Canada has awarded nearly $6 million in contracts to China-based firms since Beijing’s arbitrary detention of Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, according to Conservative MP John Williamson. First reported by Blacklock’s, Williamson, through an inquiry on March 10, received reports showing that federal departments and agencies issued $5.8 million in contracts to firms based in China or owned by firms based there between 2019 and 2020. “Beijing holds two Canadians hostage, spies on our companies, undermines our institutions and openly threatens us,” Williamson posted on Twitter Wednesday. “Yet it’s business as usual in Ottawa as Canada’s Liberals hand millions of tax dollars to Chinese firms.” Spavor and Kovrig were arbitrarily detained in China in December 2018. Their detention is widely considered as a hostile retaliation from Beijing against Ottawa’s arrest of Huawei’s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou nine days earlier at the request of the United States. Meng is …