If not now to proclaim genocide by China, then when?

This dancing around the issue of China’s obvious genocide is not only embarrassing but morally unsustainable. 

Canada's House of Commons was to vote today on a Conservative Party motion saying that China is committing genocide against the Uighur population. The U.S. has been the only country to do so and that in the dying days of the Trump administration. Of course, CBC’s Arron Wherry downplays this American move by saying that there were lawyers in the State Department who disapproved of this move. No names given, of course, or direct quotes but trying obviously to demean the U.S. action. Of course, the Biden Administration is soft on China and the likelihood of a repeat declaration is remote, I suspect.

But I hear my fellow Canadians say we are better than the Americans, we stand up for human rights etc. Well, that has not been the country’s strong point lately, now has it? 

The Federal Government has still not made a decision on using Chinese technology in our developing digital industry. It is clear that Huawei technology is controlled by the Chinese government, that we have our universities heavily involved in China, and that our PM some years ago praised the Chinese system – and even this past year we were willing to co-operate with the Chinese in developing a vaccine to combat their own exported virus and actually bought defective medical equipment from them. We even had the Heath Minister defend the Chinese in the Wuhan virus situation. 

So it will be interesting to see if the Liberals vote for the Conservative motion. Of course, it eans little, except to have the Government on record verbally. 

Sadly, it takes an opposition motion to do even this. 

The government is silent and has not introduced such a motion, and in that silence, doesn’t that tell all? 

There is never a ‘good’ time in the ebb and flow of international relations to take a principled stand. And Canada, like most of the world, picks and chooses what it wants to be honest about.