Bright prospect seen for Canada-China cooperation

On the eve of his first visit to China, His Honorable the Speaker of the Senate of Canada's Parliament Kinsella expressed his optimistic outlook on the relations of Canada-China. Our staff reporter Li Xuejiang did an exclusive interview with the Speaker Kinsella. The following is an excerpt of the interview.




Li: what are the main purposes of your visit to China?

Kinsella:I am going to lead a Speaker's delegation from the Senate of Canada to China. We will meet the members of the National People's Congress of China. We are engaged in what I'd call Parliamentary diplomacy, not the diplomacy of the executive branch of governments which is conducted by the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister. Ours could be different from what I'd call the executive branch. We believe it is very important for Parliamentarians to understand from their point of view, and we'd learn a great deal from our interlocutors.

We have many legislative visits from China to Canada and we've learned a great deal from each other. It helps the Parliamentarians, from the Canadian point of view, to do our job which in part is supervision of the executive branch of government. So as to the visit, we are looking forward to it with great anticipation. We have been, since I've been Speaker, promoting strong Canadian-China inter-Parliamentary relations and it has been very successful to date.

The purpose of the visit is first and foremost to continue to strengthen the inter-Parliamentary relationship between Canada and China. We have the very good fortune of welcoming into the room behind you the President of China, Hu Jintao, last year when he was visiting Canada.

I'd go so far as to say Canada-China Parliamentary relationship is the strongest now as it has ever been in our history.

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