Vancouver – A new poll shows strong public support in Canada for an all-out boycott, including athletes, of the Winter Olympics in Beijing next year, with even more saying they are concerned for the safety of the Canadian athletes attending.
Mario Canseco, president of Vancouver-based polling company Research Co., said the results show that public opinion about Beijing has not softened despite the September release of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor after almost three years of imprisonment in China.
“We may not have the full boycott that is needed, or that most people want, in that regard,” Canseco said. “They are 56 (percent) who say we do something that is more meaningful.”
The online survey of 1,000 people was conducted between December 4-6 and has a plus minus sign of 3.1 percentage points 19 out of 20 times.
It found that 56 percent of respondents support a full boycott of the Games, levels that Canseco said have been consistent since April, and 45 percent of respondents said they will make a conscious effort not to watch the Olympics.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canada would join a handful of other countries in a diplomatic boycott of the games over human rights abuses by the Chinese Communist Party.
International pressure has increased on China due to attacks on freedoms in Hong Kong and the laws passed by the Canadian Parliament constitute genocide against the country’s ethnic Uighur and Turkish population. The non-binding motion was approved by Parliament earlier this year, cabinet members abstained from voting.
Concerns about forced labor, the internment of up to two million people in recent years, and the sexual abuse of prisoners are among the concerns raised in reports coming out of Xinjiang. China has denied that it is committing atrocities in the region, calling the camps hosting Uighurs “vocational training centers”.
Others have raised concerns about human rights in Tibet and the safety of Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai, whose status watchers are unsure of following her disappearance after accusing a former high-ranking Communist Party official of sexual assault.
Canseco said he hoped that both the release of Canada’s so-called “two Michaels” and the participation of NHL players in upcoming Games would result in a softening of Canadians’ views on Beijing. But the poll suggests that the public has strong opinions.
Kovrig and Spavor were arrested in the days after Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, was arrested at the Vancouver airport at the request of US authorities.
She was wanted there on fraud charges and was eventually released after signing a deferred prosecution agreement while her extradition case unfolded in Vancouver. The Michaels were released the same day.
But the saga appears to have left its mark, with 70 percent of those surveyed saying they are concerned about the health and safety of the athletes who attend the games.
“Part of this is COVID,” Canseco said. “But there is also the fact that Canadians remember that when it suits China’s purposes, Canadians suddenly disappear and reappear in prisons.”
And the problems respondents have with China go beyond the Olympics, he said.
“Canadians are beginning to boycott themselves,” Canseco said. “The extent possible”.
The survey found that 68 percent of respondents avoid buying Chinese-made products “all the time.”
British Columbians are the most likely to avoid “buying” China-made products “sometimes” at 71%. Meanwhile, 75 percent of Canadians 55 and older said they avoid it sometimes.
Reference-www.thestar.com