Jean Charest on his connections to Huawei
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Summary
In this episode, I sit down with Andrew Yang to discuss his time in the private sector working with Huawei and his vision for Canada s relationship with China as Prime Minister. We talk about his views on China, the disappearance of Michael Kovrig and other issues related to China.
Transcript
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The Conservative Party of Canada has taken, generally speaking, a very firm position against
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the Chinese government and against Huawei and was very critical of a lot of what China did
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throughout that. So how do you defend your record in the private sector advising Huawei with what
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the Conservative Party and I think a lot of Canadians expect from a relationship with China
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and companies connected to the Chinese state? Well, Andrew, and that's an important question.
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And by the way, I'm very proud of the extensive private sector experience I have. And you know,
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in the last 10 years, I've worked a lot in the private sector with very interesting files at
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the highest level. And you said you were proud of your work with Huawei specifically, did you not?
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I want to answer very directly your question. I worked, I did not represent the Communist Party
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of China. I worked so that we could secure an agreement that would bring the two Michaels home.
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That's what I did. I worked with Veena Najibullah, who is the spouse of Michael Kovrig. We talked over
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the phone several times so that we could do everything possible to square away this issue
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and bring the Michaels home. And I'm very proud of that. I'm not, I'm not apologizing for that,
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not a minute, because I think that's what you do when, when you have this kind of responsibility
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and an opportunity to be helpful to your country. So that's what I did. So, and, and then on,
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I've never shied away. And, you know, I was on a panel after this was before the leadership race
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in Montreal. And I said very clearly what I thought of what this situation was with the Michaels. It
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was a government sanctioned kidnapping. That's what it was. Yeah. There's no other way to describe it.
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And, and I'm, I never shied away. And this is before you and I talked in this leadership race
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come up. So I've on the, on the issue of China, I've never shied away from saying what I think
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and what I believe. And that's the way I'm going to be as the leader of the party