As G7 foreign ministers prepare to meet in Ontario's Niagara Region, family of hotel owner Jimmy Lai and Niagara-on-the-Lake’s lord mayor are calling for the pro-democracy activist's release from a Hong Kong prison.

Lai, who was arrested in 2020 and is being held in Lai Chi Kok prison, owns Vintage Hotels, a string of inns across the region. A British and Hong Kong citizen, he was founder of the now-shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily.

“My uncle hasn’t done anything wrong that we don’t do in our own country on a daily basis,” his niece, Erica Lepp, who lives in Niagara-on-the-Lake, told CBC News on Thursday.

“Niagara-on-the-Lake is my uncle’s Canadian home,” Lepp said, “and this is where the majority of his Canadian family is.”

Gary Zalepa, Niagara-on-the-Lake's lord mayor,

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