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An MP who left the Conservatives to join the Liberals is casting doubt on reports of human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region.
MP Michael Ma asked an expert during a parliamentary committee hearing Thursday whether she’d seen forced labour with her own eyes.
“Have you witnessed forced labour in Xinjiang? Have you witnessed forced labour? Just a short answer — have you witnessed forced labour in Xinjiang, yes or no?” Ma said while questioning Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa.”So did you get that from hearsay?” he added.
Ma crossed the floor to the Liberals in December and joined Prime Minister Mark Carney’s caucus and his official trip to Beijing in January.
The House industry committee is examining a decision Carney made during that trip to lower Canadian restrictions on Chinese electric vehicles and clear some of those cars for sale in Canada.
McCuaig-Johnston told the committee Thursday that Chinese vehicles are made with products that come from slave labour performed by members of the Uyghur minority.
Ma’s suggestion that reports of forced labour in Xinjiang amounted to “hearsay” prompted outrage from Conservatives on the committee, one of whom apologized on Ma’s behalf. Ma, in turn, demanded an apology from the MP who offered the apology.
Ma told the committee he had asked “very legitimate questions” and had not expressed an opinion.”I had made no assertion of either support or deny it — I just asked whether she had witnessed it,” Ma said.
Tory MP Michael Guglielmin moved a motion at the committee to condemn forced labour practices in China. “It’s just unclear if MP Ma’s remarks are at odds with the Liberal party’s position and the government’s position, or if he’s soft-launching for the prime minister’s new position on the Communist Party of China and their permissive view on enslavement,” Guglielmin said.
The Prime Minister’s Office did not immediately respond when asked whether Ottawa no longer believes Beijing uses slave labour in Xinjiang.
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The meeting was almost entirely consumed by debate about Ma’s questions and MPs from all parties lamented the fact that they had to dismiss the witnesses to debate the committee’s own behaviour.
McCuaig-Johnston, who is a former senior public servant, told The Canadian Press in an interview she was “kind of dumbfounded” by Ma’s line of questioning, but is glad the issue is getting more attention. “I looked around the committee as if to say, ‘Is he kidding?’ Because no Westerner can go to China and see forced labour. They would never let you anywhere close to that,” she said.
She said Ma seemed to be employing a tactic meant to downplay the issue of forced labour. “Certainly he was trying to undermine my credibility,” she said. “I think he failed at that.” McCuaig-Johnston said after the meeting wrapped, she offered Ma her copy of the Human Rights Watch report on forced labour. “And he said, ‘I don’t believe in reports, I only believe in things that I can see with my own eyes,’” she said, adding that Ma suggested the two of them could take a trip to China to see if there is forced labour in Xinjiang. She noted that she has been sanctioned by China and will not travel to the country.
Ma later apologized in a statement saying his line of questioning was meant to refer to auto manufacturing in a different part of China. “I regret this mistake and apologise to Ms. McCuaig-Johnston and my fellow committee members,” said the statement. “Canada has amongst the most rigorous forced-labour import laws in the world, and I am proud to support the government’s work to eradicate forced labour from supply chains and enforce Canada’s import prohibition.”
Asked about the episode during question period Thursday, MP Yasir Naqvi did not mention Xinjiang or China but said the government sees forced labour as “unacceptable.”
The United Nations reported in 2022 that China had committed serious human rights violations in its Xinjiang against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities that “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.”
A report issued that same year by Global Affairs Canada found China “is using otherwise legitimate programs for retraining and relocation of unemployed workers as instruments of a broader campaign of oppression, exploitation and indoctrination of the Uyghur Muslim population into Han (majority) Chinese culture.”
Beijing vehemently disputes those claims, arguing it has addressed terrorism threats while offering economic opportunities to minority populations.
Canada has repeatedly rejected Beijing’s framing. A June 2021 government response to a committee report decried “the mass, arbitrary detention of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in internment camps” in Xinjiang.
On Monday, Carney’s office said public servants “submitted in error” a report to Parliament that suggested Carney did not raise human rights with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his January visit to Beijing.
The Privy Council Office, which serves the prime minister, wrote this month that “human rights and foreign interference were not brought up proactively” by Carney when he met with Xi. His office later said a corrected document has been sent to Parliament.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 26, 2026.
— With files from Sarah Ritchie & Global News
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