MONDAY,NOVEMBER25,2019 | THEGLOBEANDMAIL O NEWS | A
ada,” Mr. Champagne told reporters in a
conference call on Saturday night.
“In particular, I expressed my concern
and the concern of all Canadians regard-
ing the conditions of their detention. Min-
ister Wang and I committed to our contin-
uing conversation and to continue to be
discussing this issue.”
Mr. Champagne declined to elaborate,
citing the need to protect the welfare of
the two detainees.
“But I can assure you this is my abso-
lute priority as Minister of Foreign Af-
fairs,” he said.
Mr. Champagne replaced Chrystia Free-
land at Foreign Affairs, and he has had
close first-hand experience dealing with
Chinese politicians in a previous cabinet
post as international trade minister.
In a dramatic twist during Prime Minis-
ter Justin Trudeau’s December, 2017, trip
to China, Mr. Champagne’s staff were
pulled off the Prime Minister’s jetliner as
its engines were warming up for a flight
out of Beijing to southern China’s indus-
trial heartland. Mr. Champagne was one
of several cabinet ministers that accom-
panied Mr. Trudeau on the trip, which in-
cluded a sit-down with Chinese President
Xi Jinping.
Mr. Champagne stayed behind in the
Chinese capital for two days, trying to
kickstart the opening of formal free-trade
talks between the two countries.
Progress toward formal trade talks had
proved elusive during the Canadian dele-
gation’s first two days in China. And while
Mr. Champagne was unable to break the
impasse, he worked closely and for long
hours with his Chinese counterparts –
something to which the new minister
made a veiled reference.
“As you know, I met him last, I think,Canada’s new Foreign Affairs Minister hit
the ground running this weekend, spend-
ing an hour in face-to-face talks with his
Chinese counterpart over the fate of two
Canadian men thatthe Trudeaugovern-
ment maintains are being arbitrarily de-
tained.
François-Philippe Champagne, who
was shuffled into the new portfolio on
Wednesday, spoke with China’s Wang Yi
on Saturday at the G20 foreign ministers’
meeting in Nagoya, Japan.
Mr. Champagne was discussing the fate
of businessman Michael Spavor and for-
mer diplomat Michael Kovrig, who have
been in Chinese prisons for almost a year
on allegations of undermining China’s na-
tional security.
Mr. Champagne said securing the re-
lease of Mr. Spavor and Mr. Kovrig was his
“absolute priority” as he takes over the
post as Canada’s top diplomat at a time
when relations with China have hit a new
low.
Sino-Canadian relations have plum-
meted since Dec. 1 when the RCMP arrest-
ed Huawei Technologies executive Meng
Wanzhou at the Vancouver airport, at the
request of the United States, which is
seeking her extradition for allegations of
violating sanctions on Iran.
Mr. Spavor and Mr. Kovrig were arrest-
ed nine days after Ms. Meng’s arrest in
what is widely seen as retaliation.
“I took the opportunity to express Can-
ada’s deep concern over the case of Mi-
chael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, who
have been arbitrarily detained in China
for almost a year. These cases are my [ab-
solute] priority as foreign minister of Can-
when I was at the President Xi dinner,
when there was a visit of the Prime Minis-
ter, so obviously he recognized who I am,”
Mr. Champagne said.
“I would qualify our discussion as be-
ing good, frank. And it has been quite a
long meeting, so there was receptivity of
the concern of Canada. I expressed, like I
said, my deep concern with respect to the
detention conditions of the two Cana-
dians, stressed with him that they will
have been in jail now close to a year and
that certainly, we wanted ... to see pro-
gress on that.”
On Friday, China’s newly arrived am-
bassador to Canada, Cong Peiwu, reiterat-
ed hisgovernment’s long-standing har-
dline position on the matter: he said Ms.
Meng’s arrest and pending extradition to
the U.S. amount to arbitrary detention,
leading to the problems Canada and Chi-
na are experiencing.
Mr. Cong said releasing Ms. Meng
would pave the way for bilateral relations
to return to normal.
Ms. Meng is free on bail, living in a
comfortable Vancouver house. Canadian
officials have met with Mr. Kovrig and Mr.
Spavor several times since their arrests,
but they have been denied access to law-
yers or family.
The U.S. State Department has called
for the release of the two Canadians. Ger-
many, France, Britain, the European
Union and Australia are among the coun-
tries that have also issued supportive
statements, much to the consternation of
the Chinesegovernment.
Mr. Cong said Friday the Canadians’
“lawful rights have been fully guaran-
teed.”THE CANADIAN PRESSWangYiandFrançois-PhilippeChampagne,theministersofforeignaffairsforChinaandCanada,respectively,attendameetingin
Nagoya,Japan,onSaturday.KIMKYUNG-HOON/REUTERS
NewForeignAffairsMinisterspeaks
withChinaaboutdetainedCanadians
MIKEBLANCHFIELDOTTAWA
Andrew Scheer has fired two top
aides, a month after the Conser-
vatives lost an election they were
expecting to win.
Chief of staff Marc-André Le-
clerc and director of communica-
tions Brock Harrison have both
left the Conservative Leader’s of-
fice, according to an e-mail sent
on the weekend by Mr. Scheer to
staff and the caucus.
Mr. Leclerc said he is retiring
from federal politics after 10
years working with the Conserva-
tives. “The results of October 21
are not what I expected,” he said
in a statement. “But they do not
reflect all the efforts our team
made before and during the cam-
paign.” Mr. Harrison called his
time with Mr. Scheer a “short, in-
tense and life-changing experi-
ence,” in a Facebook post.
Permanent replacements for
the two have not yet been
named. In the interim, Mr.
Scheer’s deputy chief of staff,
Martin Bélanger, will serve as the
acting chief of staff and his asso-
ciate director of media relations,
Simon Jefferies, will be the acting
director of communications.
Mr. Bélanger has worked with
the federal Conservatives since
2006, according to his LinkedIn
profile. Mr. Jefferies joined Mr.
Scheer’s office this summer, after
serving as director of media rela-
tions for Ontario Premier Doug
Ford.
Mr. Scheer, who has kept a low
profile since the election, is shak-
ing up his senior team as ques-
tions about his own future con-
tinue to mount. On Wednesday,
two senior Conservatives penned
a column calling on the party and
Mr. Scheer to take a clearer stand
on LGBTQ rights.Canadians expect political
leaders to share their values, Me-
lissa Lantsman and Jamie Eller-
ton wrote in The Globe and Mail,
adding that during the election
Mr. Scheer struggled to “deviate
from a script that reluctantly ac-
cepts marriage equality” as the
law of the land.
“His visible discomfort in an-
swering questions relating to
LGBTQ people and their place in
society only amplifies this reluc-
tance,” they wrote.
While it’s rare for an incum-
bent government to be defeated
after just one mandate, the Tories
were confident they could oust
the Liberals in the October elec-
tion because of the many contro-
versies dogging Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau. In the last week
of the election campaign, Mr.
Scheer openly talked about inter-
nal party polling and said he ex-
pected to win a majoritygovern-
ment.
Instead, the Liberals won a
strong minoritygovernment, 13
seats shy of a majority.
Conservatives will vote on the
future of Mr. Scheer’s leadership
at their April convention in To-
ronto.
Some Conservatives had been
privately calling for Mr. Leclerc to
be fired since their election de-
feat. However, people such as
Conservative MP Pierre Paul-Hus
came to Mr. Leclerc’s defence,
saying he did a good job.
The first sign the Conservative
Leader might change his commu-
nications team was in early No-
vember, after the party’s first cau-
cus meeting since the election
loss. Speaking to reporters, Mr.
Scheer said the policies that he
was presenting during the cam-
paign weren’t the problem but
how they were communicated
was.
“There were times where our
message didn’t resonate with
Canadians, that’s clear,” Mr.
Scheer said on Nov. 6.
Mr. Harrison joined the lead-
er’s office in June, 2018. He previ-
ously worked in Alberta as direc-
tor of communications for the
Wildrose Party.Scheerfires
topaidesashe
seekstokeep
holdofTory
leadership
MARIEKEWALSH
ROBERTFIFEOTTAWAWhileit’srareforan
incumbentgovernment
tobedefeatedafterjust
onemandate,theTories
wereconfidentthey
couldousttheLiberals
intheOctoberelection
becauseofthemany
controversiesdogging
PrimeMinister
JustinTrudeau.The Federal Court will begin hearing a
child-welfare case Monday that emerged
during the election as a key flashpoint be-
tween Justin Trudeau and Indigenous
leaders whom he has pledged to work with.
The case concerns a ruling from the Can-
adian Human Rights Tribunal that said the
federalgovernment willfully and reckless-
ly discriminated against First Nations chil-
dren living on reserve by failing to provide
funding for child and family services.
The tribunal’s decision in September or-
dered Canada to provide compensation of
up to $40,000 to First Nations children who
were unnecessarily taken into care on or af-
ter Jan. 1, 2006, and said it applied to par-
ents or grandparents and children denied
essential services.
Government official Sony Perron said
this fall that satisfying the entire order
could cost up to $7.9-billion, depending on
the final percentage of children necessarily
removed from care and if the compensa-
tion process continues until 2025-26.
In October, Ottawa asked the Federal
Court to review the ruling and requested a
stay – a decision that prompted immediate
backlash from a number of Indigenous
leaders and advocates, as well as the NDP
and Green Party, who questioned the deci-
sion given Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s
commitment to reconciliation with Indig-
enous peoples.
The hearing for the request for a stay,
which begins Monday and continues Tues-
day, is to be webcast by the Federal Court as
part of a pilot to give access to proceedings
of significant public interest for the media
and the public.
Cindy Blackstock, the executive director
of the First Nations Child and Family Car-
ing Society, said the court’s decision to
webcast the proceedings is a “landmark”
move that will allow Canadians to hear the
arguments for themselves.
“I really welcome that,” she said. “Peo-
ple can listen to Canada and listen to us and
then make up their own minds about what
they think is going on here.”
The government is “totally out of step”
with the views of many Canadians who
can’t understand “why they’re doing this,”
Ms. Blackstock added.
During the election campaign, Mr. Tru-
deau defended hisgovernment’s actions to
file an application for a judicial review, say-
ing it agreed there must be compensation,
but he stressed the question is “how.”
The tribunal’s decision came days be-
fore the writ was dropped, Mr. Trudeau
said, adding it was not possible to respond
to it, given the electoral context the gov-
ernment was in.
Then-Indigenous services minister Sea-
mus O’Regan also said the tribunal ruling
raised important considerations such as
the role of the tribunal itself.
“We are asking the Federal Court to re-
view the ruling and the stay just allows us
to put a pause while ... the court considers
the judicial review,” he said.
Mr. O’Regan was moved to natural re-
sources from Indigenous services last week
as Mr. Trudeau announced the cabinet for
his minoritygovernment. Quebec MP Marc
Miller has taken on the Indigenous file.
Veteran NDP MP Charlie Angus, an out-
spoken advocate on Indigenous issues,said he did not buy Mr. Trudeau’s explana-
tion during the election campaign and he
urged thegovernment to change course.
The child welfare case is going to contin-
ue to “dog” Mr. Trudeau in the new Parlia-
ment, he added, saying his party has re-
quested the Trudeaugovernment drop the
appeal of the September findings.
“We will stay on him until they do the
right thing,” Mr. Angus said. “It is a funda-
mental issue for us going into this Parlia-
ment. Mr. Trudeau will have to take re-
sponsibility for his actions.”
It is going to be difficult for the Prime
Minister to build relations if he continues
to use the powers of the Justice Depart-
ment to fight fairness for Indigenous chil-
dren, Mr. Angus added.
The government’s stay application says
Ottawa is concerned about “irreparable
harm” that could be caused to Canada,
adding the “hardship” caused to the coun-
try and the public interest “significantly
outweighs any harm” caused by a delay in
implementing the tribunal’s orders on
compensation.
Mr. Perron, the associate deputy minis-
ter of Indigenous Services Canada, also
said in an affidavit this month that Canada
“might not agree” with the tribunal’s com-
pensation ruling but that does not under-
mine its commitment to improving the
lives of First Nations children and remedy-
ing the discriminatory practices that were
at the heart of the claim before the tribu-
nal.
Ms. Blackstock said the hearing will af-
ford an opportunity for Canada to bring
political statements in line with what is re-
ally happening in court, adding she has
written to the Prime Minister to express
concern over mixed messages and the
harm it causes.
“I guess we’ll all watch to see if there’s
any change,” she said.FederalCourtbeginsreviewof
tribunal’srulingtocompensate
separatedFirstNationschildren
Ottawaseekingstayon
decisionthatorderedas
muchas$40,000bepaidto
Indigenouschildrenwhowere
unnecessarilytakenintocare
KRISTYKIRKUPOTTAWA