Chinese Media Amplify MP Michael Ma’s Dismissal of CCP’s Forced Labour

Media in China are promoting Liberal MP Michael Ma’s skepticism about the existence of forced labour in China following an exchange with a China expert at a parliamentary committee meeting this week.

Ma, a former Conservative MP who crossed the floor to join the Liberals in December, asked China expert and former senior public servant Margaret McCuaig-Johnston a series of rapid-fire questions that suggested skepticism about China’s forced labour practices during a House of Commons industry committee meeting on March 26.

He later refused to say there is forced labour in China in an exchange with a reporter, instead saying that there is forced labour “all over the world.”

Ma later apologized for his remarks after widespread criticism. He said he “inadvertently came across as dismissive of the serious issue of forced labour,” but his statement still did not clarify whether he believes there is forced labour in China.

Chinese media outlet Guancha published an article on March 27 about Ma’s remarks, saying “Canadian scholars hype ‘forced labour’” in the article’s headline.

The article, which was widely cross-published on multiple Chinese-language platforms, said McCuaig-Johnston’s response to Ma “caused an uproar.” However, it was Ma’s questioning that was criticized by numerous opposition MPs and human rights activists in Canada.

McCuaig-Johnston told MPs on the committee, which is studying the government’s electric vehicle policies, that Chinese electric vehicles are made with aluminum using forced labour by Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region of China.

Ma asked McCuaig-Johnston: “Your claim about forced labour in Shenzhen—have you witnessed this yourself? Have you been there ever?”

After media reports covered the exchange, saying it was about Xinjiang, Ma later said in a statement that he meant Shenzhen, not Xinjiang. The two regions are pronounced similarly, but Shenzhen is an industrial hub in China, while Xinjiang is where the persecuted Uyghur people live.

Responding to Ma’s questioning, McCuaig-Johnston said she has been to China “many times” over nearly 50 years. Ma cut her response short and asked again whether she has witnessed the forced labour herself, to which she responded that she works “closely with Human Rights Watch where researchers did witness it.”

McCuaig-Johnston told CTV that after the committee meeting, she gave Ma a copy of a report by Human Rights Watch, which says it found “credible evidence” that both Chinese manufacturers and Western companies with plants in China are using Uyghur forced labour in their aluminum supply chains. She said Ma told her: “I don’t believe in reports. I don’t believe in anything I can’t see for myself.”

She also said Ma suggested that they go to China together to see if they can spot Uyghur forced labour, but McCuaig-Johnston said China “would never show you Uyghur forced labour,” noting that the “only ones who see it are the ones on the ground in China who are being subjected to it.” McCuaig-Johnston noted she has been sanctioned by China for her work on exposing Uyghur forced labour.

‘Propaganda’

The Guancha article said McCuaig-Johnston “euphemistically admitted that she has not personally witnessed the so-called ‘forced labor’ and is indeed hearsay.” It also said accusations of forced labour in China “have always been absurd lies” that are “based on ideological bias” and have been used to “smear China.”

McCuaig-Johnston says it seems Ma “designed his rapid fire questions … so they could be used by Chinese state media showing that he went up against a critic of the regime.”

“That’s what Chinese state media is reporting. It failed spectacularly here, but state media won’t report that,” she said in a March 27 social media post.

Conservative MP and industry critic Raquel Dancho also commented on the Chinese media report, saying that whatever Ma’s intentions were, “his questions parroted implicitly the CCP-certified position—that controversy around forced labour is manufactured.”

“Chinese state media used those questions to push their propaganda,” Dancho said in a post on X. “Despite his excuse, this was the outcome. Wholly unbecoming of an elected representative in Canada.”

Tory MP and foreign affairs critic Michael Chong wrote a letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney on March 27, asking for clarification on the federal government’s position on the forced labour of Uyghurs in China.

He noted Ma intimated that Uyghur forced labour has not taken place in China, “even though numerous bodies have concluded that a genocide, including forced labour, is taking place against the Uyghurs in the PRC [People’s Republic of China].”

Canada sanctioned Chinese officials in December 2024 for persecuting Uyghurs, Falun Gong practitioners, and Tibetans, noting that these groups are subject to various forms of suppression by the Chinese regime, including arbitrary detention and forced labour.

The House of Commons voted unanimously in favour of a motion tabled by the Conservatives in February 2021 that declared Beijing’s persecution against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in China a genocide. All opposition MPs and non-cabinet Liberal MPs supported the motion, while cabinet abstained from the vote.

‘Must Take Responsibility’

Chong also noted that the Privy Council Office tabled a document in Parliament two weeks ago that said the topics of human rights and foreign interference “were not brought up proactively” by the prime minister during his meetings in January with officials in China. Carney’s office later said there was an error in the document and that the issues “were raised proactively at multiple levels.”

“These recent statements, both from a Liberal MP and your office, regarding human rights in the PRC raise a legitimate question about what the position of the Liberal government actually is on the forced labour of Uyghurs,” Chong wrote, adding that Canada is bound by international treaties to combat forced labour, including obligations under trade agreements.

Tory House Leader Andrew Scheer said on social media that Carney “must take responsibility for a change and denounce his MP’s appalling comments on forced labour.”

Energy Minister Tim Hodgson told reporters on March 27 that the federal government is opposed to forced labour, but deferred questions on whether Ma should remain in the Liberal Party’s caucus to the prime minister.

Hodgson said Ma acknowledged his views did not reflect the views of the Liberal Party. Ma’s apology posted on social media did not mention this.