Roundup: Johnston’s day at committee

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As expected, David Johnston’s testimony at the Procedure and House Affairs committee was largely a three-hour exercise in partisan showboating, most especially typified by the fact that Jagmeet Singh decided to make a personal appearance at committee so that he could get clips of himself haranguing Johnston, like he tried to do with Galen Weston (and looking like a fool for the most part considering he made the big song and dance about getting thousands of questions from Canadians and asking none of them). In fact, there were almost no actual questions on foreign interference over those three hours, because of course there weren’t.

Once again, Johnstone disputed the claims that he is biased, or in any number of conflicts of interest, and further made the point that he believes the vote in the House of Commons about him was based on false information. (Also, the House of Commons has been known on several occasions to hold these votes on risible matters, especially if they think they can embarrass the government, while the only votes that really matter are confidence ones, and that’s not going to happen). He said that he didn’t reach out to MP Han Dong before he cleared him in the report, in part because of Dong’s lawsuit and because he read intelligence that countered what had been reported. (I’m also not sure why that would have been necessary if the point of the exercise was to review the intelligence). He also made it clear he didn’t see every single document, because that would be impossible, but that the intelligence services were entirely forthcoming.

One of the things we ultimately need to grapple with in this story, which media outlets are incapable of doing, is that this is a process story. It’s almost entirely a machinery of government issue in terms of intelligence dissemination and consumption, and that’s unsexy and difficult to explain, so instead, the focus remains on Johnston himself, and making details about what the government did and didn’t know as lurid as possible, helped along by the fact that the leaker(s) is shaping the narrative in a particular way, using draft documents that contained items not found in the final documents that were pushed up the chain, and there is almost certainly intention behind that, which again, there has been absolutely no self-reflection around on the part of the media organisations doing the reporting. Instead of stopping to ask if they’ve been played, they rationalise and justify. And because this is a process stories, and mainstream outlets are allergic to those, this whole affair just spins further into both-sidesing the meathead partisanship on display.

Ukraine Dispatch:

With the explosion at the Kakhovka Dam, there is now an evacuation effort underway as the region begins to flood, with 22,000 people in areas in most danger. It could also have repercussions for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which uses that water for cooling operations. There is concern that this could forestall any Ukrainian counter-offensive in the region. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the dam attack is an “environmental bomb of mass destruction,” and  has already approached the Hague about the incident. Zelenskyy also said that Ukraine is awaiting the final agreement on acquiring F-16 fighter jets. Russian, meanwhile, have been shelling an ammonia pipeline in the Kharkiv region, which has been part of the Black Sea deal around exporting grains and fertilizers.

Good reads:

  • Documents show that Justin Trudeau told Liz Truss that the bar for entry into the CPTPP was high in order to keep China out (because they don’t live up to promises).
  • Bill Blair has reiterated again that there are sufficient federal resources to assist in combatting wildfires if current projections hold.
  • François-Philippe Champagne says that Stellantis has what they need in order to decide whether or not to carry on with their battery plant.
  • Sean Fraser announced that low-risk travellers from thirteen more countries can come to Canada visa-free.
  • Dominic LeBlanc says he will consult intelligence agencies as he determines whether MP Han Dong should be allowed back into caucus.
  • A Conservative filibuster at immigration committee means that certain people with connections to Canada may not get citizenship restored after a 2009 change.
  • Pierre Poilievre is railing about changes to sentences after the Paul Bernardo transfer, never mind that there is a reason politicians should not be involved.
  • Susan Delacourt details how David Johnston’s attempts at damage control are not working out, no matter how many communications firms he works with.
  • My column looks at things MPs could be doing right now to deal with foreign interference if they weren’t so invested in their meathead partisanship.

Odds and ends:

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One thought on “Roundup: Johnston’s day at committee”

  1. Paul henderson, the editor of the Chilliwack Progress, was fired for uttering his truth. He was assassinated by the Religious right aka. the Chilliwack Dutch christian mafia who tossed away their long cherished adages, “the truth will set you free” and “to err is Human, to forgive is divine. There appears to be no recognizance of these ethics in the HOC.

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