LILLEY: Trudeau's silence on China becoming deeply disturbing
Published: May 12, 2020
Justin Trudeau surprised me last week; he said some words I didn’t expect him to. He said thank you to Taiwan.
It shouldn’t be strange that a prime minister of one democratic country would thank the government of another democratic country.
However, if you’ve watched how the Trudeau government has handled anything that involves COVID-19 and China, you’d understand why it surprised me.
Beijing thinks Taiwan belongs to communist China and doesn’t appreciate other countries saying anything favourable about the island nation. Trudeau’s thank you could be seen as just that.
The PM has been getting questions about China’s role in the pandemic for the last two months and each time he’s been loathe to criticize them, saying it will be something for the future.
Asked on April 2 about intelligence reports that China hid the severity of the pandemic from the rest of the world, the PM refused to mention China by name and definitely didn’t criticize them.
“Obviously, there’ll be many, many questions as this is all worked through over the coming months — and indeed years — on how this was handled, what lessons are taken, who did well, who didn’t do as well, and who was perhaps not as forthcoming with the global community as they should have been. Those are questions, though, for future times,” Trudeau said.
A month later, Trudeau was asked about a Five Eyes intelligence report that COVID-19 leaked out of the virology lab in Wuhan, China.
“There will be much time in the coming weeks and months for reflecting on how it happened and how we can prevent it in the future,” Trudeau said.
Pressed for a clearer answer a few questions later, Trudeau would not rule out that the virus did escape from the lab, yet he wouldn’t lend the idea any credence despite our allied intelligence report saying it did.
“We will continue to work with intelligence agencies around the world, not just the Five Eyes, but friends and partners as well, and look to find answers to the many questions people are asking,” Trudeau said.
It might be worth reminding everyone at this point that Canada is part of Five Eyes but the PM would not endorse their report and instead spoke vaguely of working with “friends and partners.”
Are those the partners in Beijing?
Trudeau’s health minister has dismissed questions about the WHO’s original data on COVID being unreliable due to China’s lies as “conspiracy theories.”
Theresa Tam-who does she work for?
His international development minister has endorsed the idea of an internal WHO review post pandemic, just like China wants, and unlike most of our major allies who want an independent review of what went wrong.
As Terry Glavin pointed out recently in National Post, China has been called out or condemned by France, Germany, Poland, Holland, Australia, Britain as well as Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and Kazakhstan. Not to mention the European Union and African Union.
Yet Canada, under Trudeau, has been silent on the issue of China. Acting afraid of the bigger kid in the schoolyard.
Now back to Taiwan.
Last Thursday, Trudeau’s foreign minister, Francois-Philippe Champagne was asked about thanking Taiwan for a donation of masks to British Columbia.
“Will the minister now do the right thing and on behalf of Canadians, recognize the generosity of Taiwan and thank its government for that timely donation?” Conservative MP Ed Fast asked a second time
“Canada is grateful to all who have given supplies to Canada,” Champagne replied.
He refused to recognize Taiwan by name as if he was taking orders directly from Beijing. Thus, the question to Trudeau.
“I’m happy to thank Taiwan for it’s generous donation,” Trudeau said.
Asked just after that if his government was standing up to China or backing down, Trudeau didn’t answer.
The whole world is calling out China’s rulers for their negligence, their lies, their cover-up.
Canada has to decide if we are willing to speak truth to the dictators in Beijing or if under Trudeau, Canada will simply become a vassal state of China’s.
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