Prime Minister Mark Carney on Monday morning vehemently defended Liberal MP Paul Chiang, who called for a Conservative candidate to be handed over to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
A total of 13 Hong Kong-Canadian advocacy groups have demanded Carney remove Chiang from running in the federal election, citing the danger of endorsing a CCP bounty on a Canadian.
Carney, speaking at a housing press conference north of Toronto in Vaughan, ON, was grilled by multiple reporters on why he would allow Chiang to stay on as a Liberal candidate.
“He is a person of integrity,” replied Carney.
The Liberal leader said he met with Chiang over the weekend, where he apologized for his public suggestion on Chinese-language media earlier this year that Conservative candidate Joe Tay should be kidnapped and turned over to the Chinese embassy in Toronto for a HK$1 million (CA$183,915) bounty.
Tay is wanted by Hong Kong authorities, under the power of Beijing, for running a pro-democracy YouTube channel in Canada.
“The comments were deeply offensive, terrible,” said Carney.
“This is a terrible lapse of judgment by Mr. Chiang. He has apologized for those comments.”
“He has my confidence.”
Carney emphasized Chiang’s decades of service as a Toronto police officer and reiterated several times “this is someone who has served our community.”
“Mr. Chang is a veteran policeman with more than a quarter century of service to his community, 28 years of defending rights in this community,” said Carney.
“He will continue with his candidacy going forward, having made those apologies very clearly.”
“This is a regrettable situation. However, he will continue with his campaign.”
Carney when further pressed repeated the same answers and added Chiang has family in Hong Kong and is therefore “under no illusions about the situation there, the situation in broader China.”
“He's made those apologies, he's made them directly to the individual concerned, he's made them directly to me, he has my confidence,” said Carney.”
“I view this as a teachable moment.”
“We underscore respect with which we treat human rights in this country, the differences between Canadian society and other countries.”
Carney added in his role as prime minister, “just yesterday,” had “received an additional briefing on foreign interference and potential matters related to that.”
“Of course, I can't share any details of that, but it just underscored, once again, I take my responsibility seriously.”
