Freeland claims progress on the China situation. Really？
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Summary
Big news on the China file and the ongoing spat between Canada and China. Apparently, we re making progress. Michael Kovrig has had a visit by consular officials. And China has agreed to keep the lines of communication open.
Transcript
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Big news on the China file and the ongoing spat between Canada and China.
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Apparently good news. Apparently we're making developments. We're making progress.
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Two latest minor details we've learned. One is that Michael Kovrig has had a visit by consular
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officials. The tenth such visit in, get this, about 240 days of the two Michaels being held
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hostage. The tenth visit with consular officials. About one every 24 days or so. Barely one a
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month. This is not with his lawyer. This is not with his family. This is not before a judge
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to be able to say, okay, what am I charged with? What are the allegations here? Just with consular
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officials to check in to make sure he's not malnourished, that he hasn't received any
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illness, and to see that things are more or less okay given the terrible circumstances.
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And this is the good news. But there's something else. Christia Freeland has finally met with
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her counterpart, the Foreign Affairs Minister of China. Take a listen to this, how the Canadian
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press describes this meeting. Freeland raised the issue of the two Canadians, and Wang Yi expressed
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concerns about Meng Wang Zhu's extradition process, the minister said during a conference call
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without elaborating further. When the meeting was over, she said the two agreed they would keep the
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lines of communication open. Okay, hold on a second. Let me get this straight. So we've had Justin
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Trudeau not really be able to talk to President Xi Jinping about this at all. And then we were told
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Donald Trump's going to deal with the situation for us. And Donald Trump, maybe he brought it up,
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maybe he didn't. Everybody says, oh, we're assured he did. But it clearly was not his primary issue.
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He's dealing with the trade wars and so forth. So to whatever degree he brought it up, probably not
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the top item on his to-do list. Christia Freeland finally, after all this time meeting with her
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Foreign Minister, and it had been reported that they were rebuffing her request for meetings. So
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she was lucky to get this one. And how does she describe it in a call to reporters? She describes
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it as she brought up the detainees, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, and they brought up Meng Wang
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Zhu, as if the two situations were equal. Now we don't see it that way, and we shouldn't see it that
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way, because Meng Wang Zhu, while we held her following our extradition agreement with the U.S.,
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Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor were arbitrarily detained, and they are hostages. And yet we're
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talking about it back and forth, as if they're two sort of equal sides to the same coin.
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This is clearly what they want to do. They've got these hostages, and then they want to do a
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negotiation, a switch, a crossover. Maybe you've seen that Tom Hanks movie, Bridge of Spies, things
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like that that used to happen in the Soviet era. We got your guy, you got our guy. Okay, let's do a switch.
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Hold on a second. Is that an acceptable thing? Is that normal diplomacy? Absolutely not. Yet it's
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shocking that we're just accepting all of this. Tenth visit with consular officials. Great breakthrough.
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Congratulations, Michael Kovrig. You should be thankful. Really? I don't think so. And then this,
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finally, finally getting a meeting with her counterpart. For what? For them to basically say,
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yeah, you better believe we want a hostage trade. That's not how things work here.
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Think of the way they are just so brazenly saying they don't care about our norms. They don't care
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about the rule of law. They don't care about fairness. They're going to stick it to us every
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which way they can. And not only do they expect us to continue to take it, but it looks like we're