Roundup: Johnston says no public inquiry

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It was David Johnston Day, as his first report was delivered, and he did not recommend a public inquiry for very good reasons—particularly that it could not be necessarily public given the nature of the information, and that it would be window dressing at this stage of the game, considering he had already done a lot of the heavy lifting, and planned to do public hearings as part of his final report. You can read the full report here, but here are the five key takeaways. There was plenty of scathing material in there, particularly to the system of information dissemination within government, but also to the way media stories torqued partial information into falsehoods (the Han Dong allegations were discredited in the report). There is a problem with information culture within government, and while this government has done a lot to fix some things, they are not adapting fast enough to the changing environment, and that is on them. (Check out some of the threads linked below as well).

https://twitter.com/JessMarinDavis/status/1661045080705187842

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1661080153122848781

https://twitter.com/stephaniecarvin/status/1661211717924188161

Johnston’s decision was necessarily a no-win scenario, and everyone is unhappy, but nobody has exactly explained how a public inquiry was going to restore trust in the democratic system—particularly as it comes under attack by bad faith actors who spent the day trying to discredit Johnston and his report (never mind that he did address the alleged conflicts and consulted with a former Supreme Court of Canada justice before accepting the job), and that no matter who would lead either the Special Rapporteur process or a theoretical public inquiry, there would be the same bad faith attacks because they don’t actually want to restore faith in the process. They want people to distrust because they cynically hope to leverage that in the next election. Pierre Poilievre in particular has refused to strike any kind of statesmanlike tone and refuses to be briefed because he knows that the moment he actually knows the intelligence and can’t talk about it, he can’t outright lie and make accusations with wild abandon, and that’s his entire shtick. But this is a fairly classic Canadian problem, where MPs don’t want to know the actual secret information, because then they’d have to stop talking, which they don’t want to do. Remember, ours is no longer a serious Parliament.

There is a conversation to be had about the role media is playing in undermining the faith in democracy, but you can rest assured there will be no self-reflection around it. Rather, there will be self-justification and rationalization, and sniping that Johnston expects us to take the intelligence he’s seen at face value, which is ironic considering that the media outlets reporting on these leaks are expecting us to do the very same thing, even though there are agendas at play within that reporting.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1661050997936996356

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1661051520018706432

In pundit reaction, Justin Ling gives a fairly balanced summation of the report with some insightful commentary. Susan Delacourt is sceptical of Johnston’s assertion that politicians and media can play their parts in restoring faith in democracy. Andrew Coyne is unhappy with the notion that we are expected to just trust Johnston (ignoring the contradiction made above), and while he credits Johnston with inviting NSICOP and NSIRA to review his findings, the same secrecy problem remains. Matt Gurney despairs at the picture of incompetence the report paints.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Following his return to Ukraine after meetings at the G7 in Hiroshima, Japan, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visted marines on the front lines in the country’s east. Over the weekend, the Russians claimed they overran Bakhmut over the weekend, which Ukraine denies, particularly as they have been reclaiming territory surrounding it. Russians are also claiming Ukrainian “sabotage groups” are crossing the border into the Belgorod region, but it sounds like these may be disaffected Russians, as Ukrainans deny involvement. Russians later claim to have “crushed” these groups.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1660291196030271490

https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1660884230174560256

Good reads:

  • Trudeau reiterated support for Ukraine after meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the G7 meeting.
  • The Globe and Mail’s leaker claims Bill Blair took four months to sign off on a CSIS surveillance request of former Ontario minister Michael Chan. Blair denies this.
  • Omar Alghabra says a new verified traveller programme will be in operation in airports by June 21st.
  • The Military Police Complaints Commission is looking into how the allegations around Major General Dany Fortin were handled.
  • Here is a look at the 150th anniversary of the RCMP, and a force that is damaged, unwieldly, and facing calls to be dismantled.
  • The workplace investigation at the AFN shows that national chief RoseAnne Archibald harassed two employees and engaged in reprisals with five others.
  • Princess Anne was in New Brunswick over the weekend for the anniversary of the oldest continually-serving Canadian regiment, for whom she is the colonel-in-chief.
  • The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed a defamation lawsuit related to criticism of a school trustee’s homophobic and transphobic comments.
  • A recently-retired Ontario provincial judge points out that if the province dealt with poverty, housing and mental health, the court system would be much smaller.
  • Susan Delacourt reflects on how it may be impossible to deal with the foreign interference file if Poilievre and others are willing to simply discredit everyone.
  • Chantal Hébert notes the sovereigntist argument against immigration in Quebec, but how it’s one that’s not gaining the popular traction they’re hoping for.
  • Paul Wells has a grab-bag of items to ponder over the next week.
  • My weekend column asks if Alberta can get over its one-party-state impulses that have governed it for eight decades when it comes to this election.
  • My column wishes we had both robust Standing Orders that give the Speaker more powers, as well as a Speaker that actually bothered to do the job.

Odds and ends:

My Loonie Politics Quick Take looks at the ad hoc committee on the Winnipeg Lab documents, and why it didn’t need to be this way.

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2 thoughts on “Roundup: Johnston says no public inquiry”

  2. I think CPC knows that many Canadians don’t really follow all the inside-baseball of Ottawa politics very closely, but that endless repetition of talking points (ski buddy! Trudeau Foundation! Election interference! Blackface! JWR! SNC Lavalin! WE! Vaccine mandates!) will eventually give Canadians the idea that something is wrong and it’s all Trudeau’s fault.
    CPC could use a Public Inquiry to create a drumbeat of a “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” scandal that would either force Trudeau to resign, or would tarnish his so-called “scandal-ridden” government so badly that he would lose the next election to PP.
    And as a side benefit, the Chinese and Asian diaspora would be so discredited and disheartened that they wouldn’t vote Liberal anymore.
    Does anyone remember the Underpants Gnomes? This would be an Underpants Gnome Inquiry:
    1. Call a Public Inquiry
    2. ???
    3. PP wins!

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