Women walk past a propaganda slogan promoting ethnic unity in 'the new era', in both Chinese and Uyghur languages, in Yarkant, northwestern China's Xinjiang region, July 18, 2023.PEDRO PARDO/AFP/Getty Images
Floor-crossing Liberal MP Michael Ma faced an angry backlash Thursday after he appeared to cast doubt on the existence of forced labour involving the mainly Muslim Uyghur minority in China’s Xinjiang region.
Mr. Ma, who switched parties from the Conservatives in December, asked an expert during a Commons committee meeting whether she’d seen forced labour with her own eyes or was relying on hearsay.
Previously, the MP accompanied Mark Carney on his trip to Beijing in January, the first by a Canadian prime minister since 2017.
On Thursday, Mr. Ma questioned the expert during a meeting of the Commons industry committee, which is examining Mr. Carney’s deal to allow 49,000 Chinese-made electric vehicles into Canada at a low tariff rate.
Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa, told the committee Thursday that electric vehicles are being made with Chinese aluminum products made by slave labourers in Xinjiang.
The Canadian Press
Mr. Ma asked her: “You claim about forced labour in Xinjiang. Have you witnessed this yourself? Have you been there ever?”
“I’ve been to China many times since 1979,” she replied.
He continued: “Have you witnessed forced labour in Xinjiang? Yes or no? So did you get that from hearsay?”
Ms. McCuaig-Johnston, a former senior public servant, replied that she works closely with Human Rights Watch, whose researchers have witnessed forced labour.
In a social-media post Thursday evening, Mr. Ma said his questions “inadvertently came across as dismissive of the serious issue of forced labour.”
“To be clear, my line of questioning referred to auto manufacturing in Shenzhen, China, and not in Xinjiang,” he said. “I regret this mistake and apologise to Ms. McCuaig-Johnston and my fellow committee members. I condemn forced labour, in all its forms.”
“I am proud to support the government’s work to eradicate forced labour from supply chains and enforce Canada’s import prohibition,” he added.
But Ms. McCuaig-Johnston told The Globe and Mail that the Liberal MP was indeed asking her about Xinjiang, home to Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities. She said he appeared to be trying to discredit her despite her acknowledged expertise on the issue.
She said she spoke to Mr. Ma after the meeting and gave him a copy of a report by Human Rights Watch that addressed the use of forced labour to make EV parts.
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Conservatives reacted angrily to Mr. Ma’s line of questioning and asked for clarification about whether the government’s position toward the treatment of Uyghurs and forced labour had changed.
The federal government has previously said it is concerned about violations of Uyghurs’ human rights in Xinjiang.
In 2021, MPs declared in a motion that China’s treatment of them, including forced labour, was “genocide.”
NDP MP Jenny Kwan said Thursday that Mr. Ma was either “deliberately uninformed or he is deliberately blind to the reality.”
Conservative foreign-affairs critic Michael Chong told reporters he wanted clarification on whether Canada would import vehicles using parts made by forced labour.
Robert Oliphant, parliamentary secretary to the Foreign Affairs Minister, told reporters that “the Government of Canada’s position has not changed,” saying the Prime Minister raised human-rights issues while in Beijing.
“We will continue to stand against forced labour everywhere,” he said.
Separately on Thursday, MPs and human-rights advocates urged Ottawa to step up pressure on Beijing to help a Uyghur Canadian imprisoned in China for 20 years who has not been seen for almost a decade.
At a press conference, Liberal and Bloc Québécois MPs called on China to allow Huseyin Celil, a Uyghur rights advocate, a phone call with his family in Canada, including a 19-year-old son he has never met.
Bloc MP Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe said he was concerned the federal government is not applying the same pressure on Beijing to release Mr. Celil as it did with Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, who were freed from Chinese custody in 2021.
He questioned whether Ottawa is treating the Uyghur Canadian as a “second-class citizen” and not devoting similar energy to his case because he was not born in Canada.
Mr. Celil was arrested in Uzbekistan in 2006 while on a family visit, and abducted to China where he faced a secret trial that year.
Alex Neve, professor of international human-rights law at the University of Ottawa, said Mr. Celil has “disappeared into an abyss of injustice, and now for nearly 10 years, there’s absolutely no knowledge of his whereabouts, his well-being or his fate.”
Liberal MP Sameer Zuberi said Canada must defend all Canadians “with the same vigour,” including those “who have roots outside of the country.”
Thida Ith, a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada, said in a statement that the government “has been actively engaged on Mr. Celil’s case since his initial detention and continues to raise his case and advocate for his situation with Chinese officials.”