The Two Michaels — Canadian political pawns Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig — have had their sham trials in communist China and are now waiting for the Godot of their sentencings.

The time is long overdue, therefore, to play hardball with Meng Wanzhou, the Chinese hi-tech scion arrested by Canadian authorities at the behest of the United States for extradition on alleged serious fraud charges.
BONOKOSKI: Time to have Meng Wanzhou try on an orange jumpsuit

It is time to yank her loose-goosey ankle-bracelet bail conditions — her freedom to waltz around all of Vancouver during her trial and live in one of her mansions — and put her behind bars in a real detention centre.

She can get to court in an armoured truck, not a limo.

There is not a Canadian alive who also follows the news who doesn’t believe the Two Michaels were scooped off the streets of China and are now being held in harsh jailhouse conditions for 800-plus days only because Meng Wanzhou was scooped up in Vancouver by Canadian border security while disembarking from a jetliner.
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It was tit-for-tat in need of another tit-for-tat.

Let Meng get a taste of the Two Michaels’ lives, although there is likely not a detention centre in Canada — except, perhaps, its drunk tank on a Saturday morning before it’s hosed down — that would equal the cruel starkness of a Chinese prison cell.

But lock her up anyhow.

Our prime minister, the mild-mannered but domineering Justin Trudeau, won’t do this, of course. He’s chosen the weak-kneed but tough-sounding diplomacy route, which is a dead end when dealing with the communist dictatorship of Xi Jinping.

“China needs to understand that it is not just about two Canadians, it is about the respect for the rule of law and relationships with a broad range of Western countries, that is at play with the arbitrary detention and the coercive diplomacy, they have engaged in,” said Trudeau.

This is the same China, of course, that Trudeau thought he’d collaborate with on the development of COVID-19 vaccines, the failure of which put us at the back on the line for vaccines here.

He’s a China lover like his late father.

Meng, of course, is the executive daughter of the billionaire founder of Huawei, a Chinese mega-firm which is still trying for a piece of Canada’s next generation internal 5G network, despite warnings from allies that its technology could be exploited by Chinese intelligence.

This should have the Trudeau Liberals telling Huawei to take a hike and to peddle its spycraft elsewhere since the network being developed will involve Canada’s security and intelligence agencies, but he oddly hasn’t.
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There is no need for this years-long hesitation unless Trudeau is actually thinking of giving Huawei a dance card — which would arguably be insane but not beyond Trudeau’s thought process.

The “trial” of Kovrig, which happened in closed court, attracted envoys from 26 Western countries — the United States, Great Britain, Australia and many European nations — who stood in solidarity with Canada outside the courthouse where Kovrig was being tried.

Trudeau’s response? “We continue together to demand their release,” he said in French during an event in Trois-Rivieres, Que.

“Their arbitrary detention is unacceptable and we will not give up until both are home.”

To Trudeau, this is hardball.