Canadians deserve the truth, that’s not something they will get from this Prime Minister
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Even under oath, giving testimony at a public inquiry, Justin Trudeau can’t be trusted to give Canadians the straight goods.
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On Friday, under questioning from reporters, Trudeau flip-flopped on two key points from his sworn testimony. Firstly, that he prefers verbal briefings and doesn’t read memos, and secondly, that he has doubts about the intelligence CSIS collects and provides to the government.
Multiple times during his testimony, Trudeau said that he hadn’t read certain memos, that he didn’t like written briefings and often didn’t have time to read what was sent to him.
“The best way to convey information to me is to receive a direct briefing from my national security and intelligence adviser,” Trudeau said. “The only way to guarantee, to make sure that I receive the necessary information, is to give me an in-person briefing or over a secure line, if necessary.”
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It’s a shocking set of statements from the leader of a G7 country, but when asked about it on Friday, Trudeau reversed course.
“Much has been made of your admission I suppose during the testimony, that you rarely read all of your intelligence briefings or that you don’t read them all. Are you going to do that now?” Globe and Mail reporter Laura Stone asked.
“I read everything that is put in front of me,” Trudeau said while making a strange face of disbelief and laughing in response to the question.
Well, both things can’t be true.
You cannot testify under oath that the best way to brief him is to tell him the information verbally, “not simply to give me a note which I may or may not read or may not have time to read.” The Prime Minister cannot dismiss intelligence reports sent to him as something he can’t comment on because he didn’t read them and then later claim he reads everything.
Of course, Trudeau also claimed on Wednesday that you can’t trust the CSIS briefings presented to government and then on Friday claimed to uphold trust in their work.
“What I am saying, you have to take this intelligence, you have to take this information, with a certain awareness that it still needs to be confirmed or it might not be 100% accurate,” Trudeau said when quizzed at the inquiry about reports of China attempting to help a Liberal candidate.
Asked straight up why he hadn’t acted on the intelligence he received that China had interfered in the nomination of Han Dong; Trudeau said it wasn’t credible.
“I didn’t feel there was sufficient or sufficiently credible information that would justify this very significant step,” he said on why he didn’t suspend Dong’s nomination.
At another point, under cross examination, Trudeau was asked about a report that Dong had expressed views to China’s consulate about the Two Michaels that was at odds with the government’s stance.
Trudeau didn’t hold back in dismissing that report. He questioned the translation of the phone call and the analysis of it.
“I don’t think I need to read the first page filled with caveats around incomplete, single-sourced, varying degrees of reliability, you know, not necessarily indicating corroboration or reliability of sources,” Trudeau told the commission.
Throughout his testimony Wednesday, Trudeau cast doubt on the abilities of CSIS.
“I have tremendous trust in our intelligence agencies,” Trudeau said Friday when asked about his Wednesday statements.
It’s clear that Trudeau had two main goals with his testimony before the inquiry. He wanted to give himself plausible deniability in terms of what he knew and when he knew it, and he wanted to make it clear that CSIS was an unreliable partner.
In stating one thing at the inquiry and another in public, Trudeau has shown that for him, the truth is not a concept he is familiar with. For Trudeau, everything is about forwarding his own ambitions and political interests.
Canadians deserve the truth, that’s not something they will get from Trudeau.
blilley@postmedia.com
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