Party Lines
with Rosemary Barton, Elamin Abdelmahmoud
Genocide, China and calls for Canada to boycott the Olympics
24 mins
Feb. 18, 2021
This week saw more calls for Canada to boycott or move the 2022 Winter Olympics out of Beijing. Conservative leader Erin O’Toole said the government of China is engaged in a genocide of its Uighur population, and urged a relocation of the Games — or, failing that, a serious examination of whether Canadian athletes should compete. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh and Green Party leader Annamie Paul have also called for the Games to be moved elsewhere; a rare coming together of viewpoints among opposition parties, as Elamin points out. What actions should Canada be considering, when it comes to next year’s Olympics? How does this country’s attempts to secure the release of “the Michaels” factor into this? And have boycotts of the Olympics been effective in the past?
Rosie and Elamin also take the temperature of the room — the “room” being the large chamber that is the House of Commons — to get a sense of how parties are feeling about the timing of a possible federal election this year. Might a spring election still be in the cards? Is a trip to the polls in the fall a likelier scenario? And how does the big vaccine deployment story factor into it all?