LILLEY: Carney mum on Liberal MP who urged people to turn in opponent to China

The NDP has joined the Conservative Party in denouncing controversial comments made by a Liberal MP. Meanwhile, Liberal Leader Mark Carney appeared to be hiding from the media on Sunday, the second day he didn’t take questions after a story about one of his MPs and current candidate broke late Friday.

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Reacting to the scandal around Liberal MP Paul Chiang, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh condemned his remarks.

“It’s up to Mark Carney to decide if Chiang continues as a candidate — but as a leader, I would absolutely not allow him on my team,” Singh said.

In January, Chiang, a Liberal MP and the party’s candidate in Markham-Unionville, was speaking to Chinese language media in Toronto when he encouraged people to grab Conservative candidate Joe Tay and hand him over to Chinese authorities.

“To everyone here, you can claim the $1-million bounty if you bring him to Toronto’s Chinese Consulate,” Chiang said.

Joe Tay, running for the Conservatives in Don Valley North, was born in Hong Kong and has spoken up often in support of democracy in China and against the crackdown on democratic advocates in Hong Kong.

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For that reason, authorities in Hong Kong put a $1 million HKD reward out for Tay’s arrest.

Chiang told people to go and collect that bounty by turning over one of his political opponents to the Chinese authorities. New Democrat MP Jenny Kwan, herself a target of foreign interference by China, described the comments as “absolutely astounding.”

“That is intimidation at its worst, and yet he played right into it. He advocated for people to bring him to the Chinese consulate to collect the bounty. In what universe is this normal?” Kwan asked.

Kwan said when people from China and Hong Kong in Canada are already afraid to speak up, Chiang’s comments make it worse.

After these comments made news in English on Friday, Chiang apologized and, according to a statement from the Liberal Party, that seems to be the end of it.

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Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre reacted to that news without outrage, saying it was unacceptable that  Chiang remains his party’s candidate in Markham-Unionville.

“I find it incredible that Mark Carney would allow someone to run for his party that called for a Canadian citizen to be handed over to a foreign government on a bounty, a foreign government that would almost certainly execute that Canadian citizen,” Poilievre said.

It was recently revealed that China executed several Canadian citizens over the past several months. Of course, China also famously kidnapped and held Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor in an attempt to use them in a case of hostage diplomacy to free Meng Wahnzou.

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That’s on top of China’s industrial espionage at once-great Canadian companies like Nortel and their ongoing attempts to interfere in Canada’s election cycle.

Now, we have a Liberal MP advocating handing over a Canadian citizen to China, where he could be killed, and Mark Carney is standing by and saying nothing. His Liberal Party is looking the other way and not stepping in to discipline Chiang.

“What does that say about whether Mark Carney would protect Canadians?” Poilievre said.

“Mark Carney is deeply conflicted. Just in November, he went to Beijing and secured a quarter billion-dollar loan for Brookfield (Asset Management) from a state-owned Chinese bank. He’s deeply compromised, and he will never stand up for Canada against any foreign regime.”

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That loan Poilievre mentioned came after Carney, who was advising Prime Minister Trudeau at the time, went to a Beijing meeting with several high-level officials, including President Xi Jinping. Under Carney’s leadership, Brookfield Asset Management significantly increased their assets under management in China, helped, in part, by leveraging ties Carney built in China while he was governor of the Bank of England.

Carney is pitching to voters that he knows other world leaders and he knows how the world works, but maybe he knows them in the wrong ways. He should know what China would do to a Canadian handed over for a $1-million HKD bounty, and that should be enough for him to fire Chiang.

The fact Carney won’t do that raises plenty of questions about him, his connections and his motivations.

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