Canada and Poland, Not Quite in Complete Agreement on Social Issues

"There is too much silence, and I think we are on the edge in Poland."

"How can you have a shared commitment to democracy when there is a clear threat to the electoral process?"

"It threatens for sure not only the electoral process but also academic freedom, because the commission has such large powers to question people from academia."

"This timing doesn't serve the social agenda of the Trudeau government."

"For Canada, many times the economic interest and security interests are more important. And sometimes it means that Ottawa has abstained from saying what it should say. Nevertheless, the case in Poland is so clear; it has been for so many years. And I didn't see any reaction from Canada."

Marcin Gabrys, political scientist, Jagiellonian University, Krakow

Mr. Gabrys, a Polish academic, specializes in Canadian studies. He has made the observation that since the ruling Law and Justice party, known in Poland as PiS, came to power in 2015, an  unprecedented amount of collaboration has been undertaken by Canada and Poland, despite that the PiS has "a strong discrepancy" with the values of the Liberal government in Canada headed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

 

Prime Minister JustinTrudeau meets with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Mrawiecki, in Toronto on Friday, Chris Young/The Canadian Press

 

A new law is destined to create a commission in Poland whose purpose it is to probe for Russian interference in the country, with academics and civil-rights groups describing its mandate as so opaque it is seen to be likely that the panel comprised for the most part of government Members of Parliament will be manipulated for the purpose of partisan politics, to attack Polish opposition parties. Clearly an underhanded plan, more in tune with a dictatorship than a democracy.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki is being welcomed on a state visit to Canada. Not a word from the Trudeau government on the country's backslide in democracy. This, from a prime minister who sees himself as a world-class symbol, an icon of progress virtue, a champion of women's rights, of the right to an abortion as a health and medical necessity, a man whose dedication to the collective cause of the LGBTQ-2 community is unwavering; under his mandate the trans community has been flourishing in its presence in primary schools influencing children to join whatever gender appeals to their fancy.

In Justin Trudeau's Canada, where the prime minister has more than adequately demonstrated his own personal hypocrisy on race and gender issues, diversity, equity and inclusiveness has stormed corporate boards, school boards, universities and government departments to the extent that white male candidates for positions of any kind are now at a distinct disadvantage, their human rights and practical skills matching them to positions on merit have proven demerits because they're not women, aboriginal, or people of colour deserving of recognition on the basis of past struggles.

Concern was expressed by the U.S. State Department over the new law "that could be misused to interfere with Poland's free and fair elections", but not a word of doubt from Justin Trudeau. A Polish MP from the far-right Confederation party saw fit to block University of Ottawa history professor Jan Grabowski from giving a lecture in Warsaw meant to touch on Polish complicity in crimes during the Holocaust. Dr. Grabowski has written extensively through his research on a topic that Poland insists is forbidden to air.

In 2018 the governing PiS passed a law that made it illegal to issue truthful statements that in reality many Poles were complicit with Nazi war crimes, making themselves useful to the occupying Nazi authorities in their zealous dedication to gathering up European Jews for the ultimate purpose of genocide, a prospect that many Poles found matched their own views that Jews had no right to live in Poland or anywhere in Europe for that matter, and that erasing their lives would be a benefit.

Lodz, Poland, Deportation from the ghetto in the summer of 1944  Yad Vashem

 

Not only were Jews sent to the gas chambers in the many death camps specializing in annihilating Jewish lives, but in many towns and villages throughout Poland, Jews were expedited to death in mass shootings, dumped into mass graves on the outskirts of the towns, the process aided and abetted by local villagers who had lived alongside Jews for countless generations and often took part in regular Pogroms meant to keep Jews alert and on notice that their presence was not welcomed.

Abortions in Poland, a heavily Catholic society, were limited two years ago, to cases where a pregnancy resulted from a criminal act or posed a serious health act. Justin Trudeau last month publicly lectured Italy's Prime Minister Giorgi Meloni over her country's record on LGBTQ rights, at the Hiroshima G7 meeting. He has a penchant for lecturing other world leaders on their failures on progressive social issues as he sees it, annoying them and embarrassing Canada as he interferes with other countries' internal matters while promoting himself as a paragon of virtue.

 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Italy Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni sit side by side at the G7 leaders' summit in Hiroshima, Japan on Friday. Meloni looked annoyed when Trudeau said Canada was concerned about 'some of the positions Italy is taking on in terms of LGBT rights.' (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan/Reuters)

 

Poland's Law and Justice party speaks of LGBTQ rights as "an attack on the family and children", while turning a blind eye to Polish municipalities and regions that have decided to declare themselves "LGBT-free zones". What does rank high in Trudeau's official notice of the visit by the Polish Prime Minister is the opportunity "to address the regional defence and security challenges resulting from Russia's brutal and unjustifiable war of aggression", for Canada has the third-largest population of Ukrainian-born emigres outside Ukraine and Russia.

Poland, among the most assertive European countries urging military allies to send equipment to Ukraine in part due to a conviction, according to Professor Gabrys, that a Russia in victory in Ukraine would feel sufficiently assured that the world will sit back and remain non-involved, while Moscow would then target Poland, along with the three Baltic countries, all sitting by nervously while the Russian military continues to target Ukraine and its civilian infrastructure, shuddering they may be next.

A Ukrainian 31st Mechanized Brigade gunner.

Ukrainian army photo

Alliances of Useful Expedience

"The scope, scale and complexity of China-Russia cooperation has continued to expand based on a confluence of shared interests and ambitions rooted in competition with the West."

"Both China and Russia view their recent history as second-tier powers as an aberration in their otherwise long history as Great Powers."

"[The two countries' burgeoning relationship suggests that they are militarily] united, powerful adversaries."

Redacted Department of National Defence internal document, May 2021 -- Ottawa

"There very clearly are limitations to their friendship. It's kind of like watching two teenagers that have different views of their dating."

"One says 'We're in it for life', and the other says 'We'll see  how long it goes'."

"From a Chinese perspective, this [Ukraine] war is really quite dangerous."

Professor Arne Kislenko, international relations, Toronto Metropolitan University

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet in February 2022. Sputnik/Aleksey Druzhinin/Reuters

Consolidating those ties appeared to be the reason for Chinese President Xi Jinping's flight to Moscow to visit with Vladimir Putin, the newly-indicted Russian President. Prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 24 of 2022, the leaders spoke of a friendship between them personally and their countries "with no limits".  The newly-revealed briefing note for the assistant deputy minister for National Defence in Canada market secret, spoke of an existing bond a year prior to that declaration.

Professor Kislenko from his perch in academia as a professor of international relations deems the partnership a limited one from China's perspective. He holds that Beijing may be interested in assisting Russia's economy through increased energy imports and to provide some empathy for Russia's growing isolation on the world stage resulting from its invasion of Ukraine and subsequent actions defying international standards of sovereignty and war protocols, but actually providing munitions to Moscow would not be in China's interests.

Were Beijing to decide to send along arms, it could anticipate a backlash from the very Western countries that support its export economy and what is bad for business is bad for China.  Similarly, President Xi may view benefit for China in brokering a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine, on the heels of  his successful push for detente between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The kind of diplomatic one-upsmanship that leaves the U.S. in the diplomatic dustbin. A satisfying turn of events for Beijing.

Not all that long ago China and Russia were bitterly opposed when in 1961 the Sino-Soviet split occurred and the two rivalled one another for domination in the global movement of communism leading to a border skirmish in 1969 that came close to an all-out conflict. At some future date yet another border disagreement could sour relations between the two when the country with the largest population on Earth begins to push further and more Han Chinese settle in Russia's sparsely-populated Siberia.

 

Since the end of the Cold War a growing trade in arms and energy led to a strategic partnership in the "political, economic and military spheres", noted the briefing note. With shared great-power ambitions they have each other for moral support as both face sanctions and censure for actions such as Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and China's "political assertiveness and military intimidation", according to the document.

 

At the United Nations their political cooperation is "global in scope" where they both vote and veto in close alignment. The Ukraine war and Russia's censure and isolation has in fact, been a boon to China in accessing more oil and gas from Russia at reduced prices, while giving Russia the finances it requires to prosecute the war. Because of China's interest in the increasingly accessible Arctic as a result of climate change, its investment aids Moscow to build infrastructure there, allowing Beijing a presence in the region.

All this and more, according to the document sends "geopolitical signals to the West that they face united, powerful adversaries". The 2019 announcement that Russia is helping Beijing build a strategic missile early-warning system -- generally the reserve of Great Powers -- further underscores their increasing level of co-operation at the strategic level."

They appear also to be moving toward "cooperative military activity in the Arctic". The National Defence experts' analysis posits China and Russia acting together as a combined challenge for the West. In tandem, in their spheres of influence, both represent a duo practising aggressive territorial ambitions; China with Hong Kong and Taiwan, claiming as its territory disputed areas between its near geographic neighbours, and Russia eyeing Eastern Europe in its 'near abroad', after the Ukraine campaign.

"At the invitation of President Vladimir Putin, I will soon pay a state visit to the Russian Federation. Russia was the first country I visited after I was elected President ten years ago. Over the past decade, I have made eight visits to Russia. I came each time with high expectations and returned with fruitful results, opening a new chapter for China-Russia relations together with President Putin."

"China and Russia are each other’s biggest neighbor and comprehensive strategic partner of coordination. We are both major countries in the world and permanent members of the UN Security Council. Both countries uphold an independent foreign policy and see our relationship as a high priority in our diplomacy."

"There is a clear historical logic and strong internal driving force for the growth of China-Russia relations. Over the past ten years, we have come a long way in our wide-ranging cooperation and made significant strides into the new era."

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China

Putin again claimed to Xi that he is "always open to the negotiation process," despite his repeated refusal to engage with Kyiv on a withdrawal from Ukrainian land. VGTRK