So the question was always going to come up. How do you hold a public inquiry into matters of national security?
Shedding light on what should remain in the shadows was always going to come down to squaring the circle.
This is the reason why David Johnston waives it.
The problem is that he doesn’t even seem to have looked for a solution. Not necessary, it seems. According to him, the scandal that has been making headlines for months is a “misunderstanding”.
The secret reports on which Global News relied and the Globe and Mail were incomplete, he said, “a brushstroke on a canvas.” Tells him to have had access to the whole of the work and he is convinced that nobody has anything to be ashamed of.
Neither Justin Trudeau, nor his ministers, nor any actor from our intelligence agencies.
The real problem would be limited to the communication of information between the agencies and the politicians. This is what he proposes to explore in the context of public hearings.
If only it were that simple.
Alone in his bubble
David Johnston should never have agreed to investigate the handling of Chinese interference in the government alone.
Now that his recommendation is controversial, he asks us to take his word for it.
The concerns of the intelligence community and the inaction of the Trudeau government are enough that people have risked their careers and their freedom to sound the alarm.
But according to David Johnston, nothing to see here.
All the intelligence agencies, all their personnel, all politicians have been exemplary in their dealings with him. It would be a first in this kind of exercise!
Better than that, in two months, he has done a gigantic job. He’s seen it all, read it all about the allegations of interference in the 2019 and 2021 elections.
Difficult not to remain with the impression that David Johnston was satisfied with what the intelligence agencies wanted to show him.
Did he push to lighten the shadow areas? Did he try to figure out why Justin Trudeau chose not to confront his candidate Han Dong over China’s efforts to co-opt him in 2019?
These are, however, essential questions. But without the benefit of the cross-examinations proper to an independent investigation, we will never know if all the stones have been turned.
False victory
David Johnston’s tenure was always going to be perilous. His past ties with the Trudeau family and their Foundation maintain doubts about his independence.
He should have recused himself from the start. But it’s too late.
The worm is in the apple. And it is Justin Trudeau who inherits the problem.
Officially, he was only too happy to see himself cleared by the former governor general. But the upturn will be short-lived.
Rather than being able to shovel the scandal of Chinese interference into the hands of a public inquiry that would take months to begin its work, he will now find himself forced to continue defending an increasingly indefensible process.
Instead of buying the Prime Minister’s time, David Johnston instead added fuel to the fire.