If there is one lesson to be learned from the mess of the last three months in the Chinese interference file, it is the supreme wait-and-see attitude of Canada, which seems to be in tow of the shocking revelations of the media to distribute empty comments and soft stocks. From this extreme confusion, the government of Justin Trudeau emerges featherless and indolent where one would hope for a robust reaction.
THE Globe and Mail has been weaving for weeks a very tight web from which the Liberal government is feebly trying to extricate itself. It started in March with information from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) about an alleged Chinese intrusion into the 2021 federal election; According to documents obtained by the Toronto daily, Beijing would have pressured to elect a minority Liberal government, through disinformation campaigns.
This continued with articles relating to the donation of $ 200,000 by billionaire Zhang Bin, close to Beijing, to the Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau Foundation, on which all doubts still hover. Mr. Trudeau’s detractors are trying to show that partisan ties between the government and the Foundation caused this rain of dollars to lather, itself an additional demonstration of Beijing’s desire to interfere. The Liberal government remains insensitive to grievances, and stubbornly refuses an independent public inquiry, which has been so loudly demanded.
The last chapter reminds us that foreign interference is not just theoretical petty business, but that it can have very real repercussions on people. Talk to Ontario Conservative MP Michael Chong who, according to the World, was allegedly the target of an intimidation attempt directly linked to his sponsoring a motion in the House of Commons in 2021 condemning the Chinese government’s conduct towards the Uighurs. Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei allegedly tried to intimidate Mr. Chong’s family in Hong Kong. He claims that CSIS never informed him that such threats were hanging over his family.
The Trudeau government’s most “dynamic” outburst came following these initial revelations, after which Minister Mélanie Joly announced that Zhao Wei would be expelled from Canada in retaliation – which was done just as the he opposition was preparing to table a motion demanding this expulsion. Unsurprisingly, the reaction of China was not long in coming and it immediately fired a Canadian diplomat from its territory. This type of diplomatic ballet is not common, at least for reasons such as foreign interference. But he reminds us that people can get caught up in political disputes between two nations. Canada knows something about it with the imprisonment of more than 1000 days of the two Michaels (Spavor and Kovrig), in direct reaction to the arrest of the financial director of Huawei, Meng Wanzhou.
This weekend, the Globe and Mail revealed that two other deputies were allegedly targeted by China. According to this report, former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole, a candidate for prime minister in the 2021 election, and Jenny Kwan, a New Democrat outspokenly critical of Chinese policies, are also on a CSIS list as possible targets of certain threats. . This saga does not seem to have reached its exhaustion point.
The signals would command a vigorous response and rigorous independent action. Instead, the government of Justin Trudeau multiplies pirouettes and evasions, and affirms that he did not know to explain his immobility, ignorance seeming to him the best screen for inaction. Beware of easy excuses, because invoking the blindness clause at any time comes with its downside, that of being accused of having profited from a form of willful blindness. Accountability requires doing everything around you in order to be informed of the aspects deemed essential to good governance.
Within reach, the creation of a registry of foreign agents to identify people acting on behalf of another country on Canadian soil should see the light of day, hopefully. The consultations that ended recently made it possible to hear several voices in favor of the advent of such a tool, on the model of what is done elsewhere, in the United States or Australia for example. Once again, we will not fail to recall that, faced with the confused portrait that emerges from the Canadian response to the upheavals of Chinese interference, nothing will beat the holding of an independent public inquiry, conducted by actors who have neither close nor by far was there any apparent conflict of interest.