Trudeau Liberals still giving China more than $7.59 million in aid: Report
Amount confirmed in report tabled in Parliament, according to Blacklock's Reporter
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China is still receiving $7.59 million in foreign aid from the federal government, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.
The figure was confirmed by the Department of Foreign Affairs in a new Statistical Report on International Assistance tabled in Parliament.
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Four years ago, opposition MPs asked for an immediate end to all foreign aid to a “communist dictatorial government that abuses human rights.”
Back then, China was getting as much as $41 million from Canada before then-Opposition leader Andrew Scheer called for all of it to be suspended.
“I don’t believe Canadian taxpayers should be sending any money to China,” Scheer told reporters at the time.
“We’re talking about a communist dictatorial government that abuses human rights, quashes freedoms, violates rights of its citizens and has a very aggressive foreign policy all throughout the region. China is headed in a direction that is not in alignment with Canadian values.”
The Chinese aid figures don’t include $18.7 million in repayable Export Development Canada loans or the Finance Department’s $159.2-million US purchase of shares in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank of Beijing.
Opposition MPs have repeatedly demanded that cabinet withdraw its bank investment.
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“Forty per cent of the staff are Chinese nationals, many of whom are Chinese Communist Party members,” Bob Pickard, who last year resigned as bank communications chief, testified at a Dec. 11 committee hearing.
“I am alleging undue Chinese Communist Party influence in the everyday operations of the bank. People keep on asking me, ‘Where are the documents?’ Well if I had taken those documents, I’d either be in a Chinese jail right now or I would be under serious litigation.”
The largest recipient of Canadian foreign aid is Ethiopia at $206.6 million a year.
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