Liberal Cabinet’s Abstention From Vote on Uyghur Motion Doesn’t Bode Well for Upcoming China Policy: Tory Deputy Leader

Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman speaks during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on May 19, 2022. The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick

The Liberal cabinet’s abstention from voting on a motion related to persecuted Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities is not a good sign for those expecting a stronger China policy in the government’s upcoming Indo-Pacific strategy, said Conservative Deputy Leader Melissa Lantsman.

“We want to see a government that actually has a policy on China,” Lantsman told The Epoch Times in an interview.

“We thought that maybe [the Liberal government] would have some kind of signal for change. But we saw just last week, the ministers of this government could not condemn China and call what’s happening to the Uyghur and Turkic populations there a genocide. So any thought that we would have had that the government would have changed its position in any kind of way to call the communist Chinese dictatorship what it is, I don’t think we were going to see that.”

Lantsman was referring to a motion introduced by Conservative MP Garnett Genuis that was adopted in the House on Oct. 25. The motion asked MPs to concur with a report from the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration that calls on the federal government to provide a safe haven for Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims who are targets of “an ongoing genocide” at the hands of the Beijing regime.

MPs voted unanimously in support of the motion, while members Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet abstained. The Liberal cabinet also abstained from voting on a similar motion introduced by Conservative MP Michael Chong in February 2021, when the House first recognized Beijing’s mistreatment of Uyghurs as genocide.

International Trade Minister Mary Ng initially broke ranks with her party and voted to endorse the motion. However, a spokesperson from her office later said the minister made a mistake by pushing the wrong button when she had intended to also abstain, according to Globe and Mail reporter Steven Chase in a Twitter post.

Lantsman tweeted in turn that “All Ministers should have pressed the wrong button to do the right thing.”

Given the cabinet’s abstention from the vote, Lantsman said she doesn’t hold out much hope there will be anything of substance in the government’s pending Indo-Pacific strategy.

“I suspect you'll have some version of what we’ve seen over the last seven years which, frankly, I believe is a schizophrenic policy.”

Strategy to be Shaped by CCP Congress

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, who is mandated to develop and launch the Indo-Pacific strategy to deepen diplomatic, economic, and defence partnerships and international assistance in the region, said last month that the strategy would be shaped by the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), held from Oct. 16 to Oct. 22.

The meeting resulted in Xi Jinping securing an unprecedented third term as the leader of China—a degree of power concentration not seen since the days of CCP leaders Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.

In a speech delivered on Oct. 17, Xi reiterated the Party’s resolution to push back against international “interference” of its territorial claims in the region, including the self-ruled democracy of Taiwan. He also defended the implementation of the arbitrary National Security Law in Hong Kong that is widely seen as an encroachment on the city’s autonomy.

Joly, who pledged to deliver the strategy by the end of this year, has repeatedly stated the importance of bringing China and other authoritarian regimes to the table.

“I don’t believe in the empty chair strategy,” she told CBC News. “When Canada is not engaged in a dialogue, first, it’s not helpful for our own peace and stability, and second, we lose influence in the world because the other G7 countries are actually talking to these countries.”

While expressing concern about China’s increasingly “aggressive” behaviour toward Taiwan, Joly said Canada cannot avoid all discussions with Beijing.

Joly previously said in an interview with Politico that her goal was to “reestablish ties” with China after relations soured over Canada’s arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on a U.S. extradition request and Beijing’s arbitrary detention of two Canadian citizens in retaliation.

Omid Ghoreishi contributed to this report