Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, and Prime Minister Mark Carney, in Gyeongju last month.

Irwin Cotler remembers as justice minister taking part in a meeting with a delegation from China . Paul Martin was prime minister at the time, and the meeting was carried on without a certain topic coming up. Mr. Cotler passed Mr. Martin a note: “Paul, what about human rights?”

Mr. Cotler, the international chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, says the prime minister eventually raised human rights in that meeting, and the same should be done in the future as Canada re-engages with China.

Human-rights observers and experts say that as the Canadian government focuses on diversifying trade and business, they’re not hearing much from Ottawa about rights issues.

With unpredictabil

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