MPs are expected to vote tomorrow to kill a private bill to curb “urban heat islands” blamed for micro-temperature gains in large cities. Cabinet described the bill as a federal intrusion in municipal affairs: “The issue is not widely known or highly publicized”.
Canadian diplomats feared Chinese troops would “invade” their embassy in Beijing in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, according to newly-released records. Dramatic Telex messages cabled by embassy staff back to Ottawa cite atrocities in the tumult after the mass shootings, including public executions and the retrieval of bodies from a Beijing canal.
Telexes marked CONFIDENTIAL were released by Library & Archives Canada under Access To Information. The messages run to thousands of pages, documenting Beijing’s summer of upheaval 26 years ago as students massed in the central square and were shot by the People’s Liberation Army on June 4, 1989. The embassy described the killings as “savage”, recounting the eyewitness account of one survivor interviewed by diplomats.
“An old woman knelt in front of soldiers pleading for students; soldiers killed her,” the embassy reported; “A boy was seen trying to escape holding a woman with a 2-year old child in a stroller, and was run over by a tank”; “The tank turned around and mashed them up”; “Soldiers fired machine guns until the ammo ran out”. So many bullets were fired at Tiananmen “they ricocheted inside nearby houses, killing many residents,” the account continued.
“It may be years before the true story is known,” the embassy wrote; “The era of darkness may be long.”
In a June 7, 1989 message, diplomats wrote they were contacted by Chinese officials demanding to know if any dissidents had sought refuge in the embassy amid mass arrests of protestors. Staff estimated 10,000 people had been arrested in Beijing alone, including two employees of IBM who were jailed for sending faxes from the company’s office.
“They enquired whether the Canadian Embassy in Peking had been approached by Chinese students seeking asylum,” the Telex reads; “Officials are in a quandary how to respond as they fear that if the Embassy takes them in, soldiers could invade the premises and remove them.”
Earl Drake, then-Canadian ambassador to China, said he couldn’t recall sending the Telex, but noted cable traffic was high during the crisis. “I have no recollection of sending such a message, but there was so much going on at that time that others may have sent it without clearing it with me,” said Drake, 86, who retried to Vancouver after leaving the foreign ministry.
“In any event, the issue did not arise because no Chinese students asked for asylum with us,” Drake said. The Department of External Affairs did waive immigration regulations for ex-protestors with family in Canada.
“The country is now being controlled by a group of vicious elderly generals and the government is run by people who will blindly follow their orders. The situation looks grim at best,” the embassy wrote in a June 15 message.
Shots & Cheers
Canadian diplomats in secret cables condemned China’s Communist Party leadership as “octogenarian”, a “gerontocracy”, “bereft of any credible claim to legitimacy” and led by “Emperor Deng” – President Deng Xiaoping, then 85. Deng appeared “increasingly feeble”, the embassy wrote: “He is said to be lucid”. One Telex reads, “An Australian doctor who has talked to a physician friend of Deng’s urologist confirms that Deng has for some time been suffering from prostate cancer”; “Deng has been taking cortisone treatments, which accounts for his puffy face”; “This may induce periods of hyper-activity”.
In other messages, staff lamented the “astounding stories of corruption at the highest levels” in China: “The Swiss Ambassador, himself an ‘Old China Hand’, told us that over the past few months every member of the Politburo Standing Committee has approached him about transferring very significant amounts of money to Swiss bank accounts. For obvious reasons, he has urged us to guard this information with the utmost care”.
Diplomats reported to Ottawa that insider information became difficult to find following the massacre: “One of the unfortunate results of the current situation is an inability to talk to many former Chinese contacts who, if they have not already fled the country or are not under arrest, now prefer not to talk with foreigners,” reads an August 2 Telex.
The embassy continued to recount blood-curdling incidents. One evening in Beijing, staff reported a series of seven shots were heard from the city’s Agricultural Exhibition Hall: “Shots were spaced at one-minute intervals and followed by what appeared to be cheers from a throng of people” – suggesting public executions had taken place.
“They are now entering a period of vicious repression during which denunciations and fear of persecution will terrorize the population,” reads one note.
Another Telex reported bodies had been fished from a Beijing canal: “Unconfirmed reports indicate they were soldiers who had been garroted.” More than a thousand executions were rumoured to have taken place in the Chinese capital, though diplomats wrote: “It is impossible to confirm these figures.”
“The situation looks grim at best and potentially disastrous,” the embassy reported; “It was probably thought that the massacre of a few hundreds or thousands would convince the population not to pursue their protests. It seems to be working.”
“Chinese we talk to despair about the future of their country,” diplomats concluded.
Most of the Telexes are unsigned. Ambassador Drake in his 1999 Memoirs Of A Prairie Diplomat recounted the summer of 1989 as “the most dramatic events of my life”. The government evacuated 550 Canadians after the massacre; recalled Ambassador Drake; and initiated Mandarin-language broadcasts on Radio Canada International. Then-foreign minister Joe Clark condemned the shootings as “senseless” and “brutal”.
By Tom Korski 
Retail giants Hudson’s Bay Co. and Sears Canada face demands they hand over records on pricing and profit margins in a federal anti-trust probe of the multi-billion dollar mattress business. Attorneys for the Competition Bureau asked that a federal judge compel the companies to surrender documents, alleging “false or misleading” advertising: ‘It’s a strategy known as ‘high-low’ pricing’.
A Senate panel is pressing Transport Canada to launch a national program to counter a leading threat to essential infrastructure – not terrorists, but backhoes. The Senate energy committee said regulators should mandate a standard call-before-you-dig system similar to a U.S. program enacted a decade ago: “They asked, who is going to pay for this?”
A Senate committee is being urged to call testimony from a former budget watchdog over amendments that allow cabinet to authorize debt without consulting Parliament. The changes to the Financial Administration Act were approved in 2007: “Their attitude is pretty clear”.
The Department of Fisheries is considering a small expansion of the hard-luck cod fishery off Newfoundland & Labrador. It follows a pilot project allowing some 900 fishermen to harvest unclaimed quotas: ‘If it isn’t economical they can’t fish anyway’.
The Department of Public Works has quietly withdrawn a notice that taxpayers “must” surrender their bank account information to the government to receive federal payments. It follows a protest from the Consumers’ Association of Canada: ‘People felt pressured’.
Employers are appealing to cabinet to ease a regulation that will see thousands of migrant workers expelled from the country after April 1. The trade association Restaurants Canada described the deadline as worrisome. Nationwide, food services companies are the leading employer under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program: ‘A crush of workers will have to go home’.
Cabinet is doubling taxpayer-guaranteed loan limits under an Industry Canada financing program for small business. Lenders said the changes would make the 54-year old program more useful: ‘Time marches on’.
A Commons committee has given cabinet till year’s end to account for the sustainability of government pension plans. The deadline comes as cabinet ponders changes that would strip Crown employees of guaranteed benefits: “How the heck would they know?”
A federal tribunal has quietly dismissed a racial profiling complaint against the Canada Border Services Agency. The ruling follows a Federal Court of Appeal ruling that customs officers are entitled to scrutinize Chinese travellers since it was “common” for them to violate Health Of Animals Regulations: “Inspectors are charged with protecting Canadians”.
Parliament must correct a loophole that allows lawmakers to conceal gifts so long as they consider their benefactor a “friend”, says a senator. The Senate committee on rules and procedures is to hold hearings next month on repealing the clause: ‘I think we all know who our friends are’.
A federal panel is urging that cabinet set more ambitious targets in red tape reduction after the Treasury Board reported net savings of $21 million in two years, less than one-tenth of one percent of the national budget: “In the grand scheme of things it’s a pretty small number”.
The Conference Board of Canada predicts automated vehicles will be on the road within a decade, though no robot cars are currently in production. The board yesterday predicted autos with crash-proof sensors could save the economy billions: ‘This is an issue the federal government cannot ignore’.
Confidential 2014 forecasts from economists hired by the Government of Canada predicted rising oil prices and a bigger “economic pie”. The data for senior staff at the Privy Council Office is newly-released through Access To Information: “Oil will rise in the long run”.
