(Ottawa) Canada suspends, with immediate effect, all activities at the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and triggers a review of Canada’s membership in the institution, in light of allegations by the control that Beijing would exercise over the Bank.
Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland ordered the timeout in parliament on Wednesday, hours after the AIIB’s global communications chief, a Canadian, announced on Twitter that he was resigning over the hegemony of the Chinese Communist Party.
“I have tendered my resignation as head of global communications for [la Banque]. As a Canadian patriot this was my only option,” wrote Bob Pickard in a tweet posted overnight Tuesday-Wednesday (Eastern Daylight Time).
“The Bank is dominated by Communist Party members and also has one of the most toxic cultures imaginable. I do not believe that my country’s interests are served by its membership in the AIIB,” he continued in the same tweet.
In Ottawa, Minister Freeland assured that the membership review would be carried out “promptly”, and said that she did not rule out any options at the end of the exercise. Canada, she also stressed, “will discuss this matter with its allies and partners who are members of the Bank”.
Created in January 2016 and based in Beijing, the AIIB is a multilateral development bank focused on economic development through infrastructure financing in Asia, it is described on a Canadian government website.
It has 102 member countries and potential members, including 57 founding members, including Australia, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, South Korea and the United Kingdom, and it received a AAA credit rating from S&P, Moody’s and Fitch, is explained on the same site.
The Trudeau government joined in March 2018.
All the leaders who have succeeded at the helm of the Conservative Party, from Andrew Scheer to Pierre Poilievre via Erin O’Toole, have urged him to step down.