Roundup: The leaker comes forward (sort of)

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The big Friday bombshell from the Globe and Mail in their continued series of allegations of foreign interference was an op-ed from the primary leaker, who gave a self-serving justification for doing so, insisting that they were tired of the problem of foreign interference going ignored, and that they hoped to  ignite a conversation and that they didn’t intend for things to get this ugly. Erm, seriously? You leaked to Bob Fife, and you didn’t think he would torque the absolute life out of it? That seems dangerously naïve for an intelligence official. Even more to the point, their frustration with the pace of work is not justification for violating their oaths to secrecy (and comparing themselves to Jody Wilson-Raybould seems to be particularly ill-considered). There is an attitude of “I know best,” which former senior intelligence official Artur Wilczynski called “narcissistic,” and I did take that tone from the op-ed.

One of the things I’ve really come to recognise and have been building a series of columns around is that there is a pervasive normalcy bias in our governments at all levels. It’s why provincial governments inadvertently allowed their healthcare systems to collapse. It’s why we are now in a housing crisis nation-wide. It’s why our military was allowed to degrade, and it’s why successive governments of all stripes have not taken foreign interference seriously enough. We disbelieve and downplay threats and warnings because we’ve been sheltered for a century now under the wing of the Americans, and very little bad has happened to us in comparison to most other countries. We got lazy and complacent. That’s hard to shake, but I would say we’ve made more progress in the last five years than we have since the ned of the Cold War. And unfortunately, it’s probably going to take crises to shake us from our complacency (like what is happening in healthcare). Unfortunately, the crisis that this leaker precipitated has likely made the situation worse and not better because it’s now become a partisan battleground.

Speaking of partisan battlegrounds, yesterday we had the prime minister accusing Pierre Poilievre of “ginning up a partisan circus” and trying to take a flamethrower to our institutions in order to win power (not untrue), and Poilievre saying that the intelligence community is in full revolt because of Trudeau (and hey, it turns out it’s largely one narcissistic leaker). Trudeau also defended Johnston against the “horrific” partisan attacks, though Trudeau does deserve a measure of criticism for putting Johnston in this position. Johnston, incidentally, provided a statement saying he was working to finalise the details around his role and the mandate, so it looks like he is going ahead with it, concerns notwithstanding.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces continue to resist the Russians’ attempt to encircle Bakhmut. While this is happening, the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin, for his war crimes but most especially for his programme of forcibly relocating Ukrainian children and working to re-educate them and place them with Russian families—a hallmark of a genocide. Meanwhile, Slovakia has now pledged their 13 MiG-29 fighters to Ukraine after Poland got the ball rolling.

Good reads:

  • The Star gets the hints from Senior Liberal Sources™ about what Chrystia Freeland is putting in the budget.
  • Mélanie Joly is calling out Israel’s judiciary reforms and “unilateral actions” like illegal settlements that are threatening the peace in the region.
  • Steven Guilbeault is proposing a joint federal-provincial-Indigenous working group to monitor the contamination problem in the oil sands.
  • Sean Fraser says the plan to allow people to do an online attestation instead of a citizenship ceremony is intended as a temporary fix due to their backlog.
  • The government filed their factum in the Federal Court case challenging the invocation of the Emergencies Act, and said the court has no business rehashing it.
  • RCMP deputy commissioner Michael Duheme has been named interim commissioner with Brenda Lucki’s retirement, while a full process gets underway.
  • The RCMP prepared a “lessons learned” document after the occupation of Ottawa, and in it is a desire for a new National Police Act to “clarify thresholds.”
  • The “friendly sausage maker” who stormed the grounds of Rideau Hall lost an appeal to reduce his sentence.
  • Pierre Poilievre is being criticised for using the dog-whistling “thin blue line” graphic in a post about the Edmonton police officer deaths.
  • The Conservatives plan to use their Supply Day next week to force a vote on summoning Katie Telford to committee (using procedurally dubious means).
  • David Eby says he’s “troubled” by the reports of attempted interference in the Vancouver elections and has asked CSIS for a briefing.
  • My weekend column points out that we are now past the time where we can deal with foreign interference rationally, because there is blood in the water.

Odds and ends:

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5 thoughts on “Roundup: The leaker comes forward (sort of)”

  1. The leaker says:
    When I joined the public service many years ago, I swore an oath.

    Not to party or to person, but to my country, to its democratic institutions and to my fellow Canadians.

    Can anyone point me to this oath?

    I thought a Federal civil servant was required to take an oath of allegiance which reads like this:

    I, ……………….., do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors. So help me God.

    Maybe the leaker has been watching too much US TV?

  2. Poilievre has shown his complete ignorance over the Chinese affair and the damage his stupidity has caused. He wants to be PM. Just imagine if he were. We would become the laughing stock among our security partners, our foreign relations and our NATO and UN roles. This poser is a danger to Canada on so many fronts. You may not like the current PM but you never hear him say anything other than his concern for the security, welfare and wellbeing of Canadians unlike the Con “leader” who wants power at any cost and is lying and fabricating every day in his attempt to hoodwink the electorate.

  3. The “leaker” is utterly naive. The comparison with JWR is crazy. JWR was an MP. Leaker is a civil servant. Leaking to the media by a civil servant with the expectation things wouldn’t boil over? Utterly naive. Leaker probably has top secret security clearance. They violated the oath they took when they got that clearance. Leaker should have read the Official Secrets Act before they leaked. Leaker is now in deep doo-doo.

    If leaker didn’t like what was or wasn’t being done, they should have done the honourable thing … they should have resigned.

  4. It’s like being through the black mirror where truth is a casualty of ill-considered spycraft and political character assassination. Equal parts John Le Carré and Dr. Strangelove (or Strangehate should probably be Poilievre’s moniker). There are no facts anywhere in this story, just “torqued” allegations repeated over and over again until they become accepted as “truthiness.” Good and decent people, the PM included, and even his late father through philanthropic efforts, are having their reputations sullied and smeared in the chaos pigeon’s vomitorium, while the so-called paper of record and its various personalities continue to have sterling public reputations despite having thoroughly discredited themselves over and over. Poilievre is a rabid menace and I pray to every deity in the pantheon he does not become PM.

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