cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/8010240

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At the [Canadian] Industry Committee on Thursday, MPs were hearing from experts on China as they were examining Canada’s electric vehicle policy. The Mark Carney Liberals just recently announced an agreement with China to bring in 49,000 Chinese EVs, growing to 70,000 per year within five years.

There are real concerns about the safety and security of these vehicles, concerns that have been raised by many countries including Australia, Poland, the United States, Britain and Israel.

Rather than engage on the issues at hand, Ma decided to attack a witness as not competent and then ask questions that could have been written directly by Beijing. The witness in question was Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, an expert on China and former civil servant who worked for every federal government from the one led by Pierre Trudeau through the government of Stephen Harper.

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McCuaig-Johnston is widely respected in Ottawa but now loathed in Beijing. Based on the treatment he gave her on Thursday, by Ma as well.

“Do you have an advanced degree in technology and cyber security? Yes or No?” Ma asked McCuaig-Johnston.

She had been critical of the spying components of Chinese EVs, something that everyone watching the file has been concerned about. Ma knew that the answer was no; he just wanted to undermine her by pointing that out.

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Here is the full exchange between Liberal MP Michael Ma and Margaret McQuaig-Johnston at the industry committee where MP Ma sounds like he's running interference for the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing.

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In a statement after the fact shared to Facebook, Ma claimed he was talking not about Xinjiang but the Chinese city of Shenzhen where BYD, a major Chinese EV producer has plants. The reason this statement is unbelievable is that McCuaig-Johnston had already been speaking about forced labour and had been asked about forced labour in Xinjiang.

Given the context of the questioning, and the statements that came before Ma's questions, this does not seem plausible at all.

McCuaig-Johnston, and any reasonable person listening to the exchange, would have assumed he was asking about Xinjiang where forced labour is well documented. After the meeting, McCuaig-Johnston says she gave Ma a report on forced labour in Xinjiang and he accepted it and didn’t try to correct the record with her. He only did that hours after the meeting was over in a social media post.

For her part, McCuaig-Johnston had been clearly talking about Xinjiang and specifically auto parts made with aluminum through forced labour in that province.

Whether he wanted to or not, Ma was parroting lines from Beijing, muddying the waters for China’s dictatorship that was cheered on by state-aligned media.

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All of this comes after Carney’s Liberals pulled their MPs from a multi-party trip to Taiwan so as to not upset Beijing. We have had a new trade agreement with Taiwan ready since last April for final signature, but the Carney government has not moved forward.

Meanwhile, Carney has moved forward with an attempt to not just increase trade with China but to make China a strategic partner and a place to pivot to, away from the United States.

It’s as if we learned nothing from the attempts by China to interfere in our elections over several years or from the public inquiry called as a result.

Ma’s performance on Thursday was shameful, but sadly in line with the behaviour of the Liberal Party of late.