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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave a long-winded, full-throated defence of democracy during his appearance before the public inquiry on foreign interference Wednesday afternoon. But if democracy is so important how about letting the citizens know what’s going on?
One thing that is becoming very clear in this inquiry is that lots of people in government knew foreign inference was a troubling problem, but nobody was too keen on telling the public.
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The elections of 2019 and 2021 may have been “free and fair” as Trudeau said, so why the secrecy, either at the time or since, about China’s alleged meddling in multiple ridings?
One reason put forward by Trudeau and his adivsors is that the very act of warning Canadians about China’s actions at the time would have been itself electoral interference, so better to keep the public in the dark (the mushroom defence).
Another reason advanced is that there must be a ”high threshold” showing that foreign interference happened, or was about to happen, and no one in the government, or its public servant advisors, thought that threshold had been reached. Of course, even if the threshold was reached it does not preclude reason one — where warning about interference is itself considered interference — from coming into play.
On Wednesday morning, Government House Leader Karina Gould said that as long as Canadians were not being forced to vote in a certain way, or being bribed, then the vote was valid. Which seems to give China and Russia a rather wide latitude when it comes to interference in our elections.
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A third reason why Canadians were kept in the dark, given by the prime minister Wednesday — and several of his advisors in the last few days — is that information from spy agencies, such as the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) is intelligence “but not evidence.”
Which is fair enough, but the strong emphasis on this point by Trudeau and his senior advisors is giving the impression that CSIS intelligence lacks all credibility.
So we get the rather curious situation where the prime minister praises CSIS to the skies, but then effectively rubbishes its intelligence.
Trudeau talked about how men and women in spy agencies put themselves at risk during their tradecraft to “keep Canadians and our institutions safe.”
Such was the importance of the intelligence-gathering community that when Trudeau came to power he changed the name of the national security advisor to the national security and intelligence advisor, he said.
But in evidence Wednesday, Trudeau was at pains to poke holes repeatedly in the intelligence he was given when it came to foreign electoral interference by China.
Was it accurate, the prime minister asked? Had it been corroborated?
“In legal circles, it’s well known that there’s a difference between intelligence and evidence,” said Trudeau.
Katie Telford, the PM’s chief of staff, pointed out in her testimony on Tuesday that sometimes the intelligence given is simply wrong. She said CSIS Director David Vigneault told her “it is important to not correct mistaken raw intelligence as incorrect information could be useful.”
In a statement, Jeremy Broadhurst, former senior advisor to Trudeau, told the inquiry counsel that “obvious errors in intelligence reinforced healthy skepticism about the accuracy of subsequent intelligence” in the prime minister’s office.
Vigneault has already appeared before the inquiry, but in an unusual move is being recalled by the commission over a CSIS document prepared for him ahead of a meeting with Trudeau.
The “talking points” note prepared for Vigneault claimed the government wasn’t doing enough to fight foreign interference.
“Ultimately, state actors are able to conduct (foreign interference) successfully in Canada because there are no consequences, either legal or political. (Foreign interference) is therefore a low-risk and high-reward endeavour,” reads the blunt note.
But Trudeau told the inquiry Wednesday that Vigneault never mentioned those warnings in the briefing.
Which raises another reason why people weren’t told about foreign interference: maybe the relationship between the prime minister’s office and CSIS is dysfunctional?
On the one hand, Trudeau and his advisors seem intent on being dismissive of CSIS intelligence, while on the other a shocking conclusion by the spy agency that the government needed to do more to counteract foreign interference wasn’t relayed to the prime minister.
Vigneault’s testimony on this matter Friday should be interesting.
But it is particularly galling to see the prime minister and other cabinet ministers defend democracy when, as this inquiry is illustrating, people are ill-served by a Liberal government whose default position is to keep things quiet.
For instance, Gould told the inquiry, “At the end of the day, I believe this very strongly, we need to protect Canadian citizens to give them the tools and the information to make informed decisions.”
But it’s tough to make informed decisions when the Liberal government is selective about what information is released.
Trudeau pledged to enact the inquiry’s recommendations so “we can strengthen even further the protection of institutions and of our democracy.”
“But that’s only half of it. The other half is giving Canadians confidence in their institutions and their democracy,” said Trudeau.
Well, not confidence in CSIS, obviously, because as Trudeau has pointed out, you can’t trust its intelligence. And if the Trudeau government had more confidence in the public it would stop keeping so many secrets.
National Post
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