BEIJING —
China has charged two detained Canadians with spying, escalating tensions between the two countries following the arrest in Vancouver 18 months ago of a senior Huawei executive wanted on U.S. charges.
Chinese prosecutors said Friday that Michael Kovrig was charged in Beijing on suspicion of spying for state secrets and intelligence.
Michael Spavor was charged in Dandong city near the North Korean border on suspicion of spying for a foreign entity and illegally providing state secrets.
The charges were announced by China’s highest prosecutor’s office in brief social media posts.
Asked what evidence China had against the two, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said only that each is charged with “secretly gathering state secrets for overseas forces with particularly serious consequences.”
“The facts are clear and the evidence solid and sufficient,” Zhao told reporters at a daily briefing. Zhao gave no details.
Both men have been held since December 2018 in a move seen as an apparent attempt to pressure Canada to release Meng Wanzhou, a top executive at Chinese tech giant Huawei.
China has denied any explicit link between her case and the lengthy detention of the two Canadian men, but outside experts see them as tied and Chinese diplomats have strongly implied a connection.
The daughter of Huawei’s founder was arrested at Vancouver’s airport on Dec. 1, 2018, at the request of U.S. authorities who want her on fraud charges, which she and the company have denied.
Meng is out on bail as hearings are ongoing in B.C. Supreme Court after a judge rejected the first set of arguments from her lawyers late last month in a bid to set her free.
Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes ruled Meng’s alleged offences would constitute a crime in Canada and the case should proceed.
The next round of legal arguments is set to focus on whether Meng’s arrest was unlawful and whether the U.S. records of the case contain misstatements or omissions.
The Chinese embassy in Ottawa denounced Holmes’s decision and called once more for Meng’s immediate release.
Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne responded in turn by calling for the release of the two “arbitrarily detained” Canadian men.
Kovrig is an ex-diplomat who was working for the International Crisis Group and Spavor is an entrepreneur who did business in North Korea.
They have been in Chinese prisons since they were arrested nine days after Meng’s arrest.
The conditions under which the two Canadians are being held has been the subject of scrutiny.
Kovrig and Spavor had no access to lawyers or their families as of May, with the exception of a phone call the Chinese embassy said Kovrig was allowed to make to his sick father in mid-March.
At the same time, the embassy said Kovrig and Spavor were being provided with better food to strengthen their immunity against the novel coronavirus.
It said detention centres were closed due to the epidemic, so Kovrig and Spavor were receiving more frequent letters and parcels to ensure their contact with Canadian diplomats in China.
The allegations against Meng, who is Huawei’s chief financial officer, date back to 2013.
The U.S. is seeking to extradite Meng on fraud charges based on allegations she lied to HSBC about Huawei’s relationship with Skycom, a telecommunications company in Iran, putting the bank at risk of violating American sanctions against that country.
But in a case management memo dated June 12, Meng’s lawyers assert their client delivered a presentation to an HSBC banker in Hong Kong that included statements about Huawei’s business activities in Iran, and the statements were omitted from U.S. records of the case.
They argue Meng’s statements provided the bank with “the material facts it needed to know in order to assess whether there was any risk to HSBC in continuing to provide banking services to Huawei, including processing U.S. dollar transactions related to Huawei’s commerce in Iran.”
The tensions between Canada and China have spilled over into trade between the two countries as China suspended imports of Canadian canola.
Earlier this month, Huawei’s ambitions to be a player in Canada’s 5G network were very much cast in doubt after two of the country’s three largest telecom companies announced partnerships with the Chinese company’s European rivals.
Bell Canada announced on June 2 that Sweden-based Ericsson will be its second supplier of the radio access network equipment — a major component in fifth-generation wireless networks — following its choice of Finland’s Nokia in February.
Later in the day, Telus Corp., which uses Huawei equipment extensively in its current network, announced that it too had selected Ericsson and Nokia for its 5G network needs.
Huawei is the world’s biggest supplier of network gear used by phone and internet companies.
The announcements come as Ottawa continues its review of Huawei’s role in Canada’s 5G networks over security concerns due to suspicions about the company’s relationship with China’s government.
The United States has warned Canada, the United Kingdom and other allies that it will limit intelligence sharing with countries that have Huawei equipment in their 5G networks — citing its potential use for spying by China, an allegation Huawei denies.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
