Canadain Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at a news conference in Ottawa, Canada, on February 19 2021. Picture: REUTERS/BLAIR GABLECanada’s legislature has passed a motion designating China’s actions against its Uighur Muslim minority as genocide, increasing pressure on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to toughen his approach to Beijing.
“Trudeau has been equivocating and passive in his approach to China, including on his position on the Uighur genocide, and I don’t think that approach is working,” Michael Chong, a member of the opposition Conservatives who sponsored the motion, said. Indicative of this balancing act, Trudeau and his cabinet abstained from the vote on Monday even as most lawmakers in his Liberal caucus voted in favour. The motion — which passed by a vote of 266 for and zero against — also called on the government to push for the 2022 Olympics to be relocated from China.
The tactic sent “a strong message that it’s a genocide” and brought Canada more in line with allies such as the US “without the prime minister personally shooting an arrow at the dragon”, Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, a senior fellow at the University of Alberta’s China institute, said.