Conservatives to Trudeau: Get Xi Jinping on the phone

Didn’t catch Canada’s weekend politics shows? Here’s what you missed. This is an excerpt from today’s Politics Insider newsletter, which you can read here.

• Canada is in a much tougher position with regards to China over the arrest of Huawei’s Meng because Ottawa failed to ban the Chinese telecom’s 5G technology, a former CSIS official told Global’s The West Block: “We’ve gotten ourselves into a difficult situation. Had we made the decision on the 5G when everybody else did, we wouldn’t be the lone person standing out.” Meanwhile, Infrastructure Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne told host Mercedes Stephenson that despite China’s warning to Canada that it stop trying to recruit other nations as allies to its side, Ottawa will continue work to build a “coalition” of partners.  Global said Champagne was the only minister the Trudeau government would make available to talk about Canada-China tensions. (Global News, Global News)

• Conservative foreign affairs critic Erin O’Toole made the rounds on political shows with a message for Justin Trudeau: Get on the phone with Chinese President Xi Jinping. “[Trudeau] needs to take a personal role and if he shows he’s seized with the matter, that will allow them to respond in kind,” O’Toole said on CBC’s The House. “The Chinese want to see that this is considered seriously in Canada, and only the Prime Minister can project that.” (CBC News)

• Canadians will remain in the business of owning pipelines until after the next federal election, even though several Indigenous investment groups are vying to take the Trans Mountain pipeline off Ottawa’s hands, according to Finance Minister Bill Morneau: “We’re going to remain open to talking to Indigenous peoples … but it’s not time yet where we can conclude on them,” he said on The House. In a separate interview a representative from one of those investor groups, Chief Mike LeBourdais of the Whispering Pines First Nation north of Kamloops, B.C., said he wishes Morneau would get on with it: “We still need some love from the minister of finance, but I’m certain we’ll get it through cooperation and communication.” (CBC News)

• What would Maxime Bernier do to address climate change if his People’s Party is elected this fall? “Nothing,” he told Evan Solomon on CTV’s Question Period. He’d leave it up to the provinces: “It’s a shared jurisdiction with provinces, and like right now some provinces want to do something… and other provinces, they don’t want to do anything about that.” (CTV News)