Tag Archives: CSIS

Roundup: A foreign interference inquiry after all

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The announcement finally came down yesterday that the government will be launching a public inquiry into foreign interference, with terms of reference that include China, Russia, and any other state or non-state actors whom they see fit, and that this will be expected to have an interim report by the end of February next year, with a final report at the end of the year. Leading the inquiry will be Quebec Court of Appeal justice Marie-Josée Hogue, who has no national security experience, but says she is “honoured” to lead the exercise (though that is not what I would be feeling). The choice of judge and the terms of reference are apparently all unanimously agreed to by the government as well as the three main opposition parties, which is in part why it took so long, but there are still a few red flags, particularly around the timeline. It doesn’t seem either remotely possible or even plausible that the bulk of the work can be completed in five months (Hogue doesn’t start until the 18th), considering how much time it will take to stand up the inquiry’s infrastructure, and for her and her staff to be properly briefed on how to read top secret information and how to contextualise intelligence. This having been said, Dominic LeBlanc says the government will turn over any Cabinet documents she needs, and Justin Trudeau says he’ll willingly testify before said inquiry when asked to, so they’re certainly making a big show about cooperation.

As expected, the opposition parties fell all over themselves to take credit for this, and chided the government for why this took so long to get to this point, as though they weren’t a big part of the problem, most especially in trying to find someone to lead this process who was willing to do the job and subject themselves to the likelihood of daily character assassination in the process (because as much as they say they’re all in favour of this, the moment they think they can score points off of what is happening, they will have zero hesitation in being ruthless in doing so). Already Twitter was abuzz with her political donation history (Conservative), who appointed her to the bench (Peter MacKay), and her previous law firm (which has Liberal and China connections), so you can bet that there will be those who won’t hesitate to move into character assassination at a moment’s notice.

In related news, LeBlanc says he’ll be meeting with MP Han Dong in the near future to discuss his future and whether he’ll be able to re-join the party given the allegations against him, which David Johnston found to lack credibility in his report. It sounds like LeBlanc hasn’t had the time to deal with this with everything else going on over the summer, so we’ll see where that leads.

Programming note: It’s my birthday this weekend, so I’m going to make it a long-ish weekend on the blog. See you next week!

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians attacked the Danube port of Izmail for the fourth time in five days, damaging more grain silos and critical infrastructure. Ukrainian forces are gearing up air defences in preparation for another winter of attacks on their energy systems and power grid. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has tasked his new defence minister with rebuilding trust after a series of corruption allegations in the defence forces, particularly around procurement. Ukraine is also calling for more international pressure on Russia to return the children they have taken from Ukraine over the course of the invasion.

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Roundup: Hybrid sittings are now permanent, and Parliament will suffer

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I knew that this was now inevitable, but that doesn’t mean it’s still not infuriating. After invoking closure and ramming it through with little debate, the government has forced through the changes to the Standing Orders that will make hybrid sittings permanent. The government has ignored all criticisms about this move, and blinkered itself to the supposed benefits to this system that are largely a false economy, because it “feels progressive.” They tried to force this before the pandemic, and they certainly didn’t let a good crisis go to waste.

The biggest losers out of this are the interpretation staff. Working by Zoom is an absolute killer for them, both from acoustic injuries because MPs can’t be arsed to use their headsets properly most of the time, or simply ignore those rules when it suits them (as the Conservatives did when they pretended to have issues with their voting apps), and because the cognitive load from interpreting this way burns them out. The Speaker, meanwhile, can’t be bothered to enforce rules or guidelines, and merely gently chides MPs that they should be nice to the interpreters, but with no consequences, these behaviours continue undaunted. We’re now accelerating toward a crisis of bilingualism in Parliament because they can’t just hire more interpreters. They’re not graduating enough at a rate to overcome attrition even before the injuries, and fewer of them are going to stick around in order to expose themselves to injury and the possibility of permanent hearing loss. It’s morally repugnant and unconscionable that MPs behave this way, treating the interpreters like furniture, but they’re still in the fuck around stage. They’re going to find out really soon, and Parliament is going to be in a genuine crisis, because the Liberals and NDP in particular are too self-centred to look at the harm they’re causing.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian authorities say they’re staging elections in occupied territories as a sign that they’re in control, as the Ukrainian counter-offensive makes progress but faces “tough resistance,” according to president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Ukrainian officials also say they are still advancing on Bakhmut around the north and northwest.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1669255405610909698

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Roundup: Mendicino’s future in doubt

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The political future of Marco Mendicino is in the balance as the revelation has circulated that his office was aware of the potential transfer of serial rapist and killer Paul Bernardo to a medium-security facility (designed to treat violent sex offenders) for months but didn’t inform him until it happened, made worse by the fact that the prime minister’s office was also informed, and they kicked it to Mendicino’s office to deal with. And by deal with, we’re not talking politically interfering with an arm’s length body, but at least doing something, whether it’s ordering a review or coming up with a communications plan to get ahead of it. But they didn’t.

There is a lot of talk about ministerial responsibility and accountability, and what that means in a situation like this. The assumption is always that every offence is a resigning offence, which is wrong, and Mendicino says that he’s taken “corrective action” in his office, but as the minister, the buck stops with him, and in this case, it’s a pattern of incompetence coming home to roost, and it’s not the first time, and he’s been a terrible communicator on a number of the files before him, to the point of framing things in a manner that could be construed as misleading, such as issue of “police advice” on the invocation of the Emergencies Act. Mendicino says he won’t resign, but it’s getting hard to see how “corrective action” in his office can be handled without a head rolling, or someone falling on their sword, and at this point, we are getting to the point where Mendicino should probably consider doing so in order to get ahead of things, and looking like he still has some principles left.

The other thing to consider is that he may be out of this job sooner than later, because the rumours of a Cabinet shuffle are pretty loud, and his name is at the top of the list as someone who isn’t performing well and needs to be out of their portfolio. (Also on that list are Omar Alghabra and Joyce Murray). We are at a point in the life of the government where they need a shake-up in order to try and throw off some of the fatigue that is weighing them down, and to get some new blood in some of their portfolios in order to get fresh perspectives. There’s also a major rotation of staff happening in a number of offices, which is also needed at this point. We’ll see if this situation accelerates Trudeau’s plans for when this shuffle is going to happen, which Mendicino could force by doing the honourable thing. (That said, it might mean that Bill Blair might be tasked with taking Public Safety back on, at least until a new minister can be appointed, and that wouldn’t be a good thing because he shouldn’t have that portfolio for very obvious reasons).

Ukraine Dispatch:

The Russian strikes against Odessa and Donetsk early Wednesday morning killed six and damaged dozens of homes. Ukraine’s counter-offensive is still testing Russian defences, largely in the south, as they have thus far only committed three of their twelve battalions to the operation so far.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1668981197693648898

https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1668957867301302275

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1668878494762250241

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QP: Repetitive demands for Mendicino to resign

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The prime minister was away on a Wednesday, which is unusual, as he was in Quebec touring areas affected by the wildfires. His deputy was also in town and had addressed the media earlier, but she was also absent, and with that absence, the Bloc leader also opted not to show up. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and declared that an entire generation of women will need to relive the trauma of Paul Bernardo with news that he has been transferred to a medium-security facility, and that Marco Mendicino was aware for three months, insisting that what he said was false and demanded his resignation. Mendicino said he was shocked by the news because he wasn’t informed until the day after the transfer, that it was a mistake within his office and he will take tangible action and that they always stand up for victims’ rights. Poilievre repeated his over-the-top accusation in English, and Mendicino repeated his same response, noting that there is an review process underway at Corrections. Poilievre accused him of throwing his staff under the bus, but because nobody got fired, he must be lying and needs to resign. Mendicino invited him to repeat the accusation outside of the House, and the Speaker how to call order among the yells that he already did, and when calm was restored, Mendicino accused Poilievre of misleading the House in his assertions. Poilievre insisted that Mendicino was trying to say that his staff forgot to walk down the hall to inform him and claimed he has the authority to designate all mass murders go to maximum security. Mendicino insisted that this question was a prescription for political interference, and that he was going to be issuing new ministerial directives to the Correctional Service. Poilievre again insisted that Mendicino has the power to designate prisoners, and demanded Mendicino be fired. Mendicino repeated that he is issuing new directives to the Service.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and demanded a public inquiry be launched before the House rises for the summer, and demanded clarity and not talk of a “public process.” Dominic LeBlanc insisted that he shares the desire to get to the right process, and that a public inquiry is an option provided they could find the right way to do so. Therrien insisted that they must declare it be an inquiry, and LeBlanc repeated that it could be an inquiry if it can be done the right way.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and returned to the Bernardo question, saying that Mendicino can’t keep his house in order and told him to stop waiting by the fax machine and check his emails. Mendicino said that he corrected the matter in his office. Singh switched to French to point to the testimony about Blair being meant to read the briefing about Chong, and told him to check his emails again. This time Bill Blair stood up to clarify that ministers and their offices don’t have access to the top secret network and that he was not briefed by the CSIS director. 

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Roundup: The Chief Justice gives a strong warning

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Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Richard Wagner, delivered his annual news conference yesterday, which had been planned a month ago and the timing was purely coincidental regarding the sudden resignation of Justice Russell Brown. That was not the main topic of his remarks, however—that was about the slow pace of judicial appointments as some eighty or so spots remain unfilled, and it can take up to a year-and-a-half to fill the positions of chief justice or associate chief justice in a province. And Wagner has been pretty vocal about this.

Wagner did note that the prime minister did call him after getting his letter, and said that he was going to do what he could to improve the situation, but appointments are a problem for this government. In fact, the only time they have managed timely appointments are for the Supreme Court of Canada. One of the problems is that right now, a number of Judicial Advisory Committees, which vet prospective candidates, remain empty, meaning they need to be filled before they can get to the work of vetting applications for judges. And it’s not just the courts—nearly one fifth of Senate seats are currently vacant for much the same reason. And it’s not like these vacancies are a surprise—judges typically give six months’ notice before they retire, if they don’t reach mandatory retirement. Senators also age out, the date of which is clearly known and posted, so they have absolutely no excuse for not moving fast to fill upcoming vacancies. And yet they don’t.

As you have no doubt heard me say before on numerous occasions, one of the biggest problems is that this government made the decision to rely on self-nominations for these kinds of positions, while at the same time, committing to diversifying the bench (or the Senate). But when you rely on self-nomination, the kinds of people they want to apply and to appoint aren’t applying because they don’t see themselves in these roles (because the ingrained perception is that judges or senators are old white men), meaning that they need to go out and push people to apply and that takes time. They could instead just go out and nominate people, or have their appointments committees do that work, rather than just passively waiting for applications. To add to that, there is frequently a demonstrable difference in the performance of someone who was nominated (for whom they often see it as an honour to be considered) versus someone who applies (and feels entitled as a result),  But they refuse to see this and do that work, so we’re left constantly waiting for their poor process to play out, with the resulting delays that it entails while things crumble around them.

Ukraine Dispatch:

The Russian attack on Kryvyi Rih—the hometown of president Volodymyr Zelenskyy—killed at least eleven people when it struck an apartment building. As well, Russian missiles struck Odesa, killing at least three people in the early Wednesday morning. As well, independent confirmation is starting to roll in about Ukrainian gains in the counter-offensive.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1668511155160055808

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1668523632266469377

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Roundup: Involving Elections Canada?

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The Chief Electoral Officer is talking about approaching parties about monitoring nomination races, which I have some mixed feelings about. While the impetus around this is of course the ongoing paranoia about foreign interference and the notion that Chinese agents are trying to stage-manage these contests, that’s really the least of our concerns, because more often than not, the real problem is party leaders gaming these races in order to get their own preferred candidates on the ballot. Mind you, that is increasingly becoming a quaint notion as many parties are increasingly just foregoing nomination races entirely, and the leader is simply using their powers to appoint people to nominations, which betrays the whole mechanism of grassroots politics, and the Liberals have become some of the absolute worst about this.

But seriously—Samara Canada did a study on this a couple of years ago, and it’s shocking just how much parties have put their thumbs on the scales of these contests. (It’s actually worse than the report describes because the researchers credulously believed the NDP around their own claims around open nominations, ignoring everything that had been printed about all of their paper candidates who won in 2011, who absolutely did not even visit the ridings they had been assigned to beforehand, let alone face an actual nomination battle). The drama with the current by-election in Oxford is because the retired Conservative MP is outraged that Poilievre and Scheer put their thumbs on the scale to get their friend parachuted and nominated against someone from inside the riding, which is why he’s now supporting the Liberal candidate.

The big drawback, however, is that Elections Canada monitoring these contests is likely to become even more intrusive, because parties are essentially private clubs, which is not an especially bad thing. But we also have a huge volume of registered parties in this country who will never win a seat, and if Elections Canada has to monitor all of their nominations as well, that could be a giant swelling of their bureaucracy in order to have people who can monitor every one of these contests, particularly in advance of an election call, and in the time between the election being called and the cut-off date for names to be on the ballot. I’m not sure how feasible that’s going to be. The way our laws are currently structured were done in a way to explicitly keep Elections Canada from getting involved (which is why we developed a system of leaders signing off on nominations, which in turn became abused and a tool of blackmail). So while I’m cognisant that we have a problem with nominations in this country, I’m not sure that involving Elections Canada is the right solution.

Ukraine Dispatch:

There was another round of fire against Kyiv early on Sunday, which was largely repelled in the city but a regional airfield was hit. Russian forces struck the city of Dnipro, killing a child and wounding at least 25 others in what President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says have been five hundred child deaths so far. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces keep up their operations around Bakhmut, preventing Russian forces from solidifying gains in the city itself. Russians claim to have thwarted Ukrainian attacks in Donetsk province. This as Zelenskyy says that they are ready to begin the spring counter-offensive. Elsewhere, that survey of air raid shelters across Ukraine found that a quarter of them were locked or unusable, which is resulting in some charges.

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Roundup: Danielle Smith stays, Alberta still a one-party state

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Well, Alberta has decided that it remains a one-party state, no matter how corrupted that party is, or how completely awful the leader is, and just how utterly unsuited Danielle Smith is for office, and that she has embraced all manner of conspiracy theories, or behaved in ways that imperilled democracy. While I have a full column on this coming out later today, there are a couple of things not mentioned therein that I did still want to mention.

One is that I cannot fathom how the whole “Take Back Alberta” narrative persisted. Take it back from whom? From what? You’ve been a one-party state for nearly fifty years, minus the four-year NDP interregnum that came about as a result of a perfect storm that in no way could be replicated this time around.

The NDP ran a weak campaign, and they are now comforting themselves with the fact that they have the largest official opposition in the province’s history, for what little it matters because Smith still has a majority, and they have no actual leverage to make any particular difference in the legislature. I am feeling some flashbacks to 2011 when the federal NDP formed official opposition and felt like they won the election, when they also handed the Conservatives a majority and they had no actual ability to make change or have leverage.

There is also still a particular ugliness in this election, as exemplified by the fact that the UCP candidate who compared trans children to faeces in cookie batter won by a landslide. Smith claims that she’s out of caucus “for good,” but I don’t actually believe her, and I have no doubt that after a few months in that penalty box, she’ll be welcomed back into the party because Smith believes in forgiveness, or some bullshit like that. And not nearly enough people will do any soul-searching over this, and this ugliness will fester.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Another night, another massive air raid against Kyiv and other cities in Ukraine, with more than 20 drones shot down as of this writing, and at least one high rise is being evacuated as falling debris has caused a fire. The constant nightly air attacks against Kyiv are taking a toll on its citizens (which is of course why the Russians are doing it). Russians did also allegedly hit a Ukrainian air base, plus port infrastructure in Odessa. There was also a Russian attack on the city of Toretsk in the Donetsk region, which killed two and injured at least eight.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1663350609385254912

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1663176973793861633

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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

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Roundup: Chong didn’t explain how his privileges were breached

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Conservative MP Michael Chong appeared at the Procedure and House Affairs committee yesterday to discuss the sense that his privileges as an MP—being able to do his job—were breached by Beijing’s threats to him and his family. And so, Chong gave a speech at the committee where he touched briefly on the privilege issue, saying that he wants a formal parliamentary censure of the Chinese diplomat named (and since expelled) in the situation, before going on to whole thing about the prime minister, national security, and what we should be doing in Canada. And he’s not wrong! But that’s not the point of this committee meeting. The point was to discuss his privileges being breached, and what MPs should do about said breach.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1658610455739346944

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1658615915540279297

As expected, the Conservatives on the committee mostly spent the time trying to get Chong to denounce the prime minister, and did they talk about his privileges being breached? Nope. The other thing that bothered me was that Chong kept bringing up the Winnipeg Lab issue, which is where I have lost a lot of respect for him because he has been building a bullshit conspiracy theory around it. What happened at that Lab has been extensively reported on by Dylan Robertson and others. There was no indication that there was a national security issue involving China at all, but rather a policy breach around intellectual property with the two fired scientists. Chong would know this if the Conservatives had allowed NSICOP to view the redacted documents that had been provided to them, but they have steadfastly refused to do so because it serves their narratives not to. Is NSICOP perfect? No, but it’s a very good start, and if we want to transition it to a parliamentary model, there need to be a whole lot more steps than just Parliament making a declaration (one of the most important considerations being the lack of secure meeting spaces and servers on the Hill).

So while there were interesting things raised, the point of the meeting was about privileges, and once again, a committee is being abused to go on a tangent or a fishing expedition. Committees have functions, and this one was supposed to be determining how his ability to do his job was impacted. I didn’t see really any of that in the testimony, which is all the more frustrating.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Overnight attacks against Kyiv saw 18 missiles launched, all of which were shot down—but Ukrainian forces are saying that six of those missiles were hypersonic, and that their new air defences brought them down too, which is proving the new Western systems against the supposed best of what Russia has to offer. One of the Patriot missile systems used by Ukraine may have been damaged in a strike, however. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces appear to be making more gains around Bakhmut, which they say is not connected to the upcoming counter-offensive. Elsewhere, Ukraine’s chief of the Supreme Court has been dismissed after being detained in a bribery case.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1658379904029736960

https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1658351720232108034

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Roundup: A declaration of persona non grata

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A week after the Chong revelations were made in the Globe and Mail, and two years after the briefing had been prepared by CSIS, Mélanie Joly has declared the Chinese diplomat at the centre of those revelations to be persona non grata. This declaration was made right as the Commons was voting on the Conservatives’ Supply Day motion to expel any diplomats implicated in this affair, in which all opposition parties voted for it and the government voted against, meaning that they lost (but it’s non-binding, so it’s more of an expression of opinion than anything else).

The reaction, of course, is that this is two years too late, and that the government’s insistence that this is complicated isn’t actually backed up by the Vienna Convention—though it has been said that they were likely preparing people on the ground in China for the inevitable retaliation, because China doesn’t like to do tit-for-tat, as happens with most PNG declarations, but rather they prefer to escalate. (See: the two Michaels). The Canadian Press has a brief primer on previous diplomatic expulsions from Canada.

Meanwhile, Marco Mendicino still won’t say who is either responsible or accountable for the failure to alert political actors about those Chong revelations two years ago, and is relying on vague “hostile actors” talk rather than, you know, being held to account for what is clearly a process failure within the government’s bureaucracy. That would seem to me what he should be doing as minister, because it’s been made clear that this wasn’t a CSIS problem—it was a problem further up the chain, and whether that’s because we have a poor culture of consuming intelligence at the senior levels, or because this government can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, that kind of thing needs to be addressed.

Ukraine Dispatch:

For Russia’s Victory Day, they launched one of the biggest swarms of drones against Ukraine in months, targeting mostly Kyiv and Odessa, though air defences are largely repelling the attacks on Kyiv. Russian shelling also hit two villages in the Kherson region, wounding eight people, as well as damaged the electrical grids in five Ukrainian regions. In Bakhmut, the head of the Wagner Group mercenaries says they still haven’t received promised ammunition from Russia. Elsewhere, farmers in Ukraine are having a harder time because many workers are off fighting, which is hurting their operations.

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