Monday, December 17, 2018

Did the Trudeau government make a serious blunder?

Apparently the Government of Canada was warned four days in advance of Meng Wan Zhou’s flight plans and of the United States’ request for her arrest and extradition when she transferred in Vancouver. 

Did the Canadian Government not foresee the consequences of executing an arrest warrant?   Surely the prudent thing to have done would have been to quietly and anonymously tip off Ms. Meng, or the Chinese Government, about the planned arrest. That way, Canada would have avoided being part of a very dubious kidnap/ransom operation, would not have faced retaliation from China with two of its citizens taken hostage, and probably could have avoided the wrath of an unhinged administration in Washington (plausible deniability).  

The way things are now, it is going to be very difficult for China or the US to back down, and Canada is caught in the middle - caught between two gangster regimes, some have said.  There has been a lot of harrumphing in the Canadian media about how Canada (unlike China) is a country bound by the rule of law.  But sometimes the law can be a cumbersome and ineffective instrument, especially when wielded in bad faith (Trump with his penchant for suing anyone who crosses him knows all about that).   I can’t help thinking that a quiet tip-off could have avoided recourse to the courts and saved all of this trouble, and may even have helped prevent a new cold war.

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