Human rights advocates and diaspora communities rallied on Parliament Hill over several days this week to protest Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to Canada and to call for an end to ongoing rights abuses in China.
Wang arrived in Ottawa on May 28 and met with Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand and Prime Minister Mark Carney on May 29.
Members of several persecuted groups in China, including Falun Gong, Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Hong Kongers, protested in Ottawa against the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) persecution of people in China and transnational repression in Canada as Wang met with Canadian officials. Members of the Canadian Committee of the Democracy Party of China also protested against Wang’s visit.
Wang met with Anand at the Global Affairs office, outside of which Falun Gong practitioners called for an end to the persecution of fellow practitioners in China. Practitioners also protested on Parliament Hill, holding banners that read “Stop China’s Intimidation in Canada,” “Stop CCP’s Transnational Repression of Falun Gong,” and “Stop Organ Harvesting in China.”
After Wang’s meeting with Carney, Falun Gong practitioners called out, “Stop the persecution of Falun Gong,” as Wang’s motorcade drove by.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a traditional Chinese spiritual discipline that incorporates meditative exercises and moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance.
Beijing’s Interference in Canadian Affairs
Ruth Collins, a Falun Gong practitioner from Montreal, attended the rallies on Parliament Hill and told NTD, a sister outlet of The Epoch Times, that the protest against Wang’s visit was “very important” in light of the CCP-linked disruption of Shen Yun Performing Arts in Toronto this year, as well as other attempts by Beijing to pressure Canadian theatres not to let the show go on.Shen Yun is a classical Chinese dance and music company based in New York and formed in 2006 by leading Chinese artists whose stated mission is to revive China’s traditional culture, which the group says has been diminished under decades of communist rule. The company travels around the world under the slogan “China Before Communism,” and many of Shen Yun’s artists are practitioners of Falun Gong.
Shen Yun’s presenter, the Falun Dafa Association of Canada, says Shen Yun in recent years has been facing an escalated global campaign to stop the show through diplomatic pressure, baseless lawsuits, and some 150 hoax bomb threats worldwide.
“It’s really important to be here. At least if [Chinese officials] can see the banners, maybe they will understand that we don’t want Chinese interference in Canada,” Collins said.
Uyghur Persecution in China
The Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project (URAP) said in a press release on May 28 that its protest that day on Parliament Hill was “successful” and brought together Uyghur, Hong Kong, Tibetan, and other human rights advocates who called for accountability and democratic values in Canada’s foreign policy.The groups called on the federal government “to confront China’s ongoing human rights abuses and reject any diplomatic reset that ignores accountability.”
“We cannot normalize relations with the Chinese government while Uyghurs remain imprisoned, families are separated, and survivors of repression continue to seek justice,” URAP executive director Mehmet Tohti said in a statement. “Economic cooperation must never come at the expense of human rights.”
The group urged Carney and Anand to publicly raise issues with Wang including the mass detention and surveillance of Uyghurs in China, ongoing forced labour and supply-chain abuses, and transnational repression targeting Uyghurs and human rights activists in Canada.
The Canadian government has recognized the practice of forced labour in China, with Global Affairs saying in 2021 that “evidence suggests that forced labour of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities is taking place not only in Xinjiang, but across China.”
Canada also sanctioned Chinese officials in December 2024 for persecuting Falun Dafa practitioners, Uyghurs, and Tibetans, noting these groups are subject to various forms of suppression by the Beijing regime, including arbitrary detention and forced labour.
Coalition Calls on Anand
The Canadian Coalition on Human Rights in China also urged Anand in a letter on May 28 to raise the issues of human rights and foreign interference with Wang. The coalition also asked Anand to raise the plight of Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and that of Canadian Uyghur Huseyin Celil, who is jailed for life and has been denied consular access for 20 years.“We ask you to ensure that the Government of Canada will demand that China commit to no further hostage diplomacy and extraterritorial intimidation and removal of all the punitive sanctioning of Canadians by China if a ‘strategic partnership’ between Canada and China is to move forward,” the coalition said.
The coalition also raised concern with Ottawa’s memorandum of understanding between the RCMP and China’s Ministry of Public Security and urged “full transparency and parliamentary scrutiny before any further cooperation.”
The coalition is made up of groups such as Canada-Hong Kong Link, Canada Tibet Committee, Falun Dafa Association of Canada, Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project, and Toronto Association for Democracy in China.
Wang Meets Anand, Carney
Ahead of her meeting with Wang, Anand made public comments, including that Carney and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have established an “ambitious vision” for a “recalibrated relationship” between Canada and China, but each country “must address critical issues and priorities to ensure the safety and security of our people.”Anand also told Wang that Canada aims to increase its exports to China by 50 percent by 2030, which she said would be done while “safeguarding Canada’s economic and national security interests and values.”
Wang said in his opening remarks that engagement between Ottawa and Beijing has increased dramatically in recent months, which he noted shows both sides are willing to improve relations. He also said there have been “ups and downs” in the bilateral relation that have provided “many important lessons.”
Wang also said Carney has been invited to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in China in November.
Neither Carney nor Wang made any comments to reporters, and no press conference was scheduled for that day.
The last time Wang visited Canada in 2016, he criticized a Canadian reporter who asked about human rights in China during a press conference with then-Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion.
Wang’s visit to Canada comes after Carney visited China in January as his government seeks closer ties with Beijing. Carney had called China Canada’s biggest security threat during the 2025 election campaign, but during his visit to China he said relations between the Ottawa and Beijing had entered “a new era” and the two countries were in a “strategic partnership.”
