TORONTO —
Canadian Michael Spavor, sentenced to 11 years in prison for espionage by a Chinese court, is being held as ‘ransom’ and Canada should insist on his immediate deportation home, says an expert on Canada-China relations.
“I think the Canadian government should be insisting that he be deported immediately,” Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, an advisory board member at the Canada China Forum and a senior fellow in the Institute for Science, Society and Policy and the University of Ottawa, told CTV’s Your Morning on Wednesday.
Spavor, an entrepreneur, was detained in China in December 2018 along with former diplomat Michael Kovrig on allegations of state spying. Those charges were largely seen in the West as retaliation for the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver in connection with a U.S. extradition request.
“He’s unjustly held in this ransom, in effect, for Madame Meng,” said McCuaig-Johnston.
Spavor’s sentence also included deportation, and McCuaig-Johnston said Canada should push for his deportation to take place before the 11-year sentence. She raised the example of Kevin Garratt, a Canadian sentenced by a Chinese court to eight years in prison on spying charges in 2016, but who was deported shortly after sentencing.
However, she acknowledged that the fates of Spavor and Kovrig, who is currently awaiting trial in China, seem closely tied to that of Meng, whose formal extradition hearing is expected to start on Wednesday in British Columbia.
“China is using strength… as leverage in this case of Madame Meng and that frankly I think has been pushed too far. They’ve seen the other countries are speaking out regularly against this and so I think that they’ve really overplayed their hand by taking innocent Canadians,” she said.
In a statement following the sentence, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the conviction and sentence of Spavor unacceptable and unjust.
“The verdict for Mr. Spavor comes after more than two and a half years of arbitrary detention, a lack of transparency in the legal process, and a trial that did not satisfy even the minimum standards required by international law,” the statement read.
“For Mr. Spavor, as well as for Michael Kovrig who has also been arbitrarily detained, our top priority remains securing their immediate release. We will continue working around the clock to bring them home as soon as possible.”
Spavor’s conviction also comes just one day after a different Chinese court upheld a death sentence for Canadian Robert Schellenberg, who was arrested for drug smuggling in 2014 and given a 15-year prison sentence that was then upgraded to a death sentence in early 2019, shortly after Meng’s arrest in Canada.
McCuaig-Johnston said Spavor’s fate could depend on whether the U.S., who has requested Meng’s extradition from Canada, decides to change its position, and also to how China reacts to international pressure on the issue.
“I think China doesn’t have allies as Canada does, they have markets,” she said. “This is not acceptable in international circles and it is not really effective. They need to understand that it’s in their own interest to collaborate with other countries, not to bully them.
