This is the ad the opposition has been dreaming of. Against all odds, David Johnston extended the ordeal of gout.
The special rapporteur appointed by Justin Trudeau is a former law professor, and it shows.
He behaved as if addressing a coldly rational judge. He was looking for the right mechanism to find the truth without revealing confidential information. But in this process, he forgot that the problem is not only that the population believes it does not know enough. She also has the impression that things are being hidden from her.
At the same time, it was necessary to shed light for the experts and restore public confidence. However, Mr. Johnston was only interested in the first aspect.
Instead of untying the crisis, he thus pulls on the knot.
Mr. Johnston summed up the crucial questions about Beijing’s interference well: who knew what, and since when? What has been done? The answers depend on secret information. For reasons of national security, we cannot talk about it openly. The public inquiry is impossible, he concludes.
He adds that the government did not hide or ignore threats. What happened ? Mr. Johnston cannot say that publicly. State secret.
Mr. Johnston knows that many will doubt his conclusion, so he is commissioning a report on his own report. It is the parliamentary national security committee that will cross-check his work.
There will be a public inquiry, but on a more specific subject: the way in which the government and the authorities reacted to the mediatized attempts at interference.
Both for this counter-report and for the investigation with a limited mandate, Mr. Johnston is perpetuating the crisis of confidence by relying on people or authorities that have already been criticized.
He chose himself to lead the public inquiry. However, the Conservatives are attacking his credibility. They exaggerate the links between MM. Trudeau and Johnston – these so-called “cottage neighbours” actually had second homes separated by 55 km, between Val-Morin and Mont-Tremblant.
Mr. Johnston, former Governor General appointed by Stephen Harper, was a member of the Trudeau Foundation. He defends his integrity with reason and conviction. But whether he likes it or not, his appointment has been politicized. Instead of entrusting the continuation of the investigation to another person just as competent as him, he persists. Even though ex-Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci concluded he was not in a conflict of interest, public perception matters. If he had passed the torch, the discussion would have been more serene.
Johnston’s other risk is to defer to the committee of parliamentarians and the oversight office responsible for national security and intelligence. These two bodies will validate the rapporteur’s conclusion on the absence of government negligence. For this, they will have access to confidential information.
“Parliament must do its job,” insisted Johnston, tapping his finger on his desk. That is precisely the problem: Parliament is malfunctioning. These committees report directly to the Prime Minister, who leads a minority government and does not have the confidence of the Conservatives.
Mr. Johnston erred in idealism. Today he looks like a gentleman lost in the mire of politics.
Mr. Johnston relativized the content of the leaks on Beijing’s attempts to interfere in the Canadian elections.
Intelligence work is not an exact science. Some information is good, some is not. The history of intelligence agencies, in Canada as in other countries, is littered with errors.
According to the special rapporteur, the leaks would have quoted elements out of context. They would also be dangerous. Our allies are losing confidence. They wonder if Canada is trustworthy when it comes to intelligence sharing. While source confidentiality is crucial to journalism, when used to advance hard-to-verify claims, it can serve individuals with nebulous motives.
Would a full public inquiry have made it possible to examine the entire file, instead of relying on the revelations disseminated in dribs and drabs?
No, argues Mr. Johnston. Confidential information should not be shared with the public.
On this, the experts do not agree. Richard Fadden (ex-head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service), Jean-Pierre Kingsley (ex-director general of Elections Canada) and Artur Wilczynski (ex-director general of intelligence operations at the Communications Security Establishment) believed that this exercise could have been carried out with certain safeguards.
Others, like Ward Elcock (ex-boss like Mr. Fadden of CSIS) and Thomas Juneau (associate professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa), were skeptical.
Mr. Johnston’s warnings are therefore understandable. His solutions, however, will not be enough to restore public confidence. It’s hard to believe the leaks will stop.
Justin Trudeau did not help himself. He chose a special rapporteur open to opposition attacks and he postponed a decision he dared not take himself.
While the experts themselves were divided, the Prime Minister took a huge risk by deferring to one individual and giving him a veto.
Mr. Trudeau says he wants to respect institutions, but there is surely a less masochistic way for him to do so.