Slightly more than half of Canadians (52 per cent) say they are dissatisfied with the way Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government have handled the diplomatic crisis with China that followed the arrest in Canada of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou last December, according to a new poll.
The survey from the Angus Reid Institute also reveals that a slight majority of Canadians (55 per cent) think that Canada was right to act on the U.S. arrest warrant for Meng, the chief financial officer of the Chinese telecom giant, while four-in-ten Canadians (44 per cent) said they would like to see the Liberals take a tougher approach with Beijing.
Nearly two-thirds (62 per cent) of Canadians say China’s record on human rights and the rule of law should be a more important consideration than trade and investment opportunities for Canada when assessing the Canada-China relationship, according to the survey.
“I think the most surprising thing for me when looking at these results is the degree to which Canadians have not really made up their minds about what they want or how they want their government to handle this issue,” said Ian Holliday, a research associate at the Angus Reid Institute.
“We see that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction with way the Trudeau government has handled relations with China over the last couple of weeks… but at the same time when we look at an ‘agree-disagree’ statement about [whether] Canada should have resisted the U.S. request and not arrested Meng Wanzhou, the Huawei CFO, in the first place, what we find is that Canadians disagree with that assertion as well.”
That suggests that there is degree of support for the actions the federal government has taken, Holliday said in a phone interview with Radio Canada International.
(click to listen to the full interview with Ian Holliday)
Facing China’s wrath
Chinese officials say Canadians Michael Kovrig, right, and Michael Spavor were arrested for undermining Chinese ‘national security,’ while Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was arrested ‘illegally’ in Canada upon U.S. request (Associated Press/ International Crisis Group/Canadian Press)
Meng’s arrest has caused a bruising diplomatic row between Ottawa and Beijing.
Days after Meng’s arrest, Chinese authorities detained Michael Kovrig, who took a leave of absence from Global Affairs Canada to work as the North East Asia analyst for the non-governmental think tank International Crisis Group, and Michael Spavor, a China-based Canadian entrepreneur.
They are accused of “endangering national security” but no official charges have been laid against the two Canadians.
Then on Jan. 14, a Chinese court sentenced a Canadian man to death in a sudden retrial of a drug-smuggling case. Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, 36, had appealed his original 15-year sentence.
Schellenberg death sentence was seen by many in Canada as another attempt by Beijing to apply pressure on Ottawa following Meng’s arrest.
Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, who is out on bail and remains under partial house arrest after she was detained Dec. 1 at the behest of American authorities, leaves her home to attend a court appearance regarding her bail conditions, in Vancouver, on Tuesday January 29, 2019. (Darryl Dyck/THE CANADIAN PRESS)
Meng, who is also the daughter of company founder Ren Zhengfei, could face extradition to the U.S. over allegations she was involved in violating sanctions on Iran, with each charge carrying a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.
She was released on bail by a Canadian court after she agreed to post a $10-million bail, surrender her passports and abide by more than a dozen conditions.
According to a 13-count indictment presented in New York on Monday, Meng, Huawei, the telecom giant’s U.S. subsidiary, and Skycom, a Hong-Kong-registered company, which mainly does business in Iran, are accused of committing bank fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering among other things.
Huawei in a statement Tuesday denied it violated U.S. laws and said it was unaware of any wrongdoing by Meng.
China has demanded her immediate release and requested from U.S. authorities to withdraw their extradition request for Meng.
Relations between Canada and China were seen as taking another hit last week after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau fired Canada’s ambassador in China John McCallum, after the veteran Liberal politician and former cabinet minister suggested that Meng had a “strong case” to fight the extradition to the U.S.
