Still no names but further allegations of a Parliamentarian, this time a foreign one, working on behalf of a foreign government.
That’s the allegation made at the hearings into foreign interference in Ottawa.
Who is this individual? Were they an MP or Senator in the past? Which party did they belong to? Which country are they accused of acting on behalf of?
These are all simple, basic questions that we should have the answers to but in Canada, we value secrecy and privacy over all else. You, the public cannot be trusted with the information that our government and security agencies have, you must be kept in the dark.
This is the sad truth about political scandals in the nation’s capital.
Also revealed in documents tabled with the inquiry by CSIS is the claim that a foreign government tried to thwart a Liberal candidate’s bid for election. We don’t know the name of the candidate or the name of the country.
“It is suspected that the foreign government sought to thwart the candidate’s bid given their support for issues perceived to be contrary to the foreign government’s interests,” the document states.
Which issues? Which country? Which riding did this happen in?
Don’t ask pesky questions you plebians!
We still don’t know the names of the MPs and or candidates reportedly assisted by China in the 2019 election. We don’t know the names of those who were apparently organizing the scheme either, even though they may still be active in political circles.
Compare that to the United States.
Today’s New York Post has a photo of NYC Mayor Eric Adams and the headline, “Grand Theft Ottoman.” The subheadline on the front reads, “Feds charge mayor with giving Turkey favors in exchange for airline flights.”
The American people know the charges of conspiracy, wire fraud and bribery that Adams is facing. The Canadian people only know there was election interference in this country because of leaks and media reporting.
The Trudeau government has known about this since 2019, they were briefed on it during the election specifically when it came to their then candidate Han Dong. The Liberal Party was briefed weeks before the election that there were concerns about the Chinese consulate in Toronto interfering in Dong’s nomination race.
Liberal campaign staff briefed Trudeau and that was it.
After the election, Trudeau didn’t follow up on the allegation that Dong was aided in becoming an MP by the Chinese government. He didn’t look into other cases of foreign interference, nor did he call in the RCMP to investigate – Trudeau just kept things quiet.
It’s how everyone likes things in Ottawa – just sweep it under the rug and if you do talk about it, don’t provide any details that could cause problems.
Even the report by the committee Trudeau appointed, a committee of MPs and Senators that oversees our intelligence agencies, said there were examples of interference taking place.
“Unfortunately, the Committee has also seen troubling intelligence that some Parliamentarians are, in the words of the intelligence services, ‘semi-witting or witting’ participants in the efforts of foreign states to interfere in our politics,” the NSICOP report stated last June.
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While the report provided vague descriptions of the types of things that happen, it offered no concrete details and no names of those involved.
The argument against naming names – and it is a weak one – is that these are just intelligence reports and can’t be used as evidence, so we shouldn’t smear the names of those involved. The reply to that is not releasing names puts a cloud over our entire system, it raises suspicions of every single sitting MP, especially those of Chinese or Asian decent given most of the allegations of interference involve China.
That’s the view of New Democrat MP Jenny Kwan who has called for releasing names for months.
“I believe we must find a way to disclose who are the MPs knowingly, intentionally, wittingly or semi-wittingly engaging with foreign states or their proxies to undermine Canada’s democratic processes and institutions,” Kwan told the House in June.
The Speaker shut down her call for a debate on this very issue earlier this week.
Now we have more allegations casting a shadow over our entire political system and no names. There is one person who could release these names – that person is Justin Trudeau.
Sadly, his actions show he wants to keep all of this hush-hush.