🇨🇦 Canada's Finance Minister Can't Say Genocide, But He'll Explore Chinese Auto Plants

When asked Friday whether he'd welcome Chinese auto manufacturing plants on Canadian soil, Finance Minister Champagne did not say no. When asked about forced labour, he offered supply chain buzzwords. When his Liberal colleague Michael Ma publicly questioned whether forced labour in China exists — a performance that Chinese state media literally applauded — Prime Minister Carney could not bring himself to use the word genocide, despite the House of Commons voting unanimously in 2021 to label Beijing's treatment of Uyghurs exactly that. Champagne's five-day Beijing junket, confirmed to have included Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem and the heads of major Canadian financial institutions, was framed as deepening integration in financial services. Canada's banking sector is now being used as a diplomatic instrument to deepen ties with a state the Canadian Parliament formally accused of genocide. Carney's government has found the one country where it is willing to set aside its values wholesale and call it foreign policy. Beijing noticed. So should every Canadian.

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