November 9, 2014 | Last Updated: Nov 9 2:25 PM ET
Adrian Wyld / The Canadian PressCanadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Sunday.
BEIJING — Chinese President Xi Jinping was told of Ottawa’s concerns about a Canadian couple being held as suspected spies in northern China, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Sunday during a meeting held in the opulent Great Hall of the People.
“That particular case is of significant concern to us and to Canadians and that is why I raised it,” Harper said during a brief news conference.
Twenty-fours earlier, Chinese Premier, Li Keqiang, told Harper that China would not release Kevin and Julia Garratt while the country’s judiciary investigated the devout Christian couple who are alleged to have stolen military secrets while operating a coffee shop near the North Korean border.
“I would note that we have been granted regular consular access by the government of China and that is at least one positive in this,” Harper said, adding in French.
The Garratts two sons, who are now in China to try to gain their parents release, expressed gratitude for the assistance the family had received from Ottawa, CBC Radio reported Sunday.
“I am not going to enumerate them all,” the prime minister told journalists. “But I will just say you can rest assured that every single item that is important in the area of consular issues, human rights, governance, the rights of minorities – I have raised every single one of those.”
China has complained in the past about investment rules that prevented them from putting as much money as they wanted to into developing Alberta’s oil sands. But senior Chinese officials had not raised the issue this weekend, the prime minister said.
“It would be difficult for them to do so given that Canada’s investment climate is so much freer than the investment climate here,” Harper said. “In fact, according to our statistics the Chinese have about five times the level of investment in our country as we do in China. So, if anything, its on the other side that that issue really has to be addressed.”
