VANCOUVER, Canada -- On a Sunday night in mid-January, Canadian actor Julia Hackstaff was approached by an acquaintance offering work as an extra in a movie. The gig, which paid $100, would only take two hours. The next morning, Hackstaff joined a dozen others in the rain outside the British Columbia Supreme Court in Vancouver.
Inside, Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of China's Huawei Technologies, was battling extradition to the U.S., where she would face charges of defrauding banks and breaching sanctions on Iran. Out on the street, there were protest groups calling for Huawei to leave Canada, groups supporting rights for China's Uighur minority, groups demanding the return of two Canadian citizens currently detained in Beijing.