Canada should consider hosting 2022 Winter Olympics, says Green leader

Photo: The Canadian Press

Green party Leader Annamie Paul 

Green Leader Annamie Paul says Canada should support moving the 2022 Olympics outside China, citing Beijing's "genocidal campaign" against the Uighur Muslim minority.

Paul says the International Olympic Committee, along with Canada and other countries that condemn human rights violations in China, should find another venue.

She says Canada should think about offering to host the Winter Olympics, possibly with the United States, because both countries have the needed infrastructure and experience.

More than a dozen federal lawmakers from all parties signed an open letter Saturday calling for the 2022 Winter Olympics to be moved outside China.

The letter demands the International Olympic Committee relocate the global competition to avoid having athletes “tainted” by an event legislators say would be comparable to the 1936 Berlin games under the Nazi regime, rendering it “The Games of Shame.”

Bob Rae, Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations, called on the United Nations in November to investigate whether China’s persecution of ethnic Muslim Uighurs in its Xinjiang province constitutes genocide.