Ottawa's secret plan to host Chinese military, while ignoring the Two Michaels, makes for chilling reading
National Post, 10 December 2020
Canadians owe a debt of gratitude to that Global Affairs functionary who 'forgot' to black out the memoranda before sending them to Rebel Media.
Ezra Levant and his rambunctious Rebel Media have done Canadians a service, with merit aforethought. Our foreign affairs ministry did Levant a service, unwittingly, by answering an access to information request and forgetting to black out the embarrassing bits. The documents confirm that Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, at the two-year mark of their hostage taking in China, are getting no service at all from the highest levels of our diplomatic bureaucracy.
There are three levels to the Rebel Media scoop. The documents have been posted online.
The first is the revelation that our military conducts friendly joint training with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), as the communist Chinese are wont to call the army that ensures that the people do not enjoy any liberties not approved by the politburo. The second is how craven, even in private, our diplomatic establishment is, wishing to placate China even at the risk of alienating our closest allies. Third, how very little the plight of the “Two Michaels” moves them.
The background is this. In December 2018, China arbitrarily detained Kovrig and Spavor in response to the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the Huawei executive, for possible extradition to the United States.
Just months later, in 2019, there was a scheduled winter warfare training exercise scheduled for CFB Petawawa, where PLA forces were to learn about Canadian expertise in cold weather combat, handy for China’s battles in the mountains with India, its continuing occupation of the frigid Tibetan highlands, or perhaps even its operation of concentration camps for Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province. It was a small delegation, some six to eight PLA officials, but then spies generally don’t travel in battalions. Spies are generally not invited openly either.
The Canadian Chief of Defence Staff, Jonathan Vance, decided to cancel the exercise, likely for two reasons. It seemed incongruous, at the very least, to be hosting the PLA when the Two Michaels were languishing in Chinese jails. Also, the Americans and our other “Five Eyes” allies — United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand — were expressing reservations about “knowledge transfer” from Canada to the PLA. Why would Canada overtly share expertise with the armed forces of the greatest tyranny on Earth, inviting PLA officials to litter CFB Petawawa with Huawei recording devices?
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