Erin O’Toole wants China’s ambassador to Canada to publicly apologize to Canadians, or be kicked out

OTTAWA – Canada’s Global Affairs officials summoned China’s top diplomat in Canada for a private dressing down Thursday after remarks he made warning Canada against offering political asylum to Hong Kong democracy activists.

But Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole says if Ambassador Cong Peiwu does not publicly apologize for his “belligerent” comments, which O’Toole called a threat to Canadians, Ottawa should kick him out.

In a statement Friday, O’Toole took a much harder line than the Liberal government did — at least publicly — to comments made by Cong in a virtual news conference Thursday on the 50th anniversary of Canada-China diplomatic ties. That’s when Cong warned Canada against emboldening Hong Kong “criminals” and against interfering in China’s internal affairs.

O’Toole said if no apology is offered, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should immediately withdraw Cong’s diplomatic credentials.

“The Chinese ambassador has decided to engage in belligerent rhetoric unbecoming of his office,” said O’Toole. “To be clear, this was a threat to the 300,000 Canadians in Hong Kong. And a barely veiled one at that.”

“It was of the kind of tone and tenor one would expect from someone seeking protection money — not someone who is the official emissary of a member of the United Nations Security Council.”

“A threat to Canadians anywhere, is a threat to Canadians everywhere,” he added.

O’Toole repeated long-standing calls on the Liberal government to expedite entry to Canada for pro-democracy protestors and political refugees fleeing Hong Kong and to impose sanctions under the Magnitsky Act, which target officials individually for human rights violations, “against those responsible for imposing a draconian national security law” in Hong Kong, which he said violates the Sino-British Joint Declaration, an international treaty.

Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne said Thursday he asked Global Affairs to call in the ambassador “to make clear in no uncertain terms that Canada will always stand up for human rights and the rights of Canadians around the world.”

Global Affairs officials confirmed to the Star they met with the ambassador Thursday and delivered the message.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday his government isn’t looking “to escalate” tensions with China, but it will not stand down on its advocacy for human rights or “calling out China for its coercive diplomacy.”

Trudeau says China’s 2018 detention of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor is unjustified, tied to China’s demand that Canada release Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, who is battling extradition from Canada to the U.S.

“We will make sure that China knows that not only are we standing up for human rights, calling on a safe return of the two Michaels who’ve been arbitrarily detained, but we stand with allies around the world and the United States, to Australia, to Great Britain, to European nations, to many nations in every corner of the world who share these concerns.”

In a news conference by zoom Thursday, the Chinese ambassador warned the Canadian government against admitting Hong Kong dissidents as refugees, or any action to declare China’s treatment of its Uighur minority population as “genocide” as a group of MPs and senators have called for. He said Kovrig and Spavor are in the hands of China’s “independent” judicial system.

“We strongly urge the Canadian side not (to) grant so-called political asylum to those violent criminals in Hong Kong because it is the interference in China’s domestic affairs and certainly it will embolden those violent criminals,” he said.

“So if the Canadian side really cares about the stability and prosperity in Hong Kong and really cares about the good health and safety of those 300,000 Canadian passport holders in Hong Kong and the large number of Canadian companies operating in Hong Kong SAR, you should support those efforts to fight violent crime…to make sure the one country, two systems is most definitely and comprehensively implemented in Hong Kong.”

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Cong later denied he was making any threat. “That’s your interpretation,” he told a Star reporter.

O’Toole chided the ambassador: “Canada is a smaller country on an economic basis when compared to China, but our commitment to liberty, human rights, and the rule of law towers above the conduct of this ambassador.”