Roundup: A broken system thwarting foreign agents

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Something in the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) annual report, made public this week caught my eye, which talked about how the “critical election incident protocol panel” – the body set up in order to have some sort of way to help deal with any detected foreign interference during an election (given the whole Russian interference thing south of the border in previous of their elections) – needs to include more traditional espionage as part of their warning triggers. Why? Because, as NSICOP says, foreign agents could try to infiltrate political parties to exert influence, whether it’s in nomination meetings, or volunteering in campaign offices.

I will admit that I laughed.

Not because foreign interference isn’t serious – because it is – but because the joke would be on them, given that grassroots members no longer have any influence in our political system since we have made the system entirely leader-driven. Nomination meetings are being gamed by leaders’ offices to the point where it’s difficult to determine just how free and fair any of them are these days – that is, when leaders aren’t outright appointing candidates (as Justin Trudeau did with Marci Ien and Ya’ara Saks for the by-elections late last year). Trying to hijack nomination contests at the best of times is exceedingly difficult because of the requirement for the leader’s signature (or their proxies, thanks to the garbage Reform Act), which was part of why that requirement was created back in 1970 – officially to keep the Chief Electoral Officer from needing to adjudicate nomination disputes, but anecdotally about heading off pro-life groups trying to hijack Liberal nominations. Foreign agents trying to use the same tactics would have fairly marginal chances of success once their involvement became known.

This is less of an indictment of the use of party infiltration as a tactic of foreign agents, but rather of how our system has degenerated. Because we insisted on moving to leadership contests that became quasi-presidential primaries, we have upended the entire grassroots nature of our parties, and now everything is top-down, leader driven. It shouldn’t be this way, and yet this is where we are.

Good reads:

  • Amidst Erin O’Toole’s attempt to push a vaccine fairy narrative, Justin Trudeau says that he has no regrets about how the vaccine procurement was handled.
  • Canada reported its first case of an AstraZeneca-related blood clot, and the US reported six Johnson & Johnson-related clots (out of 6.8 million shots).
  • Senior Liberal Sources™ are leaking more that the budget will focus on child care.
  • The government has tabled a bill that will enshrine a “right to a healthy environment” into legislation.
  • The military’s Provost Marshal insists that he is “functionally independent” from the chain of command, and says he will investigate allegations regardless of rank.
  • Maclean’s has a fascinating look at the use of outside consultants by government, and its varied reasons (though I’m not sure the public sector malaise was explored).
  • Here is a look at opposition leader demands for the budget, which include a number of forays into provincial jurisdiction – or not. Hooray!
  • Heather Scoffield delves into the dynamics at play with the Air Canada bailout and how it was influenced by the bailouts of the last financial crisis.
  • Robert Hiltz castigates lazy journalists who simply broadcast Doug Ford’s folksy nonsense and amplifying his message rather than holding him to account.
  • My column looks at how Erin O’Toole is spinning the lie that vaccines were the way out of the second and third wave, which was a mathematical impossibility.

Odds and ends:

Colby Cosh explores what is known about the Prince Philip “cult” on the Melanesian island of Tanna.

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