditional summer break so that ostensibly Members of Parliament can be available to their home constituents rather than be gathered in the House of Commons to debate matters of great public interest in the ongoing conflict and contradictions between two North American trading partners. Canada-U.S.  relations have never in modern history been so fraught with the impending potential of economic travails as a result of injuriously steep tariffs imposed by the United States on Canadian goods and services.

 

With a matter of such grave vital interest to all Canadians, in that it directly impacts their already steep cost of living, issues that should be openly and transparently available for public consumption with accompanying explanations as required, remain an opaque mystery. News reportage, while hazarding possible scenarios informed by questioning the opinions and possible scenarios of impact on Canada's economy by trade and economic professionals and academics can only conjecture, since no release of actual discussions and tariff proposal settlements have been released.

 

The Liberal government has dominated the issue and made decisions on behalf of the country as they should and must as the current executive administrative government. Yet it behooves them to share what information they have not only with the official Parliamentary opposition, along with provincial premiers, with appropriate segments of the talks and subsequent disagreements being released to the public. A week has passed since the trade/tariff negotiations between the two sparring partners, Canada/U.S. called off the talks when Canada refused the last-call additions of an agreement set to be signed.

 

There is more than ample reason to suspend total belief in what this government, this Liberal prime minister offers publicly as a description of events and negotiations and the government's position. It may very well be true that the U.S. introduced last-minute measures, as PM Mark Carney contends, that proved impossible for Canada to accept. Limiting Canada's sovereign trade options with countries other than the U.S. as a demand by the U.S. would clearly be unacceptable, as would claims that the U.S. attempted to "restrict our protections of our language our culture, and in effect, our sovereignty. In short, they asked too much and offered too little"; a snappy line that Mr. Carney treated us with, but not much else. 

 

He was anything but forthright on a number of previous occasions, that later caught up with him. The most conspicuously in avoidance of truth and reality when he characterized the discussions between Canada and the United States over the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge linking Windsor, Ontario with Detroit, Michigan. He failed on that occasion to describe in entirety what the end result was that led to U.S. President Donald Trump finally permitting the bridge to open. A bridge whose cost was totally underwritten by Canada, which planned to recover investment costs over time through bridge tolls.

 

Gordie Howe International Bridge    CTV

 

When in reality, Donald Trump demanded that bridge tolls be shared immediately with the U.S., before Canada could recover its $6.4 billion outlay. The original agreement between Canada and Michigan, signed and delivered, for Canada to recoup its costs, then share half-and-half of the bridge tolls, and generously handing over half-ownership of the bridge to Detroit was summarily struck null and void by the American president. None of which details Mr. Carney disclosed, while characterizing the 'deal' with Washington, as a 'win' for Canada.

 

Member of Parliament Majumdar subtly reminded Mr. Carney of his election promises that he would be the only candidate that Canada could rely on to subdue the U.S. president's enthusiasm for flummoxing other world leaders by treating them as flunkies and imposing steep tariffs on their countries' hitherto trade relations with the U.S. He would, he asserted, have a trade agreement with the U.S. for Canada that would do this country proud. He, and only he, as a seasoned economist, a former governor of the Bank of England had the professional expertise to do the job creditably. 

"There have been no wins. U.S. tariffs on Canada are far higher than when the Prime Minister took office."

"As we move forward, it is critical that we maintain the trust and unity of our people with transparency on the efforts you have made to date, and about the circumstances of these negotiations that are so important for Canada."

Conservative Member of Parliamentary Opposition, Shuvaloy Majumdar 

Shuvaloy Majumder in the House of Commons  Still from Video

 

Canada's Negligent Absorption of War Criminals

"It is with deep regret that we acknowledge that Mr. Peter Savaryn was appointed to the Order of Canada in 1987, and we express our sincere apology to Canadians for any distress or pain his appointment may have caused."

"Mr. Hunka's past involvement with the Waffen-SS and his recognition in the House of Commons have been a source of great concern to the Governor General."

"The Chancellery is committed to working with Canadians to ensure our honours system is reflective of Canadian values."

"Historical appointments to the Order of Canada reflect a specific moment in time and would have been based on limited information sources available at that time."

Rideau Hall statement

The office of Governor General Mary Simon says it "deeply regrets" appointing Peter Savaryn to the Order of Canada in 1987. Mr Savaryn died in 2017, aged 90   Getty Images

"If subsequently, evidence comes to light of something as grievous as collaborating with a Nazi regime, that there should be some mechanism where it's made clear that this individual is rejected by the institution [a new process should be instituted to formally remove Savaryn's honour award]."

"It would be undoing a historical misstep by the Canadian government in covering that up [Canada's past history of a lax attitude toward permitting postwar Nazis and war criminals to enter Canada and achieve citizenship], because it would enable the Canadian public to recognize how deep this problem goes."

"This would provide much needed sunlight into a very dark period that a lot of people don't know about."

Dan Panneton, director of community engagement, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center

It's somewhat disingenuous at this point to declare that not enough was known about the background of a person who was permitted to immigrate to Canada despite being identified as a member of a Nazi SS unit, to explain away how it could be possible for such a man to flourish in Canada, build a new persona and future for himself and be recognized as a credit to the community, and by extension to human endeavours when such a man's past held the reality of voluntarily serving the Nazi regime, swearing an oath of allegiance to its Fuhrer, and pursuing the goal of genocide.

When former Nazis entered Canada as new immigrants they faced no scrutiny or roadblock to entry, in the decades following World War II. Jewish refugees who survived the Holocaust and arrived to Canada, were shocked to realize that their tormentors and murderers had gained entry to a country they themselves sought refuge in. Jewish social-cultural groups petitioned various governments over the years to hold these people accountable for their war crimes; at the very least to extradite them to Germany or the country of their origin.

Time after time these requests were ignored, until one prime minister consented to look into the matter, striking an enquiry and appointing an esteemed judge to oversee the resulting investigation. The two reports that came out of that enquiry have never been released to the public in their entirety. The Deschenes enquiry reached the conclusion that individuals should not be held responsible for what the battalions they were attached to engaged in, despite that the Nuremberg authorities deemed such SS divisions as being involved in war crimes. 

The 1986 Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada, known as the Deschenes Commission, interviewed 774 individuals suspected of being war criminals. The interviews and the names of those involved were never released, but were held for the succeeding years as secret, classified documents. One part of the report was eventually released, but was heavily redacted. Jewish groups are now demanding that both Commission reports be released in their entirety.

Several weeks ago, a Canadian parliamentarian invited an elderly Canadian-Ukrainian citizen to the House of Commons on the occasion of the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's visit to Canada where he was scheduled to address Parliament. The 98-year-old guest was revealed days after he was feted in the House as a Ukrainian military 'hero' who had fought with Germany against the Soviet Union in a voluntary ethnic brigade attached to the Nazi SS -- whose focus was the elimination of Jews during the Holocaust years -- as a former voluntary enlistee in an ethnic SS division.

 

That embarrassment was compounded mere days later by Canada's Governor General Mary Simon apologizing to Canadians yet again on the discovery that a recipient of the prestigious Order of Canada went to yet another Canadian-Ukrainian who had fought in the very same SS-Galicia Battalion and had, like Yaroslav Hunka, sworn an oath of allegiance to Adolf Hitler. 

 

It somehow escaped the notice of these Members of Parliament that there is no correlation between Russia's current invasion of Ukraine, and the Ukrainians that saw fit to align themselves with Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union, fighting at that time with the Allies against the Fascist Axis coalition.

Over a week after Yaroslav Hunka was cheered in the House of Commons, Jewish groups are calling for Ottawa to release a decades-old report from the Deschênes Commission containing details about alleged Nazi war criminals living in Canada.  CBC

Once again, it was not that Rideau Hall -- and the office of the Governor General, similar to the lack of oversight by Canadian parliamentarians or the prime minister's office, or the House of Commons' security, to look into the background of someone invited to the House -- themselves undertook a simple background check of those they were championing. It was a Jewish news source, the venerable old Forward that brought the Nazi backgrounds of these two men to the tardy attention of Canadian authorities.

 

The International Community, which has a far better memory in Europe of the horrors of wars fought on their soil, has viewed these compelling errors of judgement and lack of memory on the part of the government of Canada with incredulous bemusement. Inexcusable lapses which saw an event as lunatic as introducing a former Nazi whose battalion was involved in the roundup and murder of Jews, to a Jewish president of a nation once again embattled by a territorial-hungry neighbour.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives for a caucus meeting on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

For Shame, Canada!

"It is incomprehensible that failures of vetting like these continue to occur, completely ignoring the lessons that should have been learned in the wake of the Laith Marouf scandal."

"This sends a terrible message to the Canadian Jewish community, which can only be left to assume that condemning antisemitism is not a priority, and that we are not a priority."

". We once again urge enhanced oversight be applied in vetting across the board, whether it’s for government funding or events on Parliament Hill."

“The more we look into this gathering, the more disturbing it gets. What is it about the Canada-Palestine Parliamentary Friendship Group that attracts these types of individuals? This controversy cannot be allowed to be swept under the rug."

Shimon Koffler Fogel, CEO, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

 

"It is disturbing that an individual with such a long history of promoting antisemitism could be invited to such an event,” said. “The rhetoric that Nazih Khatatba espouses makes our society a less safe place for Canadian Jews, and his presence on Parliament Hill, hobnobbing with Canadian political leaders, is reprehensible."

Dan Panneton, Director of Allyship and Community Engagement, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center

 

"Mr. Speaker, two days ago, Liberal members of Parliament and the Minister of Transport welcomed a dangerous anti-Semite, Holocaust denier and terrorist sympathizer to this place."

"Nazih Khatatba and Meshwar Media, which the government already gave tax dollars to, has referred to the Holocaust as a ‘Holohoax’ and ‘the biggest lie in history’. This newspaper called Judaism a terrorist religion."

"Worse yet, this man praised last week’s heinous murder of 16-year-old Canadian teenager by terrorists."

"Will the Minister of Transport [Omar Alghabra] denounce this man, his publication and apologize to Canadians?"

Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman  House of Commons

This image of Canadian MPs attending an International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People event on Parliament Hill on Nov. 29 was posted by Nazih Khatatba on his Facebook page. Source: Nazih Khatatba/Facebook

Canada, it seems increasingly obvious, is overrun with the presence of antisemites who prosecute wherever and whenever they make the opportunity, against the legitimacy of the state of Israel. Active on University campuses, nudging to action latent Jew-hate, they infuse student bodies and members of university faculty alike with the indignation of the Liberal-left against the victimhood that Palestinians claim to suffer from at the hands of Israeli authorities and the IDF. 

 

The invention of ever greater slanders to fuel the hatefest infecting Canada from the presence of 'Palestine-supporters' who will grasp any opportunity to attribute inhumane treatment suffered by Palestinians, portraying them as innocents who want nothing but the land they believe they inherited through posterity, land that in reality is an ancient Judean heritage when the only Palestinians referred to were indigenous Jews. The reality is that Palestinian leaders incite their people to violence against Jews.

 

The 'occupation' is a need imposed upon Israel to maintain a military presence to protect and secure its people from never-ending violence where Palestinians believe that murdering Jews will elevate them to martyrdom and celebrity status, an impression fostered by the Palestinian Authority that promises financial support to the families of such 'martyrs' in a theme that Israel recognizes as "pay-for-slay", urging the West to stop funding the lethal practise to no avail.

 

Canada's Liberal government has been unimpressed with a need for vigilance at the presence of active antisemitism being brought directly through successful infiltration into the House of Commons where elected parliamentarians from among Arab and Palestinian citizens brew up a deadly storm of racist threats and actions against Israel, slopping over to include Canadian Jews. Nov. 29, 1947, was the date on which the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution that in effect led to the declaration of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948.

 

Palestinians and their supporters celebrate November 29 annually as a 'Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People'. That represents the day in 1947 when the United Nations presented its Partition Plan which offered part of Israel's traditional geography to Israel, to re-establish its presence as an independent state, and another portion to the Palestinians to establish their own state. Israel accepted with gratitude, the Palestinians rejected the plan and preferred to consider themselves 'refugees', and the United Nations, through UNRWA, supported that decision.

 

On November 29 of this year on Parliament Hill, Liberal Member of Parliament Salma Zahid of the Canada-Palestine Parliamentary Friendship group, hosted a reception for the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, where Nazih Khatatba, editor of an Arabic newspaper based in Toronto was present.  The newspaper questions the Holocaust, supports terrorist action against Israel and Jews, and spews antisemitism. More latterly, it was revealed that other rabid antisemites, including the Canadian head of Fatah, a terrorist group behind the Palestinian Authority was also present at the event.

Now, yet another was revealed to have been present, Mahmoud Khalil with his own history of antisemitic social media posts. He has posted videos of himself delivering a speech at a Glory To Our Martyrs rally in Montreal, reciting a poem commemorating the late Ghassen Kanafani who spoke for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group outlawed as a terrorist organization by Canada's government. The PFLP was responsible for the Lod Airport massacre in Tel Aviv where 26 people died, 80 injured, in 1972.

Zahid, Transport Minister Alghabra and Green Party leader Elizabeth May posed for a group photograph, all wearing scarves emblazoned with the Palestinian flag. The Green Party Leader said: "I take my marching orders from the permanent representative of Palestine to Canada". Nazih Khatatba's Meshwar Media referred to the Holocaust as the "Holohoax", and published articles in praise of terrorist attacks against Jews, last month's Jerusalem bombing that killed 16-year-old Canadian Israeli Aryeh Schupak, included.

Following the reception Meshwar Media's website bore the headline: "Reprsentatives in the Canadian Parliament stand in solidarity with Palestine and call on the Governmnt of Canada to support the Palestinian People." 

 

For shame, Canada!

 

NDP MP Niki Ashton, Liberal MP Salma Zahid, Green Leader Elizabeth May, and Liberal MP Omar Alghabra attend the Nov. 29 event hosted by Zahid. Photo by Twitter

 

Out of the Woodworks and Into Parliament Hill

"Parliament stand [sic] in solidarity with Palestine and call [sic] on the Government of Canada to support the Palestinian people."

"The speakers at the ceremony, including deputies and representatives of associations and civil organizations, affirmed their solidarity with Palestine and their condemnation of the killings that Palestinians are subjected to at the hands of the occupation forces and settlers."

"Member of Parliament Niki Ashton said that Canada can play a better role for peace in the Middle
East and is keen on human rights in the world, especially for the Palestinians."

Arabic-language piece, Meshwar Media website

Nazih Khatatba posted this photo on his Facebook page of MPs at an International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People event on Parliament Hill. From left to right: Liberal MP Sameer Zuberi, NDP MP Niki Ashton, Bloc Québécois MP Mario Beaulieu, Liberal MP Salma Zahid, NDP MP Blake Desjarlais, Transport Minister Omar Alghabra, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, NDP MP Matthew Green, Bloc Québécois MP Denis Trudel, NDP MP Lindsay Mathyssen. (Nazih Khatatba/Facebook)

 

This was a description published of an event held on November 30 called International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, hosted by Canadian Member of Parliament Selma Zahid, chair of the Canada-Palestine Parliamentary Friendship Group. Present at the meeting was the author and publisher of that write-up, Nazih Khatatba, an invited guest whose newspaper, al-Meshwar claims the Holocaust was a Jewish plot, referring to it as a "holohoax".

"In following up with the Minister's office, they had determined based on the antisemitism they saw in the newspaper, that asking for the money to be returned was warranted, and that happened."

"I'm very disappointed to see that he was here [on Parliament Hill] -- there were members of Parliament there from all parties and I can only hope none of my colleagues there knew who he was and what he stood for."

Liberal Member of Parliament Anthony Housefather

"[Invitations to the reception were] circulated widely [and it was attended by about 150 people]."

"We are not able to research the history of every attendee that responded."

"As chair of the group, I will continue to be a voice for the human rights of the Palestinian people and for a just and fair two-state solution achieved at the negotiating table."

Toronto-area Liberal MP Salma Zahid

"This event was a parliamentary friendship group event that included MPs and members of the Palestinian community from across the country."

"What this individual said is offensive and antisemitic and must be condemned. Minister Alghabra had no contact with this person or even knew that this person was present at this event."

Spokesperson for Transport Minister Omar Alghabra

Transport Minister Omar Alghabra defends attending an event at Parliament in an exchange with Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman.

 

No sooner did the dust settle over an earlier Liberal scandal when a self-described 'anti-racism' trainer -- Laith Marouf -- with a laser-focus on Jews, as a seasoned Palestinian Jew-baiter-and-hater who spewed constant antisemitic sentiments on social media and presented himself as a specialist on racial relations -- hired on contract with the government to conduct anti-racism workshops where he would proceed to lecture on the plight of the Palestinians under the Zionist boot of the Israeli 'occupation'. His reputation as an antisemite was well established, yet two government departments saw fit to accept  his self-styled credentials as an expert on race relations.

Anyone, at any time could have looked online to see any number of the hateful statements he was addicted to, such as this one: “You know all those loud mouthed bags of human feces, aka the Jewish White Supremacists; when we liberate Palestine and they have to go back to where they came from, they will return to being low voiced bitches of thier [sic] Christian/Secular White Supremacist Masters,” he tweeted on Aug. 10. Now that that is old history up crops another.

Where a federal Liberal cabinet minister, the leader of the Green party and Members of Parliament from other parties were in attendance at the Solidarity with Palestinian People event, organized by elected Muslim MPs in company with sordid antisemites and Holocaust deniers. The unabashed presence of a denialist racist-monger this week on Parliament Hill who publishes articles and opinion pieces celebratory of Jewish deaths at the hands of terrorists highlights the depths to which some elected officials sink.

 

Meshwar Media through its editor-publisher was congratulatory over the Jerusalem bombing attack where a 15-year-old Canadian-Israel student was killed. The al-Meshwar newspaper published an article in 2017 claiming the Holocaust to be a Jewish plot, and that banks associated with the "Zionist movement" funded the rise to power in the 1930s of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. In an interview that same year on a television program Nazih Khatatba instruced Canadians "not believe the fairy tales claiming Jews have suffered oppression".

 

A Jerusalem synagogue massacre was described by Khatatba in an al-Meshwar editorial as "courageous and qualitative", where among other Jews at prayer who were slaughtered, was a Canadian Jew. The NDP's Niki Ashton, present at the event, had this man's endorsement during her bid for her party's leadership. A fundraiser hosted by the Palestine Aid Society saw Ashton and Khatatba in a unity of sentiments and was featured on Khatatba's newspaper's front page, during Ashton's leadership bid. Now she disavows support of his views nor does she "accept support from people who hold such views".

Meshwar Media had been requested to return a government grant that had been issued during the pandemic, in view of its antisemitic content. After which Meshwar Media's Facebook page angrily denounced the Heritage Minister who had also been involved in the Laith Marouf antisemitic affair. In Arabic in response to the demand of funding to be returned, he wrote they "refuse to apologize" much less stop publishing "articles criticizing Israel that they consider antisemitic".

Predictably, all of those in the public eye and in government now assert that had they known that this notorious antisemite would be present at the affair, they would never themselves have attended. None of them had any idea -- including the event organizer -- that he would be present, nor were they aware of his scorching racist views. Including those who consorted with him outside of the current affair. In the current public and social aura of rampant antisemitism emanating from all quarters; the political arena to the entertainment field, celebrities and social media, Jew-hate is becoming institutionalized.

 

Melissa Lantsman

@MelissaLantsman

·

Follow

The Laith Marouf scandal has shown us that antisemitism is completely normalized & continues with impunity. Empty words from the Liberal government while funding this racist publication with tax dollars and then rolling out the red carpet for them on Parliament Hill. #cdnpoli

Documenting Antisemitism

@AntisemitismCA

Two days ago, Canadian Members of Parliament, including Federal cabinet minister @OmarAlghabra and Green Party Leader @ElizabethMay, met with and hosted a dangerous antisemite and Holocaust denier. #CdnPoli #Antisemitism 1/8

10:13 AM · Dec 1, 2022

"Each and every parliamentarian, regardless of their particular perspective on the Middle East, owes a duty to Canadians not to be seen as condoning antisemitism or any other form of racism through their public association with a discredited and hateful news source."

"Zahid owes it to the public to better explain through what channels Khatatba gained access to the event on Parliament Hill. Zahid must commit her Friendship Group to end all association with those who distort the Holocaust and pursue antisemitic agendas. If Zahid is unable to do the bare minimum and disavow Holocaust-distorting media attending her Friendship Group events, we consider her unqualified to serve as Chair."

B/nai Brith CEO Michael Mostyn

NDP MP Niki Ashton (left) came under fire in 2017 after she was photographed at one of her fundraising events with Nazih Khatatba (right). (Facebook/B'nai Brith)

The Riddle Within a Mystery Encapsulated in a Puzzle

"If her contract permitted it, that would be a scandal. If the contract didn't permit and they ignored the contract, that would be a scandal."

"If the contract didn't even turn its attention to this, that would be a scandal, too."

Mark Warner, trade lawyer, former legal director, Ontario Research and Innovation Ministry

"We cannot comment on this matter."

"The National Microbiology Laboratory has policies and processes that allow for scientific collaboration and these are reviewed periodically as part of the Science Excellence initiative to adapt them as needed."

Mark Johnson, spokesman, Public Health Agency of Canada

Xiangguo Qiu's ouster from the National Microbiology Laboratory remains cloaked in mystery and has been the subject of ongoing debate in Parliament. Photo by MCpl Vincent Carbonneau, Rideau Hall/File

The plot sickens as it thickens. That the Government of Canada is shielding documents from the Parliament of Canada that would shed light on the strange and rather awkward dismissal of two Chinese scientists long employed by Canada's topmost secret biology laboratory, biologists of distinction who had links both with the Wuhan Virology Institute and scientists working directly for the CCP's People's Liberation Army laboratories, defies logic. 

The dismissal of scientists Xiangguo Qiu and her husband Keding Cheng in January following their having been escorted out of Winnipeg's National Microbiology Laboratory a year and a half earlier along with Chinese biology students that Dr. Qiu had brought into the NML, is an event of great interest to parliamentarians and to the Canadian public. Particularly at this time of a global pandemic when a viral pathogen erupted in Wuhan, China and there are suspicions whether it was a natural event or whether the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been involved.

The head of the Winnipeg laboratory was called before Parliament and given instructions to produce documents to clarify the reason behind the scientists' escort from the laboratory and their consequential firing. Public Health Agency of Canada chief Iain Stewart adamantly, despite being reprimanded, continues to refuse to provide unredacted documents to Members of Parliament sitting on the Canada-China relations committee.

It has now been made clear that it is the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau which has instructed Mr. Stewart to refuse to surrender the documents in question. The Liberal government has filed an application to the Federal Court asking it to prohibit disclosure of the requested documents, challenging the principle of the House of Commons' supreme position to demand documents be produced regardless of privacy or national security laws.

Yet the government that has imperilled national security through its continued positions on allowing Beijing access to Canadian academic circles, corporate interests, government infiltration, scientific and technical inventions and production has filed an application requesting an order confirming the documents should remain undisclosed; the disputed material being "information which if disclosed would be injurious to international relations or national defence or national security". 

Dr. Xiangguo Qiu, a prominent virologist at the forefront of an ongoing RCMP investigation, is seen in an undated screengrab at the Winnipeg-based National Microbiology Laboratory. She was fired from her post in January, but officials won't say why.  Photo:  CBC

It would, in the sense that such disclosures have the potential to demonstrate the extent of this government's lax attention to securing its own intelligence, linked to that of its G7 and Five Eyes partnerships. News that Xiangguo Qiu, currently under investigation by the RCMP, is listed as an inventor on two patents filed by official agencies in China is another unsavoury revelation. As a long-time Canadian civil servant her obligation is to Canada, not China.

It is, in fact, illegal for any employee of the Microbiology Laboratory to patent anything discovered at the Lab; it is the property of the Lab and of Canada.While her escort out of the Microbiology Lab continues to shrouded in mystery, the subject of Parliamentary debate, these new revelations serve to deepen the conundrum.

One patent listing her as a co-inventor with others was filed with the Chinese National Intellectual Property Administration by China's National Institutes for Food and Drug Control, describing an 'inhibitor for Ebola virus'. Ms.Qiu had been celebrated in Canada for her work in helping to develop a treatment for Ebola. In the other patent registered by the Inspection and Quarantine Technology Centre of Fujian province a "detection method" for Marburg a hemorrhagic fever, is involved.

Just coincidentally, Dr.Qui had been involved in an unauthorized shipment of NML materials involving those same biological inventions out of the Winnipeg laboratory to the Wuhan Virology Institute. Dr.Qiu, it seems apparent, was either in violation of the inventions law or had received permission from the minister to proceed as she had, which seems unlikely, given its illegality and the strange potential decision to provide such highly classified and protected material and research to a hostile country.

It had been revealed by a journalistic investigation that Professors Qiu and Cheng had failed to pass security screening by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, somewhat after the fact. They had been known to work alongside Chinese scientists as  well as a PLA military researcher who had also been employed by the Winnipeg Laboratory. None of this inspires confidence in the Public Health Agency of Canada, nor the Government of Canada in this hugely unsavoury event.

The National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg where scientists Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng worked until they were escorted out in July 2019, and finally fired in January 2021. Photo by Michel Comte/AFP via Getty Images/File

Canadian Members of Parliament vs Canadian Prime Minister

"How could scientists with deep connections to the Chinese military be able to gain access to a high-level Canadian security-cleared laboratory with the world's most dangerous viruses?"

Conservative MP John Williamson

"We will not give in to pandering to anti-Asian racism."

"We have seen enough of a rise in intolerance across the country these past months."

"We need to continue to stand strong in supporting diversity."

Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

"Nobody in this House [Parliament; House of Commons] is suggesting that COVID-19 was manufactured in the Winnipeg lab or that coronviruses were at any point transferred from Canada to China."

"But we are questioning the level of co-operation in general that seems to have been taking place between Winnipeg and its various Chinese military affiliate labs, including the one in Wuhan."

Conservative MP Garnett Genius

"We know full well that biological warfare is forbidden internationally."

"We know, however, that there's a certain number of states that are delinquents. Therefore, we have to tighten up security, to ensure that we avoid letting Canadian research fall into the wrong hands."

Bloc MP Stephane Bergeron

 

"The power of Parliament to send for papers is absolute, that is a very well established privilege and power that we have in this place."

"And while the Liberals may rightly have concerns about the sensitive nature of the documents, there are no arguments that can be made against Parliament’s right to send for these papers."

NDP MP Alistair MacGregor

The National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg where scientists Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng worked until they were escorted out in July 2019, and finally fired in January 2021. Photo by Michel Comte/AFP via Getty Images/File

Canadian Members of Parliament want answers from the Government of Canada, led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, just why it is and how it can be that Canada's only level-4 security laboratory where scientists work with lethal pathogens, appears to have collaborated with Chinese scientists directly engaged with the People's Liberation Army. Hours of debate, with Conservative, NDP and Bloc Quebecois Members of Parliament repeatedly asking the prime minister to explain the situation. A hostile country like China, a known predator of other nations' discoveries and formulations given free rein to spy and indulge in espionage to abscond with top secrets.

It is typical of the prime minister to evade, to equivocate, to refuse accountability, to accuse others of racism and the airing of government top-secret files to throw off the scent of malfeasance. Racism has nothing whatever to do with perfectly legitimate questions badly in need of explanations given the quality of relationship between Canada and China, questionable in that a democratic country that prides itself on its human rights record maintains ties with a hostile, intrusive and threatening country that abuses human rights.

Winnipeg's high-security National Microbiology Laboratory had questionable ties with Chinese scientists whose loyalty was not to science and Canada, but to the Chinese military. This is a research facility conducting experiments and studies on infectious diseases which shared their premises and findings with Chinese military researchers. Foreign affairs experts and former national security officials gave warning that China makes use of foreign collaborations to advance their own military research.

 

Security personnel gather near the entrance of the Wuhan Institute of Virology during a visit by the World Health Organization team in Wuhan in China's Hubei province on Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2021. (Ng Hah Guan/AP Photo)

 

The most incautious of collaboration taking place with the certain knowledge that China's military research includes "gain-of-function" research, involving experimentation to deliberately infuse known pathogens with deadlier and more contagious functions. Otherwise known as germ-warfare techniques, knowledge that could be shelved, but end-products that could also be put into odious use.

Conservative Member of Parliament and foreign affairs critic Michael Chong requested the release for study by parliamentarians of hundreds of pages of unredacted documents from the federal public health agency, backgrounded by a previous request and receipt of documents requested by a parliamentary committee whose contents had been heavily blacked out rendering them completely opaque, and useless for the purpose for which they were intended.

The federal government insists that a release of this kind of information would represent a breach of national security, resorting to charges of racism when the requests continued to be pursued, a typical rejoinder by a government unwilling to make its decisions and behaviours open to transparent scrutiny. In this instance it is the case of Dr.Xianggu Qiu along with her biologist husband, Keding Cheng who were in July of 2019 escorted from the National Microbiology Laboratory where both worked. The facility had provided China's Wuhan Institute of Virology with Ebola and Henipah viruses.

The linkage of the two Chinese scientists with an as-yet unrevealed series of events, including the transfer of the viruses led to their undergoing a police investigation and their eventual dismissal in January of 2021, their security clearances revoked. Equipped to handle some of the deadliest known infectious diseases, the Winnipeg high-security laboratory is the sole level-4 security lab in the country where seven scientists conduced experiments and co-authored studies on infectious diseases with Chinese military researchers.

"It is ill-advised. It is the top lab in Canada. It is just incredible naiveté on their part."

"[It is also astounding that PHAC allowed a PLA scientist into the Winnipeg lab that requires the highest-level security clearance to gain entry]."

"We won’t let a Canadian in unless we have done a deep background check, but we let [someone] in that we don’t know anything about. It doesn’t make sense."

Andy Ellis, former CSIS assistant director of operations

For a time, Feihu Yan of the People's Liberation Army's Academy of Military Medical Sciences worked at the Winnipeg laboratory, listed on occasion as an affiliate of the facility. And nor is the connection between the two high-security laboratories; Winnipeg's and Wuhan's, the only peculiar and alarming -- under the circumstances -- connection between Ottawa and Beijing. It was revealed in December of 2019 that the Canadian military had planned joint winter military exercises with the Chinese military, a revelation that shocked and repulsed just as the lab collaboration did.

"Under Xi Jinping, China has turned into a repressive police state equipped with a mass surveillance system the likes of which has never been seen (except in the dystopia of Orwell’s 1984). Its “wolf warrior” would-be diplomats have violated every convention of diplomatic conduct. The state apparatus has weaponized trade to cow adversaries into submission, and, with increasing frequency, it has resorted to kidnapping to coerce and punish those who stand in its way. China has had no compunction in stealing advanced technology from other countries, and has launched cyberattacks against dozens of them."

"Given all this, it boggles the mind that Canada, which prides itself as a beacon of democracy, would consider it appropriate to collaborate with the organization that serves as the spearhead for Beijing’s authoritarian vision. Even more troubling is the possibility that such co-operation could pass on skills which the PLA could use to defeat our allies in battle."

"Canada already has an unenvious reputation for allowing Chinese firms to acquire firms in the defence sector; the idea that we could be training them is abominable. (Another risk is that the PLA is using exchanges and joint training to collect intelligence, especially against other members of the Five Eyes community.)"

J.Michael Cole, iPolitics

Soldiers of China's People's Liberation Army march during the Victory Day Parade in Red Square in Moscow, Russia, on June 24, 2020.    Host photo agency/Reuters

 

Free to be Happy and Secure In China

"In the opinion of the House, the People's Republic of China has engaged in actions consistent with the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 260, commonly known as the 'Genocide Convention', including detention camps and measures intended to prevent births as it pertains to Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims".

Conservative motion, House of Commons, Ottawa

"[I was] deeply disturbed by horrific reports of human rights violations in Xinjiang, including the use of arbitrary detention, political re-education, forced labour, torture, and forced sterilization."

"We have the responsibility to work with others in the international community in ensuring that any such allegations are investigated by an independent international body of legal experts."

Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau, Ottawa

"Based on the evidence put forward during the subcommittee hearings, both in 2018 and 2020, the subcommittee is persuaded that the actions of the Chinese Communist Party constitute genocide as laid out in the Genocide Convention."

Parliamentary Subcommittee on International Human Rights, Ottawa

People gather on Parliament Hill on Monday, Feb. 22, 2021, to protest the Chinese government's treatment of the Uighur minority in China. (Andrew Lee/CBC)

 

There, it's done. Elected members of Parliament representing all official parties voted unanimously to declare China an absolute human rights abuser, a genocidal government in Beijing, intent on transforming minority Muslim Uyghurs into Han Chinese citizens; their religion denied, culture denied, language denied; separatist aspirations denied, through an institutionalized disappearance of all that it means to be ethnic Muslim Uyghurs in an irreligious ideology of totalitarian Communism.

Unofficially, that is. In the sense that it wasn't the entire government of Canada that committed itself to that declaration. The sad and sorry fact is that the Cabinet of Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau chose to separate themselves from all other Parliamentarians' decision to label the People's Republic for what it is; a genocidal regime that began with Tibet and now Xinjiang to complete its mission of one-for-all, and all-for-one-Xi Jinping idolatry.

While mouthing an opinion eerily similar to that of the convinced members of Parliament who voted 266 - 0 in support of the motion, Canada's minister of foreign affairs 'abstained' from the vote on behalf of the entire Liberal cabinet. Straddling the fence on China is a Liberal hallmark, after all. Absurdly enough, Canada's ambassador to the United Nations, Bob Rae has stated: "There's no question that there's aspects of what the Chinese are doing that fits into the definition of genocide in the Genocide Convention."

Foreign Minister Garneau's mention of an 'investigation by an independent international body of legal experts' points directly to the United Nations. Where it would be natural under any such circumstances for the Human Rights Council to have a good, hard look at China's ongoing discrimination against and deadly dehumanization of Falun Gong, Tibetans, Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and Hui people -- if they weren't so busy condemning democratic Israel. 

Interestingly enough, China sits on the UNHRC, alongside Russia, Cuba and Pakistan, all stalwarts of human rights support as it pertains to other countries; certainly not their own. Chinese foreign Minister Wang Yi appeared at the UNHRC's 46th session where he proffered out of the goodness of his heart, insight into China's perception of human rights. Where in China "happiness" and"security" are synonymous with China's drive to see its entire population reduced to CCP-supporting zombies.

They will attain happiness and a sense of comforting security by the simple expedient of abandoning the evils of  free thought, free speech, freedom of religion, where "terrorism and separatism" are unequivocally universally condemned by all the people of the People's Republic of China which exists solely to represent the very best interests of its happy population, free to do as they are instructed.

A man wearing a face mask to protect against the coronavirus walks past the Olympic rings on the exterior of the National Stadium, also known as the Bird's Nest, which will be a venue for the upcoming 2022 Winter Olympics, in Beijing, Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2021. A motion passed by the House of Commons today calls on the government to lobby for relocation of the games out of China due to the country's human rights record. (Mark Schiefelbein/The Associated Press)

Confronting China's Dismal Human Rights Record

"We firmly oppose that [a motion in Canada's Parliament] because it runs counter to the facts. And it's like, you know, interfering in our domestic affairs."

"There's nothing like genocide happening in Xinjiang at all."

"I think we respect your values. But I think our core values should be: respect facts. And to stop spreading disinformation or even rumours."

Cong Peiwu, Chinese Ambassador to Canada 

"[The motion and vote to follow are a requirement, to send a] clear and unequivocal signal that we will stand up for human rights and the dignity of human rights, even if it means sacrificing some economic opportunity."

Leader of the Official Opposition, Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole

"There is no question there have been tremendous human rights abuses coming out of Xinjiang. [However, use of the word must be] properly justified and demonstrated so as not to weaken the application of 'genocide' in situations in the past."

"[We -- Liberal caucus -- have] taken careful note of conclusions drawn by experts around the world, including findings of crimes against humanity and genocide."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

MPs pass motion declaring genocide against Uighurs in China, despite cabinet abstentions

 

The targeted brutality by China against Tibetans refusing to surrender their sovereignty to a grasping hegemonic China is well enough known in the public sphere. China's threats toward its regional neighbours in its ambitions to dominate and acquire disputed territories along with geographic areas known to be exclusive to China's neighbours' sovereignty has created an aura of anger and trepidation in relation to Beijing's aggressive threats against any who dispute its regional command.

The world has focused on the plight of Turkic Muslim Uyghurs in a Chinese province that was once the homeland of the Uyghurs until it was swallowed into the maw of the People's Republic of China. The Chinese superpower's persecution of the Uyghurs is no secret; their human rights have been unmercifully trampled; forced sterilizations, culture and language suppression, interference in their religious devotion, and of course the 're-education' formula of mind control.

The claim for genocide in describing the plight of a people coerced by force into slave labour, who cannot live free lives because the dominant occupying power considers them to be 'terrorists' in need of de-escalation, to remake them into model Chinese citizens who will nevermore agitate for separation, appears to fall into the guidelines of the UN definition of genocide. A Canadian House of Commons subcommittee documented the human rights abuses leading to the charge of genocide. 

However, Canada's prime minister, who professes to be extremely sensitive about the use of the word 'genocide' to describe Beijing's campaign against the Xinjiang Uyghurs is a craven act of complicity. No such demurrals were expressed when a commissioned report led by a First Nations judge proclaimed that Canada committed 'genocide' against its aboriginal peoples, and it pleased the prime minister to assent to that language in describing Canada.

Under the Liberal Party of Canada a love affair with China has long since taken root, gripped by the potential for trade and investment and business opportunities with the nation with the largest population numbers on Earth. Under this current Liberal government whose ambition was driven to sign a free trade agreement with the Chinese Communist Party, that commitment to ingratiate Canada with the CCP flowered, and for Justin Trudeau, the heir of his father's prime ministerial decision to open full diplomatic ties with post-revolutionary China, no human rights abuses on China's part are too egregious to interfere with his admiration for the power of a totalitarian government.

China's ambassador to Canada knows full well that Beijing's long arm and persuasive funding has gained it the privilege of having its administrative abuses overlooked in favour of trade opportunities. He knows that China instills both awe and fear in the minds of other countries' political heads. He knows that it is Beijing that is interfering in Canada by harassing Chinese-Canadians who fail to support mainland China and decry its takeover of Hong Kong and threats toward Taiwan. Chinese investment in Canadian universities installing its Confucious Institutes to propagandize for China are sinister intrusions.

No, Beijing does not 'respect Canadian values'; it undermines them whenever and however it can. And its high degree of success in presenting itself as a partner in science, education, culture, business and politics, is a crude and effective choreograph undermining Canadian values. Industrial and military espionage is what motivates China. Its diplomatic missions worldwide with their links to the Chinese military and the CCP's agenda are skilled in what they are trained to do. They act as shills for state-linked corporations in communications, pharmacology and advanced technology.

So today, when the vote was cast in Canada's Parliament, it was overwhelming. Support for the recognition of China's persecution of the Uyghurs (Falon Gong, Tibetans, Christians aside) passed unanimously. With the entire Liberal cabinet of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau abstaining. Establishing beyond doubt that the oft-declared 'values' of this government supportive of human rights is a front for a screen of 'progressive' values. Where Justin Trudeau can see fit to criticize the democracy of India's Narendra Modi for his dispute with farmers with an underlying tone of support for Sikh Khalistanis, yet remain loyal to Communist China's agenda of suppressing Uyghur 'terrorism'.

Protesters gather outside the Parliament buildings in Ottawa, Monday, February 22, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld