For competent leaders, managing national security and international upheaval involves putting partisan mudslinging on hold. For Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, partisan mudslinging is the whole point. Problems are there to be politicized, not fixed.
His latest circus act involved testifying before an inquiry on foreign interference — inspired in part by “irregularities” in a 2019 Liberal nomination race that were uncovered by intelligence officials — to inflame suspicions about the Conservatives.
On Wednesday, Trudeau told the foreign interference commission, which was established last fall, that he has “the names of a number of parliamentarians, former parliamentarians and/or candidates in the Conservative Party of Canada who are engaged, or at high risk of, or for whom there is clear intelligence around, foreign interference.”
Who these compromised Conservatives are, Trudeau won’t say. His vague allegation is based on the work of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP), which reported in June that Chinese officials interfered twice in Conservative leadership races. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre can’t do anything to dispel it, because he won’t join NSICOP. And for good reason — it’s a trap.
The committee exists outside the bounds of Parliament, legally speaking, which means its members aren’t entitled to the free-speech protections that normally protect MPs. (One principled soul, lawyer and professor Ryan Alford, is attempting to change the court’s mind on this front, but he’s so far been unsuccessful.)
To receive full, unredacted NSICOP briefings — and with them, the names of anyone suspected of being under foreign influence — one must submit to a vow of silence that, if broken, attracts serious legal consequences. Poilievre can’t accept that gag because it could hinder his ability, as leader of the official Opposition, to hold the government to account. Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair agrees with this assessment.
Trudeau has used this opportunity to insinuate that Poilievre is playing a role in foreign interference by choosing to remain wilfully blind. On Wednesday, the prime minister bemoaned that Poilievre seems to have “absolutely no curiosity or openness in trying to figure out what happened or whether someone was compromised.” Well, that would probably change if Trudeau didn’t insist on finding loopholes to strangle the speech rights of parliamentarians.
The bigger problem, though, is one that Trudeau doesn’t want to talk about: that the country, as a whole, has a foreign interference problem that has spun out of control under his watch. Canada is still reeling from the 2022 report by Global News, which alleged that 11 candidates in the 2019 election were funded by China. And in 2021, foreign meddling may have even flipped the result in one Vancouver-area riding. We’re still trying to get to the bottom of it.
The problem persists because it’s a convenience for Trudeau. It’s well known now that students from China were bussed in to tip a Liberal nomination race in favour of a particular candidate — and that despite knowing this, Trudeau continues to insist that it’s acceptable to allow non-citizens to vote in nomination races, as his party does. To most, it’s a glaring security gap. To Trudeau, it’s bait for critics, who he’s quick to accuse of racism.
This is a pattern that repeats at every opportunity: pandemics, wars, institutional integrity. In any subject area that calls for cross-party co-operation and long-term strategy, Trudeau destroys bridges and uses the rubble to bludgeon his opponents.
The COVID-19 pandemic was a time for unity — and it was, for a time — but Trudeau, hungry for a majority government, eventually used it to polarize and divide Canadian society. He attacked the small minority of unvaccinated Canadians, attempting to inflame anger against them and anyone who erred on the side of freedom over even more restrictive mandates — that is, the Conservatives.
Foreign relations, too, call for unity — but we don’t have it. To frame the Conservatives as disloyal and anti-Ukraine, Trudeau wove climate politics into his renewed trade deal with the embattled country. When the Opposition — which firmly supports Ukraine — predictably spoke out against the frivolous green clauses added to the trade agreement, Trudeau was quick to accuse them of supporting Russian President Vladimir Putin.
And now, post-October 7, Trudeau toys with Canada’s historically friendly relationship with Israel by slapping trade bans on Canadian weapons destined for the country and angling his party toward recognizing Palestinian statehood without a negotiated settlement between Israelis and Palestinians — a stark departure from Canada’s historic stance on the issue. On this front, he’s limited his attacks against Poilievre — but only as long as his poll numbers call for doing so.
Expect all this to get worse in November if Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump wins the United States election. While Canada’s relationship with the U.S. is probably our most important, it’s also a great beating stick for the Liberals to use against the Conservatives. Trudeau has attacked Trump numerous times because it serves him well, electorally, to conflate the former U.S. president with Canadian Conservatives.
The throughline of Trudeau’s decision-making is easy to see. No matter what’s at stake — whether it be long-term international goodwill or the integrity of our own democracy — he’s willing to put politics over problem-solving if it’s at all possible. He doesn’t serve Canadians. He serves himself, at their cost.