Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s first reaction was not to comment on the content of David Johnston’s report on Chinese interference, but rather to discredit its author, “family friend” Trudeau.
It is true that this report could very well have been written in the Prime Minister’s office. He does point out certain shortcomings in the processing and transmission of security information, but the Prime Minister himself, his assistants and his ministers have committed no fault.
On the contrary, the report commends their efforts to protect Canadian democracy against attempts at foreign interference in recent years. This diligence risks leaving many skeptical, given the procrastination to which the Trudeau government has accustomed us.
If there are culprits, in the eyes of Mr. Johnston, they are rather on the side of the employees of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) who transmitted confidential information to the media, who would themselves have edited it pinpoints them by taking them out of context, not to mention the opposition, which has shown deplorable partisanship.
In short, everyone made a mistake except the government. In the same way that there is no trial if there is no crime, there is therefore no need for a public inquiry, especially since it would leave the population on its hunger, since anything that could compromise the sources of information of the security agencies and the relationship of trust with Canada’s allies would have to be silenced.
In reality, everything rests on the credibility of Mr. Johnston, who invites the reader of the report to a real leap of faith. His assessment of each instance of interference revealed by the media is invariably preceded by the same sentence: “I have assessed the information relating to this allegation and interviewed the representatives of CSIS, the [conseillère à la sécurité nationale et au renseignement (CSNR) Jody] Thomas, former CSNR, BCP security personnel [Bureau du Conseil privé] […], as well as the Prime Minister and the ministers concerned. I can therefore state the following.”
Not only did Mr. Johnston’s report give complete absolution to the Prime Minister, he also became his accomplice by setting a bear trap in which Mr. Poilievre, as well as the leader of the Bloc Québécois, Yves-François Blanchet, immediately refused to throw themselves.
By proposing that the leaders of the opposition parties be empowered to see the confidential information on which he based his conclusions, Mr Johnston could not have been unaware that this would condemn them to silence.
Better still, he suggests to Mr. Trudeau a response to their refusal to be muzzled: “The question that concerns us is too important for a person who aspires to lead Canada to intentionally maintain a veil of ignorance. »
It is easy for the Prime Minister to denounce those who engage in personal attacks against the former governor general because they are unable to invalidate his conclusions. The problem is that they would be unable to explain why they contest them without disclosing information that they would have agreed not to reveal.
In reality, the opposition is less interested in the Chinese interference itself than in how the Trudeau government reacted to it or not. However, Mr. Johnston has clearly indicated that this will not be the subject of the public hearings he proposes to hold over the next few months.
“These hearings will not be used to determine who knew what, or what actions the individuals in question took,” reads the conclusion of his report. He believes he has answered this question adequately and does not intend to come back to it. Rather, he wants to look at how to better counter foreign interference in the future.
Mr. Johnston is right on one point: “When the government holds a public inquiry, it believes that the necessary transparency in the public sphere carries more weight than the ineffective policies of public inquiries. »
In the case of Chinese interference, a public inquiry would probably have neither transparency nor effectiveness. Regardless, that will not prevent the opposition from continuing to demand one with renewed insistence, knowing full well that the Trudeau government’s refusal will be interpreted as further proof of its turpitude.
The challenge will be to maintain the population’s interest in an issue that remains far from their daily concerns. It would be surprising, to say the least, if the opposition parties got together to bring down the government. The public hearings proposed by Mr. Johnston will end next October. Unless new leaks bring the subject back to the fore, public opinion will eventually move on. If so, Mr. Trudeau can say a big thank you to his friend Johnston.