OTTAWA, November 18, 2021 – Michael Cooper, Member of Parliament for St. Albert – Edmonton, sent the enclosed letter to Michael Strong, President of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), calling on him to address the mislabelling of “Taiwan” in the organization’s databases.
When Taiwanese nationals apply for research funding from the CIHR, they are required to indicate their nationality using country codes published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The ISO codes force Taiwanese applicants to indicate their country of origin as “Taiwan – Province of China” instead of “Taiwan”. This is offensive to the sensibilities of many of these applicants as Taiwan is objectively not a part of the People’s Republic of China.
This policy is due to the organization’s failure to adhere to Canada’s “one China policy” which “takes note” of Chinese Communist regime’s contention that Taiwan is part of the People’s Republic of China but does not accept this contention.
The organization has been aware of this issue for several years and has already received complaints from applicants, parliamentarians, and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office.
STATEMENT
“In failing to address this, the CIHR appears to be complicit in the Chinese Communist regime’s campaign of aggression and their systematic effort to delegitimize sovereign and democratic Taiwan contrary to Canadian foreign policy. I look forward to the CIHR finally correcting this issue.”
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