Huawei's Meng Wanzhou sues Canada's national border service, police, and government

Claiming that she was detained in a manner that violated her rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou filed a civil claim with the British Columbia Supreme Court.

Through her lawyers, she alleges that the government worked together with the Canadian Border Service Agency and the RCMP to falsely imprison her. She claims that her arrest and detention was a wrongful exercise of authority and that Canadian officials collected evidence from her in a way that violated the Charter.

It will be interesting to see how the case proceeds, as the tense political situation between Canada and China entered a new chapter following the shocking revelations of the SNC-Lavalin scandal plaguing the Trudeau government.

Canada-China standoff

At the request of the US, Canada arrested and detained Huawei's CFO, who has since been facing extradition to the US to face charges of being involved in a corporate scheme to circumvent sanctions against Iran.

Huawei is China's largest telecommunications company and is well-connected to the Chinese government. It is clear that Meng's arrest was taken by the Chinese to be a direct attack on their national interests.

Since then, China has detained several Canadians, and has even put one accused drug smuggler on death row. In Canada, those actions are largely seen as a direct retaliation against Meng's detention.

SNC-Lavalin screws it up for Canada

Trudeau has repeatedly declined China's requests for Meng's release, citing that Canada is a country that respects the rule of law, and that Canadians would not accept any political interference in our judicial system.

As if on cue, explosive allegations arose that Trudeau was directly involved in a concerted and sustained effort to blackmail his former attorney general to force the civil service to drop charges against Liberal-connected construction giant SNC-Lavalin.

The Montreal-based engineering firm was charged with bribing Libyan officials under the Gaddafi regime, which included almost $2 million of bribes to the son of Libya's former dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Part of that $2 million even included $30,000 to buy prostitutes for the young "prince" when he visited Canada a decade ago.

It did not take long for international media to spot the hypocrisy. The Canadian prime minister, who had spent most of the new year virtue-signalling our country's respect for judicial independence, was now caught with his pants down.

Having fired his former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould, who has since become a household name, he replaced her with a Montreal lapdog who has a big SNC-Lavalin office in his riding.

It is not a surprise that China has taken the opportunity to use the recent scandal to their advantage, and as China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said, "not only Chinese and Canadian citizens, but the whole world are extremely interested to hear how the Canadian government answers" these allegations.

So far, the answers have been:
(1) nothing to see here
(2) the AG was difficult to work with
(3) they suddenly realized that the AG didn't speak French
(4) she wouldn't have been fired if Brison didn't resign
(5) the political interference was just a matter of perspective

Let's see how many more they can add to the list before this year's federal election.