Floor-crossing Liberal MP downplays reports of forced labour in China (www.cbc.ca)

submitted 1 day ago by ProudCanadianCitizen@lemmy.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca

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Michael Ma was born in Hong Kong and immigrated to Canada when he was 12. He was raised and educated in Vancouver

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ma

I can find no reference to his age, or to the year in which he immigrated to Canada. Hong Kong was transferred to China on July 1, 1997, 29 years ago, so I could not determine if he immigrated to Canada when Hong Kong was British, or part of China. But unless he is younger than 41, it was before Hong Kong was transferred back to China, and he would probably have been, rough;y interpreted, a British Subject in Limbo, (A British passport to the rest of the world but not really a British passport in Britain). This certainly goes towards addressing any issue of bias, and if he could hold a Chinese passport by birth.

https://passportia.org/en/uk-citizenship-hong-kong.php

This certainly does put an interesting twist on the Canada-China dialogue. It is really difficult to sort through fact-from-fiction, depending on where you were indoctrinated with your Chinese history knowledge.

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[-] we_all_live_in_a_capital_i@lemmy.ca 3 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

I watched the CBC clip. That style of "questioning" is antithetical to understanding and opposite to information-gathering. It is used by politicians (and others) who have no interest in making evidence-based decisions. He didn't want information, didn't want to understand, and will only make governing decisions based on his existing ideology. There should be no place in government for MPs who wilfully ignore opportunities to better understand the issues they are dealing with. I feel bad for the witness. She came to provide information and was attacked by an idiot.

[-] ProudCanadianCitizen@lemmy.ca 1 points 8 hours ago

His office freely admitted that he was using a tactic he learned while he was a member of the PC party. So was the 'idiocy' from the PC or the Liberal Party?

[-] we_all_live_in_a_capital_i@lemmy.ca 2 points 8 hours ago

I posted my comment before his non-apology and his office's weak response. But to answer your question, neither. No one makes an MP behave that way. No party makes an MP behave that way. He chose to attack a witness instead of seeking to understand her information and perspective. He made no apology to the witness. He chose to use a stupid "tactic". That makes him an idiot, in my view. I suspect the Liberals made him apologize, but who knows. He obviously doesn't think anything was wrong with it. I don't know why he crossed the floor.

[-] ProudCanadianCitizen@lemmy.ca 1 points 8 hours ago

Unfortunately, I see this tactic used by the PC members quite frequently, so I can accept that it is a tactic that party promotes in their members. It is, unfortunately, extremely common in the House of our neighbors to the south of us.

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