Michael Higgins: Does Carney also admire China's 'basic dictatorship'?

He was wrong to support Paul Chiang's candidacy

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In war, election campaigns, and life we all get tripped up by what the historian Thucydides called the “imponderables” and former U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld classified as the “unknown unknowns.” It is how we react to those unforeseeable events that reveal some of our true nature, exposing deep, dark flaws or a courageous, indomitable spirit.

What is clear right now is that when faced with a sudden ethical dilemma, Mark Carney made the appalling decision, Monday, to keep as a Liberal candidate a man who urged a group to turn a Canadian over to the Chinese consulate in Toronto for a bounty offered by the Chinese government.

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In essence, the prime minister is rejecting principled, Canadian democratic values which support everyone, in favour of crass, self-serving politics which benefit only the Liberals.

The decision by Carney to keep as a candidate Paul Chiang, the incumbent Liberal candidate in the Ontario riding of Markham—Unionville, sends a signal to the despots in Beijing that this federal government is more than happy to allow Chinese interference to flourish on Canadian soil.

Chiang resigned as a candidate late Monday.

If China had never put an illegal bounty on Conservative candidate Joe Tay, this obnoxious affair would never have arisen. But arise it has thanks to their meddling and it has exposed Carney’s lack of leadership and his reprehensible character.

Carney’s faith in Chiang — “He has my confidence,” said the prime minister — is a blatant betrayal of Canadian values.

China has executed our citizens, kidnapped and imprisoned our people, and must now be watching with glee as they see that they have people in this country willing to act against Canadians in the certain knowledge that the federal government not only acquiesces to this behaviour but supports it.

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Carney’s decision not to ban Chiang from running for the Liberals is actively supporting a man who wanted to see a political opponent betrayed into the hands of the Communist regime.

In March, Ottawa warned any Canadians entering China to be careful. Now they need to put out a new warning for Canadians on our own soil to beware the ploys of Beijing.

Tay, who was born in Hong Kong but moved to Canada, has upset China by openly criticizing Beijing’s oppressive government. For this democratic, free-speech action the Chinese government put a bounty on his head of a million Hong Kong dollars (about $183,000) after Tay announced he was running as a Conservative candidate.

In January, Chiang told Chinese-language reporters, “If you can take him to the Chinese Consulate General in Toronto, you can get the million-dollar reward.” His audience laughed.

When the comments came to light last week, Chiang apologized saying, “The comments I made were deplorable and a complete lapse of judgment on the seriousness of the matter. I sincerely apologize and deeply regret my comments.”

However, this disgraceful bounty on a Canadian political candidate comes amidst a country fighting a rearguard action against foreign interference with China one of the key players. Such is the magnitude of this interference that we’ve only just finished a national inquiry into the widespread and growing phenomenon.

But the Liberals have been shockingly complacent on this file.

It was the Trudeau Liberals who in 2016 announced the creation of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NISCOP) a multi-partisan group dedicated to “safeguarding our values, our rights and freedoms.”

NISCOP has been scathing of Liberal inaction.

“The threat of foreign interference is pervasive and persistent. It is imperative that the government act now to address the vulnerabilities that make Canada’s democratic processes and institutions an easy target,” said the committee in a report last year.

The report castigated the Liberal government for lacking “a sense of urgency commensurate with the gravity of the threat.”

So how does Carney protect our democracy and its institutions? By laughingly calling Chiang’s actions a “teachable moment.”

Justin Trudeau once declared his “admiration” for China’s “basic dictatorship.” Carney seems to share that appreciation. As chair of Brookfield Asset Management, Carney expanded the company’s investments in China and met with President Xi Jinping, according to journalist Sam Cooper at The Bureau news site.

In her final report on foreign interference, Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue said, “Each and every citizen may participate in making choices about the path that we as a country choose to go down.”

Chiang chose to go down a dark path, a road that for Tay could have ended in a Beijing jail or an execution chamber. It was an inexcusable lapse of judgement.

But our newly minted and naïve prime minister could have taken a higher road, chosen to ban Chiang from running for the Liberals, to highlight the importance of democracy and freedom and to send a message to Beijing that political interference will never be countenanced.

It is a selfish, unethical and pusillanimous decision.

National Post

Editor’s note: This column was updated with the news that Paul Chiang resigned as a Liberal candidate

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Michael Higgins: Does Carney also admire China's 'basic dictatorship'? | National Post