During Thursday's session of virtual Canadian Parliament, longtime Conservative MP Ed Fast asked a simple request of Foreign Minister François-Philippe Champagne: to thank Taiwan for their donation of personal protective equipment.
While Taiwan was giving British Columbia usable masks that met Canadian standards, a purchase of Mainland China's 1,000,000 masks were deemed unfit due to their low quality.
Minister Champagne tweeted out a personal "thank you" to China on March 28, but has not yet thanked Taiwan, the democratic island nation off the coast of the hostile authoritarian regime.
Thank you for this donation.
— François-Philippe Champagne (FPC) ?? (@FP_Champagne) March 28, 2020
In the face of a global pandemic, supporting each other is not only the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do. https://t.co/rE1BZZfrCR
MP Fast asked Champagne if he'd like to thank Taiwan for their generous donation, to which Champagne responded: "Indeed we are very grateful to every nation for helping Canada, this is a global pandemic which knows no border. We are expressing our thanks to many nations that have contributed, we will continue to do so," said Champagne. "It's important in a time of pandemic that we don't play politics."
Trudeau's Minister of Foreign Affairs refuses to say "thank you" and "Taiwan" in the same sentence #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/wh78amFBhl
— Pundit Class (@punditclass) May 7, 2020
"We will continue to work with every nation when it comes to health."
When Fast pressed Champagne for refusing to thank Taiwan, he again responded with an answer thanking all countries for their donations. Champagne does not ever even utter the word "Taiwan."
Questions have started to arise regarding the Liberal Party's perceived allegiance to China.
On April 2, Health Minister Patty Hajdu was quick to dismiss theories that China could have possibly falsified their coronavirus data, saying that claims of such a nature "feed into conspiracy theories that many people have been perpetuating on the internet."
Trudeau has also publicly said he admired China's "basic dictatorship"; a dictatorship that has committed atrocious human rights violations against Muslims and ethnic minorities.