Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday fended off questions on the possibility of the country signing an extradition treaty with China, but agreed that Ottawa has already started discussion with Beijing on the sensitive issue.

"Extradition is certainly one of the things the Chinese have indicated they want to talk about...... As everyone knows, Canada has very high standards in terms of extradition treaties in accordance with our values,"Trudeau told a news conference in United Nations. "But we're happy to have a high-level security dialogue."

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The top official of the Canadian government confirmed about the high-level security dialogue in a separate statement posted on his official website.

It was noted that Canada's national security adviser visited China last week and agreed to start talks about an extradition treaty as part of a security dialogue, which reportedly sparked off speculation that Canada may have made concession to China to secure the deportation of Canadian missionary Kevin Garratt.

However, Ottawa insisted that it has not struck any deal with China over Kevin Garratt's release.  Garratt was convicted of spying in China, but Beijing agreed to deport him to Canada last week. 

Canada's main opposition, the Conservative Party, has strongly criticized Trudeau's decision to start negotiation over extradition treaty with China, claiming that Ottawa is giving undue concession to Beijing on the issue.     

"Does the prime minister not understand that our openness to China should be about encouraging China to adopt our values for human rights, as opposed to us giving in to China's?" interim party leader Rona Ambrose told the House of Commons.

Several western countries have been hesitant in signing extradition treaty with China, mainly out of  concern about the integrity of China's judicial system and treatment of deportees. The Chinese government, though, has been pressing hard on signing the extradition treaty, as many of the suspected Chinese criminals are believed to be hiding in many popular western countries like United States, Australia and Canada.  

TagsCanada, Justin Trudeau, Canada and China, china