OTTAWA - After a week in which he twice weighed in on a high-stakes extradition case, John McCallum is out as Canada's ambassador to China — although for Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, the damage has already been done.
"It should never have come to this," Scheer tweeted Saturday, after the prime minister's office released a statement announcing McCallum's resignation at the request of Justin Trudeau.
That move came just hours after McCallum was quoted in a Vancouver newspaper saying it would be "great for Canada" if the United States dropped its extradition request for Meng Wanzhou, the Huawei executive who was detained in Vancouver last month.
McCallum told StarMetro Vancouver on Friday that if the U.S. and China reach an agreement on Meng's case, the deal should include the release of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, two Canadians currently detained in China.
"We have to make sure that if the U.S. does such a deal, it also includes the release of our two people. And the U.S. is highly aware of that," McCallum told the Star.
That comment followed a statement McCallum issued Thursday, saying he misspoke earlier in the week when he discussed Meng's case with a group of Chinese-language journalists in Toronto, listing several arguments he thought could help her with her legal fight against extradition.