[LINK] "Tory MP calls Bethune memorial a 'bow' to China"

[rfmcdonald]

Going back to the controversy over anti-Communist Canadian Conservatives praising pro-Communist doctor Norman Bethune, Conservative MP Rob Anders came out as hostile to Canada's memorialization of Bethune, putting it down to attempts to placate China. (Back in 2001, he was the only parliamentarian who voted agaisnt giving Nelson Mandela honorary citizenship on the grounds that Mandela was a Communist and a terrorist, so you know where he comes from.)

A Calgary MP says members of his own party have tried to hush him up over his criticism of federal funding for a memorial to Norman Bethune, the Canadian doctor considered a communist hero in China.

"I've probably had dozens of calls," MP Rob Anders said Friday on CBC Radio's As It Happens.

He wouldn't specify whether any had been from the Prime Minister's Office. "I'm not going to go into the details," the outspoken member of Parliament for Calgary West said.

MP Rob Anders has been a vocal critic of China, and thinks the federal government doesn't need to appease Beijing for economic reasons. (CBC)Anders says Bethune "was a fan" of Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, whom Anders called "the biggest mass-murderer in human history."

And that's why the MP has been in the media over the last couple of days arguing Ottawa shouldn't have furnished $2.5 million for the new visitor centre at Bethune Memorial House in Gravenhurst, Ont., which was officially opened Wednesday by Treasury Board President Tony Clement.

"I think there's a lot of people out there that think it's pretty questionable and spurious that taxpayer money is being used to support something like this," Anders said.

"I don't think that you need to spend millions of dollars to lionize somebody who was a supporter of Mao."