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Here’s a look at Barton’s views on China — and his belief that Canada could exert influence on China on issues like human rights if only we had deeper economic ties — from the more halcyon days of 2016 when, you know, that country wasn’t arbitrarily detaining Canadian citizens and launching retaliatory blockades of Canadian agricultural exports.
To his credit, Minhaj went through that record and found that, once you strip away the rhetoric and spot-on social media presence, there isn’t as much there as you’d expect from someone who was branded as the saviour of global liberalism. Indeed, there’s a lot of the opposite. Hard questions on the environment, Indigenous relations, Quebec’s Bill 21, and Saudi arms sales elicited nothing but waffle from Trudeau.
MacLean’s has become a CPC pamphlet.