Trudeau declares prudent boycott of Beijing Olympics

Key takeaways: 

• Canada will not dispatch government officials to the 2022 Winter Olympics conducted in China.
• Justin Trudeau boycotted the Beijing WinterOlympics 2022. 

Trudeau boycotts the Winter Olympics: 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared today that Canada will launch a prudent boycott of the forthcoming 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing.

No federal government officials will follow the matches. Canadian athletes will nevertheless be permitted to contest.

The U.S., U.K. and Australia already have declared they won’t send official representatives to the matches — a coordinated try to convey a message to China that its human rights vitriols have not gone unrecognised.

Talking to reporters on Parliament Hill, Trudeau stated the government is “extremely concerned” by the “repeated human rights violations carried out by the Chinese government.” He stated Canada will show its dissatisfaction with the communist rule by withholding the diplomats that usually would follow high-profile events like the beginning and ending ceremonies. Source – cbc.ca

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Asked if he was expecting any blowback from Beijing for rebuffing China as it readies to host the world, Trudeau stated: “This should not come as a surprise” to the government. Source – cbc.ca

“For months, we have been coordinating and discussing the issue with our allies,” he stated. Source – cbc.ca

MPs, senators and civil society groups have been pressing the Trudeau government to maintain China responsible for its crackdown on democratic freedoms in Hong Kong and the ongoing abuse of the Uyghur Muslim minority.

Before this year, the House of Commons gave a motion branding the brutality directed at religious minorities in China’s Xinjiang region as “genocide.” That action pursued a Commons subcommittee report that saw China crushing its Muslim minority through mass arrest in concentration camps, forced labour, state surveillance and population managing measures — policies the statement said are created to “stop Uyghur culture and religion.” In the move, MPs even called on the federal government to utilise its power to pressure the International Olympic Committee to drag the games out of China “if the Chinese government resumes this genocide.” Source – cbc.ca