Trudeau and his Cabinet Abstain from Vote Labelling China’s Treatment of Uyghurs as Genocide

Conservative Party MP and Foreign Affairs Critic Michael Chong put forward an opposition motion late last week to force Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals’ hand on the issue of the abuse of Uyghur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region.

In the past, Trudeau has been unwilling to call the abuse of the Uyghurs as being a genocide, cultural or otherwise, while at the same time condemning the Canadian government’s current treatment of native Canadians as being a form of “genocide”. 

Trudeau has had a history of being personally soft on China and the Chinese Communist Party and sometimes an outright warmth like when he spoke favourably of China’s “basic dictatorship” and his allowance for China’s People’s Liberation Army, uncovered by Rebel News.

Following his ongoing trend of refusing to take a moral stand on China, Trudeau signaled further weakness on the dictatorship with both his cabinet and himself abstaining from today’s vote on MP Chong’s motion. This motion does not even push for retaliatory action against China for the abuse of Uyghurs, and Trudeau was still not willing to take part in the formality of labelling the situation in Xinjiang a genocide.

The final vote was 266 in favour of declaring the treatment of the Uyghurs by China as genocide with no one voting against including all the non-abstaining Liberal MPs.

It is likely and justified that this refusal by Trudeau to risk hurting the feelings of China’s dictator President Xi Jinping will be used against him in an upcoming election, and with the current unpopularity of CPC leader Erin O’Toole, the best way for him to recover some ground may be to contrast hard with Trudeau on the issue of their treatment of the Chinese Communist Party.