Liberal MP says that boycotting Beijing Olympic Games is pointless

Earlier this year, the House of Commons voted to petition the Olympic Committee to move the games to a more appropriate location, or at least one that isn't committing genocide.

Ontario-based MP Adam van Koeverden said that "you can compete in a country and still care about these issues."

"I don’t think that being an athlete, caring about our athletes or cheering for our athletes is mutually exclusive from believing and caring about the Uyghur genocide," he added.

In February, the House of Commons voted to censure China for the Uyghur genocide. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's cabinet abstained on the vote.

Despite this, van Koeverden said that "we’re having this conversation today because the Olympics are in China and because the genocide is their reality but Olympics always cast a brighter light on issues around the world."

The Chinese Communist Party is clearly expecting some activism during the Olympics, issuing a statement that they would not tolerate the "politicization of sports."

"We firmly oppose the politicization of sports, strong ideological bias against China and the fabrication of fake news and misinformation under the pretext of news freedom to distort and slander China and the 2022 Beijing Winter Games," said the Chinese foreign ministry.

Canada's newest foreign affairs minister told Canadians that they expect her to be pragmatic. "They want to make sure we can get things done." She made no mention of what those things involved, nor justified why that didn't entail stopping a genocide.