Roundup: The allegations reach Queen’s Park

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Another day, another Global news story about supposed foreign interference allegations, this time naming Ontario PC MPP Vincent Ke as someone who has been working on behalf of the Chinese government, and who was given funds to disperse for election influence. Ke denies this, but Doug Ford swiftly demoted him from parliamentary assistant to committee chair, and then hours later, Ke “voluntarily” stepped out of caucus for the time being. But there are a lot of problems with the reporting in the piece, as both Stephanie Carvin and Jessica Davis—both of whom are former CSIS analysts—point out in separate Twitter threads that are absolutely essential reading to understand why this reporting is so suspect.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1634268769697640449

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1634272246817607682

Meanwhile, former Senator Vern White is calling out the Conservatives’ characterisation of NSICOP to be the bullshit that it is, and says that it would be faster and cheaper for that committee to do the review into interference allegations than a public inquiry. He also doesn’t believe an NSICOP member leaked an unredacted report to Global news considering how strict the security is. I previously wrote a piece about the legislation empowering NSICOP and how it compares to other Westminster parliaments’ own parliamentary national security committees, and they too face redactions from their political executives—NSICOP is not out of line in that regard, not to mention that we don’t have secure places for a secret-cleared parliamentary committee to meet on Parliament Hill (which should be part of the renovations to Centre Block).

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1634335994525757440

Ukraine Dispatch:

An aide to president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that the decision to stick out the battle in Bakhmut has to do with the ability to pin down and degrade Russia’s best forces ahead of the planned spring Ukrainian counter-offensive. Meanwhile, most of the power in Kyiv has been restored after Thursday’s missile barrage from Russia.

Good reads:

  • Chrystia Freeland announced that the budget will be released on March 28th.
  • Mélanie Joly announced a ban on Russian steel and aluminium imports, and explicitly raised the call for “regime change” in that country.
  • Marco Mendicino announced that they are consulting for real this time on the possible foreign agent registry (which they’ve been promising for a year now).
  • Jean-Yves Duclos is putting his foot down against clinics that are billing extra or allowing queue-jumping loopholes, and clawing back transfers to provinces over it.
  • David Lametti has agreed to “targeted reforms” to the bail system after meeting with his provincial counterparts (and I expect they will be narrow changes).
  • Omar Alghabra approved WestJet’s proposed takeover of Sunwing, in spite of objections from the Competition Bureau.
  • Veterans Affairs has closed their investigation into veterans being offered assisted dying, citing four isolated incidents relating to a single case worker.
  • Environmental groups are suspicious that the big banks have too much say over what will be considered under incoming sustainable finance rules.
  • Her Excellency Mary May Simon wants to campaign against online abuse after facing vile comments over social media, much of it racist.
  • The Supreme Court of Canada restored a conviction for voyeurism of a hockey coach who was photographing the locker room.
  • Supreme Court Justice Russell Brown has come forward with his own version of events with regard to his allegedly being assaulted in Arizona.
  • At the Commons heritage committee, Google said they will stop blocking certain Canadian news links next week as they conclude their “test.”
  • Newly elected Liberal MP Charles Sousa was on the board of Wealth One Bank when it ran afoul of money laundering laws.
  • Former Liberal MP Raj Grewal’s breach of trust charges have been dismissed after a judge ruled there was no reasonable chance of conviction.
  • Colin Horgan worries about the innuendo and conjecture employed by the pundit class on the foreign interference file ratcheting up the claims of treason.
  • My weekend column warns that trying to impose more “safeguards” around nominations against foreign interference could end open nominations entirely.

Odds and ends:

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