QUESTIONS:
Safeguarding Canadian interests
These questions are designed to help us find out the awareness levels, attitudes, policies and where the loyalty of our candidates lie when facing the issue of CCP’s infiltration and interference in Canada.
Choose the questions most relevant to your riding/province or of your most concern to ask your candidates. Ask them at the candidates’ meeting, when they knock on your door, or phone their office. Request the candidates to phone you back to discuss those issues.
(1) Economic Coercion
“The majority of our exports to China are commodities for which the supply is constrained by natural resources that are either scarce or rapidly depleting in China”; whereas “all our imports from China are manufactured goods that are easily replaceable from suppliers in other markets, despite possibly higher prices.” (“Countering China’s Economic Coercion” by Duanjie Chen, Munk Senior Fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute)
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Do you agree that Canada has the leverage to push back at Beijing’s economic coercion since China needs our products way more than we need theirs?
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(2) Trade Diversification
According to the same MLI report, if Beijing bans all Canadian agriproducts, it will cost us $10 billion for the coming year. In addition, if Beijing bars its citizens coming to Canada and recall all Chinese students, the total loss for Canada would be $16.4 billion, which is the limit of China’s ability to apply economic coercion against Canada.
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Do you agree that pursuing further trade and economic ties with China will make us more dependent on the thuggish PRC and is very risky for Canada?
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Do you agree that Canada should pursue trade diversification in the Indo-Pacific region?
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Do you agree that Canada should seek to strengthen, whenever and wherever possible, our trade, cultural and other relationships with Taiwan?
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Do you agree that we should register and scrutinize all foreign funding sources for Canadian R&D activities and ban those intend to steal our intellectual property?
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Do you agree to withdraw our membership in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) which is led by China?
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(3) Fending off Foreign Interference
Businesses around the world are increasingly succumbing under the political intervention from the PRC in pursuit of economic benefits and financial prospects, including the National Basketball Association (NBA), Blizzard Hearthstone as well as Tiffany and Co. and the like. Air Canada has kowtowed to the Beijing regime by officially labelling Taiwan as part of the PRC, which is legally, factually and morally wrong.
Worse, China is set to implement an Orwellian social credit system by 2020. Using surveillance technology, the system scores citizens according to their behaviours, e.g. what they buy, if they pay bills on time or play too much video games, and what they say on social media, etc. The system would also blacklist individuals and corporations - both inside and outside China - perceived to have violated China’s stance on politically sensitive issues. No Canadian entity that deals with the PRC, public or private, will be exempted from this social credit system.
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In case if the PRC further requires Air Canada to provide information of all their crews and passengers flying into their airspace under the pretence of national security and invoking the corporate social credit system, do you agree Air Canada should refuse their demand? If so, how would you support Air Canada in the event of financial/business loss or even flight cancellations as a result of saying “No” to the PRC?
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Would you agree or disagree Canadian businesses, corporations and public institutions affiliated or funded by the federal government should pursue and maximize profits, financial returns or cost-effectiveness at the expense of everything else? If yes, why so? If no, what would be the right balance and how to achieve it?
