Winnipeg city councillor calls to end sister city relationship with Chinese municipality

A motion at city hall could see a formal relationship tying Winnipeg to a sister city in China severed due to human rights concerns.

The City of Winnipeg has 11 sister cities including Chengdu, the capital of the Chinese province Sichuan. The formal partnership was initially inked in 1988 and renewed in 2015 and 2018.

However, a motion from Transcona city councillor Russ Wyatt to the executive policy committee looks at terminating the relationship.

“We have to start the decoupling process, if you like, and this would be part of that, and I think it’s crucial for all municipalities to be following suit,” he said.

Wyatt cites a slew of human rights concerns with the Chinese Communist Party, including China’s unification policy with Taiwan, abuses against Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups, its support of Russia in its war with Ukraine and the arbitrary detainment of the Michaels.

“We’ve had a policy for nearly 50 years of engaging with China with the hope that they would move towards western principles of democracy. In fact, the opposite has occurred,” he said.

This comes after Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly unveiled the federal government’s long-awaited Indo-Pacific Strategy last year, signalling a tougher stance on China going forward.

The document pledges to push back “against any form of foreign interference on Canadian soil,” protect Canadian market access in China while working with clients to “diversify within, and beyond, that market,” and push back, “against any unilateral actions that threaten the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, as well as the East and South China Seas.”

Meantime, Wyatt said unification with Taiwan also poses a threat to one of Winnipeg’s other sister cities – Taichung, a city in central Taiwan - a relationship he said the motion reaffirms.

Wyatt is also proposing the city review its procurement policies and agreements to ensure it is not linked to any other potentially problematic countries. He wants the federal government to help the city establish a human rights-based approach.

“I think we have to stand in solidarity with the Chinese people on this one,” he said.

The motion regarding Chengdu is set to go before EPC on Jan. 17.

- With files from CTV’s Carie Wilson and Spencer Van Dyk