The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - October 30, 2020


A Clear Plan for Dealing with China

Topics
Hong Kongers extradition treaty
Hosted by
Jamie Schmal
Mentioned
Stephen Harper Jamie Schmael Justin Trudeau Michael Koberger Michael Chong Erin O'Toole Meng Wanzhou Michael Spavor Dominic Barton Hong Kongers COVID-19 McCallum CastBox
The Liberal Cover-Up Justice for Nova Scotian Families

Episode Stats


Length

23 minutes

Words per minute

158.12

Word count

3,764

Sentence count

188


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs Michael Chong joins the show to discuss the situation in Hong Kong, and his family's history in the former British colony. He also talks about Canada's relationship with Hong Kong and its relationship with China, and why freedom is at stake.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome once again to the Blueprints, Canada's Conservative Podcast.
00:00:06.720 I'm your host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton Corps, with the likes Brock.
00:00:10.480 Thank you once again for joining us today.
00:00:13.140 We have an amazing show, as always, lined up for you.
00:00:16.080 But before we get into the contents, we need you to remember to like, comment, subscribe, share this program,
00:00:22.660 help us push back against the ever-moving liberal agenda.
00:00:25.360 But if you can't watch us all today here on Facebook, you can download us on platforms like iTunes, Google Play, CastBox, those types of platforms.
00:00:34.560 And you can listen to us at your leisure.
00:00:36.660 And of course, because we are asking you to reach into your social network, that allows us to get the Conservative message out to undecided voters.
00:00:45.740 Maybe an individual that you know that is on the fence about how they're going to vote in the next federal election.
00:00:50.960 And we need that assistance from you, the listener, the viewer, that can help educate and inform the everyday Canadian that might not be listening outside the mainstream media.
00:01:02.560 So that's why we ask you to do that.
00:01:04.160 And we appreciate that because the message coming up from our guest, Michael Chong, the Member of Parliament for Wellington-Halton Hills,
00:01:09.900 he's also the Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, is particularly important because freedom is at stake in this conversation that we're going to talk about.
00:01:19.140 So, Michael, thank you very much for coming on the show and joining us.
00:01:22.720 Great to be here again, Jamie.
00:01:24.820 And as we mentioned in the opening, the situation going on in Hong Kong specifically has been going on for quite a number of months.
00:01:34.100 It started with a few, I guess, pieces of legislation that were proposed at one point.
00:01:40.720 One of them that kind of, I guess, teed it all off was an extradition bill, which started Hong Kong having agreements with jurisdictions like China,
00:01:50.400 which would allow extraditions to take place.
00:01:53.440 And then those being sent to the mainland would then be at the mercy of Chinese law,
00:01:59.860 which is, as we are seeing in many stories that are coming out, is far more brutal than Hong Kong could ever be.
00:02:06.980 But maybe you want to comment on that because you have a history with Hong Kong.
00:02:10.960 Your father was born in Hong Kong.
00:02:13.020 That's right, Jamie.
00:02:14.740 My father was born and raised in Hong Kong and watched as Canadian soldiers bravely defended Hong Kongers
00:02:22.280 during the first combat engagement of the Canadian Army in the Second World War.
00:02:28.140 It was a pretty vicious fight.
00:02:31.040 Some 2,000 Canadians from Winnipeg and Quebec City were sent over, and half of them were casualties.
00:02:38.840 And the ones that survived were taken prisoner of war and lived in horrific conditions for years
00:02:44.340 before they were liberated at the end of the war in 1945.
00:02:47.960 So my father and my family have never forgotten the sacrifices of those Canadian soldiers so long ago.
00:02:54.880 You mentioned the extradition treaty.
00:02:58.620 You know, there's been ongoing issues in Hong Kong for a number of years now.
00:03:02.180 What started off about seven or eight years ago with irregular disappearances of booksellers and journalists
00:03:10.760 and other people living in Hong Kong, which one could have dismissed as coincidental,
00:03:19.820 suddenly developed into a much bigger pattern when the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government
00:03:26.100 introduced an extradition bill that would have allowed anybody in Hong Kong,
00:03:31.440 including Canadian citizens, to be extradited to mainland China,
00:03:34.840 where they do not have the same independent judiciary system as Hong Kong and where there is no rule of law and procedural fairness.
00:03:43.400 So that bill was withdrawn because of the massive protests that took place in Hong Kong last year.
00:03:51.320 But subsequent to that, the mainland government imposed a draconian new national security law on Hong Kong
00:03:58.700 in violation of a national international treaty.
00:04:01.900 That international treaty is the 1984 joint declaration between the government of the People's Republic of China and the United Kingdom.
00:04:11.660 That treaty came into effect in 1997 for a period of 50 years, and it guaranteed Hong Kongers liberties.
00:04:21.320 It guaranteed them freedom of the press, freedom of association, freedom of religion, freedom of expression,
00:04:26.240 and a whole range of other freedoms that we enjoy here in Canada.
00:04:29.880 By imposing this draconian national security law, both the Hong Kong and Chinese governments are violating that international treaty.
00:04:42.640 That treaty was registered at the United Nations, and Canada was a witness to that registry.
00:04:49.160 And so we are not just a witness to it, but we have an obligation to uphold these sorts of treaties to ensure that our international system,
00:04:59.360 our rules-based international system continues to function.
00:05:02.980 So, you know, this is a huge concern since this draconian new law was imposed last summer.
00:05:09.700 And we're very concerned about the welfare of the 300,000 Canadians living in Hong Kong.
00:05:16.700 Now, before we get into the remarks by China's ambassador of Canada that were made just recently,
00:05:22.860 it's important to note, too, that Hong Kong, although it's one country, they have two systems.
00:05:30.900 I guess that's the way it's set up, and it's known around the world as the fact that, as you mentioned, it does have that autonomy.
00:05:36.640 That's right. The joint declaration agreed to in 1984 that came into effect at handover in 1997 on July 1st guaranteed one country, two systems.
00:05:51.800 One system for mainland China with the People's Republic of China government based in Beijing,
00:05:57.020 and a second independent system for the special administrative region government in Hong Kong.
00:06:03.320 And so, in practical terms, what that meant was that Hong Kong, for example, has separate representation at some international body,
00:06:11.020 separate from the mainland Chinese government at the WTO and at other international organizations.
00:06:17.680 It also means, for example, that Hong Kongers can come to Canada without requiring a visa,
00:06:23.740 but mainland Chinese visitors need a visa.
00:06:26.640 It means that people from mainland China cannot go into Hong Kong without passing through border control and without obtaining a visa.
00:06:36.120 It means that, for example, Hong Kong does not use the Chinese currency.
00:06:43.120 It has a separate currency, the Hong Kong dollar, which is effectively the U.S. dollar because it's pegged to the U.S. dollar.
00:06:49.980 It has its own monetary policy, its own court system.
00:06:55.100 In effect, it has the liberties, the rule of law, and some democracy that we have here in Canada.
00:07:03.140 And the 50-year Sino-British agreement was supposed to protect that.
00:07:08.260 This draconian new national security law imposed last summer does away with that
00:07:13.680 and is in violation of that international treaty.
00:07:16.780 And as these protesters fill the streets like they've had for months and months trying to protect their freedoms,
00:07:24.160 the Chinese ambassador in Canada made a very, very controversial remark.
00:07:30.520 Basically, I would say, you may disagree, almost to the point of threatening Canada not to grant asylum
00:07:37.720 to some of the people that are trying to flee Hong Kong because of the overreaches being made by mainland China.
00:07:46.780 Yeah, it was a very clumsy remark.
00:07:50.540 It's part of a broader pattern of what many people have called the wolf diplomacy of Chinese ambassadors and consul generals abroad.
00:08:00.060 I think it's backfiring on the Chinese.
00:08:02.300 And the evidence is this, that the Pew Center for Research, it's an American-based organization that has done many decades of research and polling in advanced economies on people's opinions of China,
00:08:17.580 has shown in the last several years that the public's opinion of China, not just here in Canada, but in the United States and Europe, has plummeted.
00:08:25.260 Chinese, the view of citizens living in many countries around the world has plummeted.
00:08:33.600 Many people don't trust China.
00:08:36.600 They view it increasingly as a malevolent force in the world.
00:08:40.060 And so, you know, what's so confounding about this wolf warrior diplomacy is that it is not working for the Chinese.
00:08:48.920 And I think these comments the ambassador recently made about the 300,000 citizens living in Hong Kong is part of that broader pattern that simply isn't working for them.
00:08:58.640 So, you know, my view is that at some point the Chinese government needs to see this and realize that their approach of the last several years is actually working against their own very interests.
00:09:10.580 The other thing that I think needs to be known is that, you know, the Chinese don't, the Chinese position is that it's none of anybody's business about what goes in Hong Kong.
00:09:20.940 And I and many other of our allies completely disagree, and they're wrong on this, and they're wrong for the following reason.
00:09:29.160 China is party to international treaties, international organizations.
00:09:36.200 When a country enters into a treaty, it gives up some of its sovereignty.
00:09:41.640 When a country gives, for example, negotiates a free trade agreement, it gives up some sovereignty over the control of an export and import of goods into their own country.
00:09:50.220 When a country signs a treaty on human rights and freedoms, they give up some sovereignty and agree to abide by the terms of that treaty.
00:09:59.680 That's the first reason why countries outside of China have the right to comment on events going on in Hong Kong.
00:10:08.080 We have an obligation as Canadians, as do other allies, to ensure that the international rules-based order is upheld when we see a country like China violating that treaty.
00:10:18.160 The second reason is quite simple.
00:10:19.900 We have 300,000 citizens living there, and we have every right to defend their interests.
00:10:26.660 Canada has had a very strained relationship with China over the past few years.
00:10:31.720 We have the situation with the Huawei executive being held in Canada until the court process goes forward.
00:10:38.680 We have the two Michaels being held over in mainland China.
00:10:42.120 We have, at one point, China holding off exports of such things as pork and other products, hurting our agriculture sector.
00:10:52.020 We have, of course, COVID-19, where information coming out of China about the lethal nature of it and a lot of the protective measures seem to be basically all false information or brushing it off given to the World Health Organization,
00:11:06.500 which then caused governments to adapt their responses accordingly based on that false information.
00:11:14.620 And so how do you see, at what point does kind of the world get together and say enough is enough here?
00:11:22.900 Because, as you mentioned, there are treaties that we do expect some peace, of course, in the world.
00:11:31.100 But when you have a kind of a communist-style government that doesn't really, based on what I'm saying, doesn't really care about its people,
00:11:41.760 the people at the end of the day, the Chinese people do suffer as a result.
00:11:45.780 Well, I think you're right, Jamie.
00:11:48.460 I think things have changed tremendously in the last several years.
00:11:52.520 You know, one of the assumptions that we based our policy on China, and by we, I mean Western democracies,
00:12:01.680 for the last 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, was this principle that authoritarian states like China, like Russia,
00:12:09.780 could be brought into the international system and could improve their human rights records,
00:12:17.600 their records on the rule of law, by more closely engaging with them on trade and on investment.
00:12:27.280 And so the thinking was 30 years ago that, you know, we had won the Cold War as Western democracies,
00:12:33.340 and that by more closely trading and investing with each other, with authoritarian regimes like China and Russia,
00:12:41.440 that we would gradually bring them into this international system where they would gradually improve their human rights records,
00:12:49.220 their records on justice and the like.
00:12:52.120 Well, that assumption has been proven wrong in the last several years.
00:12:55.860 And I think democracies, our allies, are now coming to realize this and are revisiting that assumption
00:13:02.720 and pivoting to a very different approach on China.
00:13:06.480 And, for example, if you look at an ally like Germany, Germany has recently labeled China a strategic rival.
00:13:16.080 They've also put in place new policies to review the takeover by Chinese state-owned enterprises of German companies,
00:13:23.500 and they've taken a number of other measures.
00:13:27.040 Canada needs to do the same thing.
00:13:28.500 The problem with the Canadian government's approach to China is that they have yet to do that.
00:13:34.420 They have acknowledged that their China policy is broken.
00:13:37.960 They've been telling us for the last year that they're going to come forward with a new China framework.
00:13:43.360 We've yet to see it.
00:13:44.580 We're waiting for it to come to be released publicly sometime this fall.
00:13:49.360 But I'm not optimistic that that will solve the problem because, regardless of what the policy is,
00:13:54.700 this government has proven time and time again to be completely inconsistent and incoherent on its China policy.
00:14:01.820 Just several examples I can point out.
00:14:04.240 You know, it was just last year, in January of 2019, just weeks after the two Michaels,
00:14:09.840 Michael Kobrik and Michael Spavor, had been wrongfully kidnapped and detained by China.
00:14:15.820 But the prime minister said that the government of Canada wasn't in any way, shape, or form going to consider any proposal
00:14:24.220 to either interfere with the judicial proceedings with Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver,
00:14:31.040 nor were they willing to consider doing a swap of the two Michaels for Meng Wanzhou.
00:14:36.600 So the same weekend, the ambassador, Ambassador McCallum, tells the media on two separate occasions
00:14:43.920 that we should consider doing that.
00:14:46.080 He was subsequently fired for that offense.
00:14:49.420 Just this past summer, we have the foreign minister telling the House of Commons that
00:14:53.820 they are considering trade sanctions, or sorry, they're considering sanctions on Chinese officials
00:14:58.860 for their conduct in Hong Kong.
00:15:01.860 And then the very next day, the government tells Reuters that that's off the table.
00:15:06.280 Several weeks ago, we have the foreign minister telling the Globe and Mail that the pursuit of
00:15:11.900 free trade talks is off, that the government's no longer going to pursue free trade talks with China.
00:15:16.940 On the same day, Canadian Ambassador to China, Dominic Barton, tells a crowd in Edmonton,
00:15:21.600 including the Chinese ambassador to Canada, that Canada needs to be in China, needs to do more
00:15:27.640 in China, and needs to broaden trade with China.
00:15:29.880 I mean, they can't get their story straight.
00:15:33.340 And so I'm not optimistic that this new framework is going to address that problem.
00:15:37.780 So our new leader, Aaron O'Toole, has come up with a few ideas, and so have you on your
00:15:41.660 comments in the media.
00:15:42.880 How would you be handling this differently if you were foreign affairs minister and Aaron
00:15:47.060 O'Toole was prime minister?
00:15:48.980 Well, number one, and most importantly, is to speak with a clear, consistent, coherent voice,
00:15:57.020 so that we can get our message across, not just to China, but also to our allies.
00:16:02.980 You know, one of the questions I had today with, on a discussion I had with some of the
00:16:07.380 diplomatic corps here in Ottawa was, do you think our allies could have done more to help
00:16:13.400 out Canada with respect to the two Michaels, who the Chinese have kidnapped and detained?
00:16:18.480 And my answer is no.
00:16:20.200 Like, how are our allies supposed to know what our position is when, you know, the ambassador
00:16:25.020 to, Canadian ambassador to China says one thing and the prime minister says another?
00:16:28.460 When, you know, the foreign minister says one thing and, you know, the next day the government
00:16:33.240 says something else?
00:16:34.040 Or when, you know, the foreign minister says one thing on trade and the Canadian ambassador
00:16:37.780 to China says something else?
00:16:38.740 We've got to have a consistent, coherent, clear voice in order to be effective in foreign policy.
00:16:46.660 I think that, do you think it goes also to the fact when we lost our bid for the UN Security
00:16:51.560 Council seat under Justin Trudeau, which we got less votes this time than we did under
00:16:56.300 Stephen Harper.
00:16:57.200 Do you think that's the overall picture with the global community and how they view Canada,
00:17:01.460 that under Justin Trudeau's leadership, Canada's role and place in the international community
00:17:07.280 has been diminished because, as you mentioned, they just, the government itself doesn't seem
00:17:13.080 to know where they're going and how to get there.
00:17:15.100 I think that's exactly it.
00:17:16.540 I've heard that from Canadian foreign policy experts.
00:17:19.220 I've also heard that from our allies abroad, that there's far too much rhetoric coming from
00:17:24.660 Canada and not enough action.
00:17:27.620 You cannot take a virtue signaling stand on the global stage if you're not going to have any
00:17:34.400 hard power to back it up.
00:17:36.020 You know, the Prime Minister's, you know, the Prime Minister's first forays on the global
00:17:41.500 stage were a disaster and they did Canada's image much harm.
00:17:45.780 For example, his eight-day trip to India turned out to be a complete unmitigated disaster and
00:17:52.580 pretty much a sideline any chance we had of strengthening bilateral relations with the world's largest
00:17:58.900 democracy or including free trade.
00:18:02.120 You know, his antics at the Trans-Pacific Partnership meeting where the heads of 10 governments were
00:18:13.240 about to sign the agreement and he was a no-show also did damage to our relationship.
00:18:19.500 And when the government of Canada decided to explore free trade talks with China, you know,
00:18:25.200 the government once again put rhetoric ahead of reality when they introduced at the very
00:18:30.060 first exploratory talks their progressive agenda on gender rights, labor, and the environment,
00:18:37.920 a complete non-starter for the Chinese.
00:18:40.520 I mean, that deal, those talks were dead before they even began.
00:18:43.720 So, you know, we need to cut out the rhetoric unless we're willing to back it up with action
00:18:50.400 and hard action.
00:18:53.020 And that's why we're using platforms like this, as you know, Michael, to try to get out
00:18:57.500 the other side of the story.
00:18:58.560 Because I think you know as well as I do, if Stephen Harper or Aaron O'Toole did anything
00:19:05.140 like that, didn't show up for a major meeting with the TPP leaders, the media would just throw
00:19:11.800 themselves on the floor and lose their collective minds.
00:19:14.820 Whereas right now, Justin Trudeau seems to get, in my opinion, a free pass pretty much
00:19:19.620 every single time.
00:19:20.480 Or it's talked about for a day or two.
00:19:22.260 The media went on for weeks and months about Stephen Harper losing the UN Security Council
00:19:27.880 seat.
00:19:28.360 The media talked it away in a couple of days under Trudeau.
00:19:30.940 Well, you know, there's a lot of qualitative assessment of the effectiveness of a government's
00:19:37.040 foreign policy.
00:19:38.360 That was true now.
00:19:39.220 It was true when conservatives were in government.
00:19:42.620 But from time to time, there is quantitative evidence of a government's foreign policy.
00:19:49.080 And the quantitative evidence on this particular government is damning.
00:19:53.220 There's three hard quantitative facts that we can point to to demonstrate that this government's
00:19:59.960 record has diminished Canada's position on the global stage.
00:20:05.000 Number one, which is one you've mentioned, is that last June, there was a vote by the members
00:20:11.380 of the United Nations for the UN Security Council seat for which Canada was running.
00:20:15.900 Canada won 108 votes last June.
00:20:19.960 That's six fewer votes than Canada won a decade ago.
00:20:25.520 That's six fewer countries on the global stage that see Canada as a leader.
00:20:29.680 That is a quantitative indictment of this government's foreign policy.
00:20:34.560 The second example is on overseas development systems, on foreign aid.
00:20:40.260 Over the 10 years of the previous conservative government, foreign aid averaged 0.3% of our economy.
00:20:49.420 Under this government, it has averaged 0.27%.
00:20:53.100 That is a 10% decline in foreign aid under the current liberal government.
00:20:59.380 Again, a quantifiable, undeniable indictment of this government's foreign aid program.
00:21:05.100 And third, they came to office with a lot of hullabaloo about climate change.
00:21:09.980 They said they were going to do much better than the previous government and that the Harper
00:21:13.840 targets for 2030 were not good enough.
00:21:16.700 Well, the first thing they did was they adopted the Harper targets in the Paris Accord.
00:21:20.800 The second thing they did is they came forward a plan that is actually not reducing our emissions.
00:21:26.520 The fact of the matter is the first full year they were in power, Canada's emissions in 2016
00:21:31.820 were 708 megatons.
00:21:35.560 In 2018, the last year for which the government has released data, which they released in April
00:21:41.740 in the middle of the pandemic.
00:21:44.140 In 2018, three full years into the life of the current liberal government, emissions rose.
00:21:50.800 From 708 megatons to 729 megatons.
00:21:56.840 That is a 21 megaton increase in emissions.
00:22:00.560 Canada's emissions under this liberal government are increasing, not decreasing, taking us ever
00:22:07.180 further away from the Paris Accord targets of 2030.
00:22:11.080 So three quantifiable, undeniable indictments of this government's foreign policy.
00:22:17.020 And so those are things we can point to, to tell Canadians that this government's foreign
00:22:22.640 policy simply isn't working.
00:22:25.440 Michael Chong, I don't know a better way to end it.
00:22:27.980 Unfortunately, question period is coming out.
00:22:29.860 I need to get out of the way.
00:22:31.720 You ended that perfectly, but I do have to ask, I always give the floor to our guest.
00:22:36.820 Anything else you'd like to say?
00:22:38.500 I don't know how you can top that, but I give you the floor.
00:22:41.280 I just to say that it's great to be on with you, Jamie, once again, and I know the good
00:22:46.540 folks in Halliburton must be enjoying the last dying days of the leaves, the beautiful
00:22:51.440 colours up in your region of the country like we are in southwestern Ontario.
00:22:55.760 Absolutely.
00:22:56.420 Thank you very much, Michael Chong, the Member of Parliament for Wellington Halton Hills,
00:23:00.620 just outside of the greater Toronto area.
00:23:02.400 For those of you watching outside Ontario, he's also the Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs.
00:23:07.500 We appreciate his time.
00:23:08.860 It's a massive file, but lots of information.
00:23:11.240 We'll have him on again because there is much more to talk about.
00:23:14.500 And please remember, like, comment, subscribe, share this program, help us push back against
00:23:20.340 the ever-moving liberal agenda.
00:23:21.960 And of course, if you can't watch it, the whole thing right this second or today, you
00:23:25.880 can download it, listen to it while you're doing other tasks on Google Play, iTunes, Spotify,
00:23:31.300 CastBox, you name it, it's out there.
00:23:33.040 Thank you very much for joining us.
00:23:34.200 We will have more new episodes for you next Tuesday, 1.30pm Eastern Time.
00:23:38.900 Thank you very much for joining us.
00:23:40.460 We hope to see you next week.
00:23:41.700 And of course, remember, as always, low taxes, less government, more freedom.
00:23:46.740 That's the Blueprints.
00:23:47.560 Thanks for joining us.