Multiculturalism is over in Canada - it’s back to Sinophobia

 

The death throes of Canadian multiculturalism began on February 2023 over China-Canada science connections. Canada’s Innovation Minister said Canadian universities shouldn’t do research with China’s military, as 50 of them have since 2005. “I am not happy and it’s unacceptable,” Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said, quoted in a February 2 Globe and Mail article “Ottawa vows to curb research with Chinese military scientists”. Champagne reminded Canadians that there are new national-security reviews for scientists since 2021 - also designed for China. Michael Chong, the foreign affairs critic with the Conservative party, called for a ban to all research collaboration with China’s military. 

One Canadian research fellow said that “Everyone recognizes the importance of academic freedom but Canadian researchers should be thinking within their souls, not partnering with Chinese researchers who maybe are helping to develop military equipment." What will these Canadians find in their souls?

It didn’t take long for Champagne to give these souls a nudge, announcing the ban Michael Chong had asked for on February 14. “Grant applications that involve conducting research in a sensitive research area will not be funded if any of the researchers working on the project are affiliated with a university, research institute or laboratory connected to military, national defence or state security entities of foreign state actors that pose a risk to our national security.” In case you were wondering, the shifty category of “foreign state actors that pose a risk to our national security” does not include the US, UK, or Israel - military research with these partners continues, of course. 

Indeed to try to substitute “the US” or “Israel” for China anywhere in this story would render it incomprehensible. When a group of Palestinian students started a lecture series asserting that Israel was an apartheid state, it was denounced by every mainstream Canadian politician including Trudeau himself and official parliamentary motions. As this very story unfolds a disabled, Black NDP candidate, Sarah Jama, is under attack for criticizing Israel when she was a student activist. Israel, apparently, might be a “foreign state actor”, but no one thinks it “poses a risk to our national security” - on the contrary, Canadian politicians must be vetted and disqualified if they are critical of Israel. 

Chinese Canadians must prove they are loyal to Canada and not China; Canadian politicians must prove that they are with Israel and not the Palestinians.

The Globe and Mail  didn’t stop with mere government declarations. They got quotes from CSIS, Canada’s spy agency, and also a report from a “US strategic intelligence company Strider Technologies Inc” that stated that “Researchers at 50 Canadian universities… have conducted and published joint scientific papers from 2005 to 2022 with scientists connected to” China. 

No questions asked about why a US strategic intelligence company is studying Canada-China research connections for these guardians of Canadian sovereignty.  (more...)

Multiculturalism is over in Canada - it’s back to Sinophobia