Roundup: Foreign interference commission final report released

Justice Marie-Josée Hogue released the final report of the Foreign Interference public inquiry yesterday, and there really weren’t too many surprises involved. While there have been attempts at foreign interference, it hasn’t affected the outcomes of any elections, and that our institutions have held up rather well—though not perfectly. Government has been too slow to respond in many cases, and we don’t have enough transparency around national security issues, nor is there a culture of national security in government to make these issues a priority. There has been progress, but we’re not there yet. In many respects, this report proves that David Johnston’s report was right, and we’ve spent a year-and-a-half duplicating efforts because opposition party leaders decided it was more fun to smear Johnston than take him seriously.

One of the most significant aspects was a repudiation of the NSICOP report that claimed there were parliamentarians that were somehow compromised, and Hogue went through how the intelligence didn’t actually say that, and how NSICOP’s characterisation torqued what had been alleged—and frankly, much of the news reporting torqued further because they didn’t bother to read the context in that report. Hogue also noted that much of the reporting that drove this moral panic and the subsequent inquiry was wrong, though she didn’t necessarily blame the journalists because they only had so much to go on. (Nevertheless, this should be a warning about just how absolutely credulous some of those reporters have been on this file since the beginning, and why they failed to adequately question the motives of those doing the leaking).

A couple of other notables—Hogue noted that transnational repression is probably a bigger threat, but her mandate didn’t give her the latitude to explore that, so that remains a big flag for this or the next government to address. Even more to the point, she flagged disinformation as the most existential threat to our democracy, and called for a dedicated federal watchdog to monitor and intercept foreign meddling that uses social media platforms and “AI” tools like deep-fakes. She also recommended developing digital and media literacy among Canadians, which feels a bit like a “perfect world” wish, or at least something that we may be able to impart onto the next generation but I worry that the current one may be lost in that regard.

For more, here’s a thread from Stephanie Carvin who went through the report:

In the wake of this, Pierre Poilievre has let it be known that he’s not going to take that CSIS threat reduction briefing after all, because he can’t talk about what it says, so he is once again relying on the false notion that this, or any other security clearance, is somehow going to “gag” him. It won’t, but it would mean he has to be responsible with his commentary, which he does not want to do. He wants to be bombastic, and to lie at every opportunity, and so he will keep refusing a clearance or briefings, because he only cares about “owning the Libs,” not national security or the good of the country.

Ukraine Dispatch

Overnight Russian air attacks wounded eight and damaged residential buildings around Ukraine on Monday night. Ukrainian drones are targeting power and oil facilities in the west and northwestern regions of Russia.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau and Polish prime minister Donald Tusk warn that “never again” is slipping away in the face of rising extremism and hate and antisemitism.
  • Sources™ say the government is preparing a relief package for those affected by any imposition of tariffs (i.e. we fall into a recession); some people think it’s a bribe.
  • Focus groups gave the last federal budget a big “meh.”
  • Abortion Care Canada says they may have to shut down after Health Canada did not renew their funding.
  • Jagmeet Singh is saying he could support some kind of tariff relief package, but he’s still serious about non-confidence. Look how serious he is! So very serious!
  • The Quebec government is tabling a bill to require immigrants to adopt “Quebec culture,” calling it a “moral duty,” which totally isn’t racist at all.
  • Doug Ford has called an early election on entirely false premises.
  • There was a problem with one bank around cashing the cheques Doug Ford sent out to Ontarians (and yes, he sent out cheques).
  • Alberta’s pension plan, now chaired by Stephen Harper, cut 19 jobs including the role of running their diversity programme (because it’s all MAGA karaoke now).
  • A private BC surgical clinic has to pay the government’s legal costs after losing a marathon of lawsuits to keep operating in parallel with the public system.
  • My column looks at how Nathaniel Erskine-Smith has overnight become the best communicator in Cabinet, and how the other ministers should be taking lessons.

Odds and ends:

My Loonie Politics Quick Take looks at why Doug Ford’s demand for a “mandate” to deal with Trump is really a convenient fiction.

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One thought on “Roundup: Foreign interference commission final report released

  1. While you later note how ‘absolutely credulous some of those reporters have been on this file since the beginning’, on the matter of ‘opposition party leaders decided it was more fun to smear Johnston than take him seriously’, I think it is equally important to note that it was the same media that employ said reporters also, primarily through their elder pundits, participated in smearing Mr. Johnson (because he called the media out).

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