On foreign interference, Poilievre wants to stir up scandal without knowing the facts

HALIFAX—Poor Pierre Poilievre. He wants to be prime minister so badly that he has started to tell NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh how to do his job. Poilievre finds a scandal under everyone else’s pillow (under his own, of course, is a shiny bitcoin from the tooth fairy). He wants Singh to renounce his supply-and-confidence deal with the Liberals. He wants Singh’s help to force a public inquiry into alleged Chinese interference in Canadian elections despite what Special Rapporteur David Johnston had to say about that. A few things you should consider before joining Poilievre, Jagmeet: the man who is giving you orders to force an inquiry may soon be the star of a comic strip by Margaret Atwood! Here’s what she recently wrote on her Substack: “I’m tying my hands to the chair to keep myself from starting a comic strip called PP Comix, about our perky PM challenger. ‘PP and his Rage Coach.’ He does do a lot of raging. ‘P.P. and his Style Consultant.’ Should he do the front-buttoned knitted vest or not? Stop me before I harm myself. I’ll keep you posted.” Apart from wriggling on the end of Atwood’s clever pencil, think of Poilievre’s notion of what 'doing your job' means, Jagmeet. When Poilievre was in government, his idea of 'doing his job' was supporting the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act, and advising Indigenous Peoples to improve their work ethic. The first thing to ask yourself is whether Poilievre and the remnants of Stephen Harper’s army that he leads are really doing this because they believe in protecting democracy. Remember robocalls? Back then, Canadians received thousands of calls directing them to the wrong polling booths. In all, 1,394 complaints across 234 ridings—a real Batman heist. The Federal Court found that there was election fraud. Strangely, it looked like the numbers used to misdirect people came from the Conservative Party's own CIMS computer, though no proof was ever found that the party had authorized someone to send out all those electronic spit-balls. When the Council of Canadians tried to challenge the electoral hanky-panky in court, the Conservatives filed a 750-page brief asking the court to dismiss the challenges. Odd behaviour for a party so dedicated to protecting the integrity of our elections, right? Nor did they ask for a public inquiry into who allegedly tried to steal a Canadian federal election either. Funny, that. But they weren’t idle. Then-Prime minister Harper promised to come up with a spanking new electoral reform package that would fix everything. And he had just the guy for the job: Pierre the Obedient. Poilievre crafted the Fair Elections Act. It was something of a reverse miracle. He managed to make a Frankenstein doll out of a broken Barbie. The rotten tomatoes immediately rained down from all directions. Critics said the legislation made it easier to cheat and harder to catch cheaters. Instead of strengthening Elections Canada, the Harper government de-tuned it. That prompted Canada’s chief electoral officer to issue a terse critique of his own. Instead of giving Elections Canada more tools to fight fraud like robocalls, Marc Mayrand said of Poilievre’s handiwork that it “would take the referee off the ice” and make voting harder for some people. Poilievre being Poilievre, he struck back like the one-trick, attack-trained sparrow that he is. Mayrand, Poilievre said, criticized the legislation because he wanted a “bigger budget, more power and less transparency.” That, folks, is what is called projecting your own agenda onto others. You should also remember, Jagmeet, that Poilievre is asking you to dismiss David Johnston as a sycophantic hack of the PM, a flunky who loves his big per diem, and is incapable of being impartial. Be careful here. Johnston’s resumé is not the stuff that flunkies are made of. Degrees from Queen's, Harvard, and Cambridge. Constitutional expert. Chancellor of McGill University. Dean of the Faculty of Law at University of Western Ontario. And when Stephen Harper needed a governor general, who did he choose? The guy Poilievre says can’t be trusted. Which brings me to Johnston’s report. There is a lot in it that should make you pause before throwing in your lot with the "Everything is Broken" crowd. According to Johnston, both some of the political ranting and some of the media coverage had it wrong. The Trudeau government neither allowed, nor tolerated, Chinese electoral interference. Then-Liberal MP Han Dong didn’t tell a Chinese consular official to lengthen the detention of the Two Michaels. No Chinese cash found its way into the hands of those 11 Canadian political candidates—seven Liberals and four Conservatives—everyone has been talking about. Political players acted in an “excessively partisan way," and some media accounts “misconstrued” intelligence information, and in some cases just plain got it wrong. There is a way of putting Johnston to the test, Jagmeet. Since you have sensibly accepted a security clearance, you will be able to view the classified documents that formed the basis of Johnston’s conclusion that a public inquiry is not needed. Because of that, you can make an informed opinion. That stands in stark contrast to the man who wants you to force the government to call such an inquiry, despite Johnston’s report. Poilievre wants to stir-up his scandal soup without knowing the facts, probably because he realizes that once he sees the basis for Johnston’s conclusions, the heartiest of his accusations will have to be abandoned. As long as he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he can rant on until everyone is asleep. Jagmeet, Johnston has done no more than state the obvious when he says that a public inquiry wouldn’t be public at all, given the subject under investigation. Just as he had to, a public inquiry would need to take evidence in secret and keep much of the information it dealt with confidential. That’s because it’s against the law to reveal this stuff. You are a lawyer and understand that. So read the top-secret stuff, complete with the classified annex that walks you through exactly what Johnston saw that convinced him a public inquiry was unnecessary. And then it's up to you to choose the side of the canal you walk on. And remember, whatever you decide, Johnston’s homework is going to be checked. It will be examined by both the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, and the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. If that isn’t enough for you, there’s always the comic strip guy. Michael Harris is an award-winning author and journalist. The Hill Times

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On foreign interference, Poilievre wants to stir up scandal without knowing the facts

As Jagmeet Singh considers Pierre Poilievre's call to force a public inquiry, he must ask whether protecting democracy is the Conservatives' main motivation.

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