Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge MP polls residents about China Olympics

Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge MP Marc Dalton has run an online poll asking the public whether Canada should boycott the coming Olympics in China.

With more than 400 people having voted, Dalton’s poll shows 87 per cent answered yes to the question: “Do you agree with me that Canada should boycott China’s Beijing 2022 Olympics for its suppression of human rights, persecution of Uyghur Muslims and other faiths, holding captive the two Michaels, and its unfair trade practices with Canada?”

Dalton said he takes this position because “I care about the Chinese people and am greatly disturbed with the evil being perpetuated on millions of them by their authoritarian Communist government.”

Dalton said he also did a Twitter poll on the question, and the vote was 91 per cent in favour out of some 1,500 votes cast.

“We want to move the Games,” said Dalton of his Conservative party.

“I love the Olympic Games – especially the Winter Games,” he said, but added the Government of Canada must stand up against human rights abuses.

“Canadians, as you can see from the poll, are concerned about what’s going on,” he added.

Dan Ruimy, former Liberal MP in the riding, said Canada needs to take action in concert with other nations, such as France and Germany, before China will consider changing its actions.

“As a world, we need to present a united front,” he said.

Ruimy said it is likely too late to move the Games, so the only viable action to be taken would be a boycott by the nations involved.

Conservative leader Erin O’Toole said last week Canada must call upon the International Olympic Committee to relocate the 2022 Games out of China, saying there is genocide happening in the Chinese government’s crackdown on the Uighur ethnic group who live in Xinjiang.

READ ALSO: O’Toole calls for relocation of Beijing Olympics due to China’s ‘genocide’ of Uyghurs

Green Party leader Annamie Paul and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh have also called for the Olympics to be relocated.

READ ALSO: Canada should consider hosting 2022 Winter Olympics, says Green Leader Annamie Paul

Then Monday the Conservatives made a motion, and all parties voted to recognize genocide being carried out by China against the Uyghur and other Turkic Muslims. Trudeau and his cabinet did not vote. It passed by a vote of 266-0, but it is not binding on government. The motion also calls on government to lobby the International Olympic Committee to move the 2022 Games out of Beijing.