Human Rights, Trade, China

Harper right to defend human rights and democracy against Chinese bullying

Canadian Coalition for Democracies

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Ottawa, Canada - For the first time in many years, a Canadian Prime Minister has declared that Canadian foreign policy will be set in Ottawa, not in Beijing. En route to the APEC conference in Hanoi, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told reporters that Canada will not sell out human rights in response to threats of trade consequences by China.

"For both a practical and principled perspective, the Prime Minister has again done the right thing," said Alastair Gordon, President of the Canadian Coalition for Democracies (CCD). "With the balance of trade overwhelmingly from China to Canada, any trade restrictions imposed by Beijing would hurt China much more than Canada. On the import side, China needs our raw materials. On the export side, China would not risk losing the preferential tariffs that she enjoys on her manufactured goods."

"Furthermore, Canada's warming relationship with India, a manufacturing and technology giant with the entrepreneurship of free people in a democracy, further diminishes China's ability to threaten Canada," added Gordon.

"Our former government followed a foreign policy dictated by the overtly imperialistic One China Policy," said Naresh Raghubeer, Executive Director of CCD. "The future of Taiwan should be determined democratically by its 23 million people, not by an axis of foreign leaders."

"Prime Minster Harper has shown he is a tough negotiator. He does not cave to empty threats and has shown it is possible to be guided by Canadian values and still enjoy the prosperity of international trade," added Raghubeer.