Canada

Conservative and Bloc Québécois MPs are calling on the Liberals to follow through on a trade co-operation framework with Taiwan after the territory's envoy to Canada said Ottawa halted the process suddenly.

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A senior Canadian diplomat said last week it's up to cabinet to decide how to move forward on the agreement, which he suggested is almost ready for a signature.

"The government is considering the timing and the nature of moving forward on it," Weldon Epp, the assistant deputy minister at Global Affairs Canada who oversees diplomacy in the Indo-Pacific, told the House foreign affairs committee on Thursday.

"I fully expect there will be decisions taken before too long on moving forward."

He was speaking after Taiwan's de facto ambassador Harry Tseng told Radio-Canada in a February report that the framework had been ready to be signed since April of last year.

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Tseng, head of Taipei's Economic and Cultural Office in Canada ... told Radio-Canada negotiating teams had initialled every page of the document. He said he suspected the Canadian government was stalling in order to improve relations with mainland China at Taiwan's expense.

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At last week's committee meeting, Bloc MP Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe accused the government of dragging its feet.

"It's an agreement that doesn't bring any risk," he said in French. "The only valid reason right now for why we are not signing the agreement is simply because we do not want to upset Beijing."

Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong said the Tories want Ottawa to move "expeditiously" on the deal.

"We're very supportive of the arrangement," he told the committee.

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