Next week we’ll learn what advice former governor general David Johnston has given to Justin Trudeau to deal with the tentacular issues of Chinese government interference in Canada.
Make no mistake: Johnston has absolutely no decision-making powers, despite the high-sounding title of "Special Rapporteur" with which Trudeau saddled him.
Trudeau often says that he’s waiting for Johnston’s decision. That’s just more poppycock in a dossier filled with coverups, stonewalling and outright deception.
Under Canadian law, the only entity that can decide to hold a commission of inquiry is the federal cabinet chaired by… Trudeau.
It’s Trudeau’s decision. Period.
We've had weeks on end of Trudeau sycophants and grandees parading before parliamentary committee. A panel of very senior civil servants gave what Trudeau called an objective analysis of the possible effects of Chinese government interference in the 2019 and 2021 elections.
They could’ve entitled their report: "Nothing to See Here, Move Along."
One key "talking point" has been that the results of the elections weren’t affected.
THE EFFECT WILL NEVER BE KNOWN
That may be true. If the Conservatives had won, in 2021, the 10 seats they may have lost because of Chinese government interference, they still wouldn’t have won the election. To that extent the result wouldn’t have changed. But Trudeau would've had a weaker minority and the effect on parliamentary and democratic life will never be known. That’s the whole point.
There was also the obvious problem that senior civil servants are by definition subservient to the prime minister. But, worry not, their homework was going to be reviewed by an equally "independent" and very experienced former senior civil servant, Morris Rosenberg.
Problem was, of course, that despite his excellent resumé, Rosenberg was the president and CEO of the Trudeau Foundation when it received money from sources associated with the Chinese Communist Party. That foundation has been at the centre of controversy since that information became public.
Similarly, Johnston, a truly exceptional Canadian, had a key role at the Trudeau Foundation just prior to being named Special Rapporteur. He should have stepped aside the minute it became clear that he’d have to be giving advice on whether or not to investigate the foundation where he’d just recently been active.
He’s chosen not to and that is predictably going to lead to further questions when he does provide his advice next week.
The brilliant Katie Telford, Justin Trudeau’s chief of staff, showed up to testify in committee but wouldn’t answer any questions .
Telford wanted us all to know that she loved members of Parliament and has helped so many of them over the years but she couldn’t say anything at all, though she would’ve loved to!
My personal favourite, Alexandre “Sasha” Trudeau – a member of the Trudeau Foundation and younger brother of the prime minister -- also made an appearance and promptly threw the former president and CEO of the Trudeau Foundation, Pascale Fournier, under the bus. Despite having worked with her for years, her thinking was apparently now all foggy.
Fournier had asked that those board members who’d been involved during the Chinese transactions, recuse themselves from deliberations concerning the matter. When they refused she and several other board members resigned. In Sasha’s telling, she had it all wrong. After all, the Foundation Board chair, Edward Johnson, believed it wasn’t necessary and he’d been at Power Corporation for years. Between an experienced older guy and, well, a woman…which one knows more, eh?
Then the stuff really hit the fan with the revelations that MP Michael Chong’s family had been threatened for his role in condemning the Chinese government’s human rights abuses. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Trudeau and his hapless public safety minister, Marco Mendicino, couldn’t keep their story straight for a nanosecond. They stonewalled for two days in the House. Then they tried their old trick of blaming the messenger. It was the fault of CSIS: they had failed to send the information on Chong up the chain of command.
Chong quickly revealed that Trudeau’s own top security adviser said the PM’s crew were indeed briefed. Telford had affirmed Trudeau reads everything. Funny he wouldn’t read the report about a foreign government threatening a sitting MP.
We’re now learning that other MPs may have been similarly targeted. What did Trudeau know and when did he know it? That’s the key “Watergate” question he’ll be getting if and when the Commission of Inquiry finally gets going.
When Trudeau exchanged words with Chinese President Xi Jinping during the G20 summit in Bali last fall, his staff proudly put out that Trudeau had been giving him a piece of his mind over interference in Canadian elections.
When our prime minister got back to the House, inquiring minds wanted to know more. It was then and there that it became clear that Trudeau knew a lot but had reason to avoid letting anything else out. It was too late. He’d said too much and…not enough.
Trudeau is playing the clock right now. His only goal is to remove debris from the runway so he can launch his next campaign. The issue of Chinese government interference in Canadian elections and politics is, of course, the biggest piece that has to be dealt with. If he can’t remove it, he’s got to pull a David Copperfield, and convince enough people it’s disappeared. The best way to do that is to hand it off to a commission knowing it’ll be many months before it can get into gear and start hearing witnesses. Johnston even has an obscure second part to his mandate that could see him rag the puck until Halloween!
TRUDEAU IS PLAYING HIS POLITICAL CAREER
Trudeau, true to form, will likely try to name Canadians who are otherwise credible, but not truly independent, to be the commissioners for the inquiry.
Trudeau is playing his political career here. Canadians have a healthy skepticism about the government’s story and want to know why it keeps changing. The lead author of many key articles on Chinese government interference, Robert Fife, has opined that Trudeau wants to keep as much as he can under wraps because the Liberals knew about this malfeasance, but did nothing because they were the prime beneficiaries. If that gets confirmed it will put a hole in the Liberal ship below the waterline.
Trudeau’s immediate playbook will in all likelihood include prorogation of the current sitting just prior to the summer recess. That way, Trudeau won’t have to deal with those pesky parliamentary committees the opposition parties could keep going all summer. With prorogation, those committees lapse along with any unadopted legislation and nothing can happen in the House until a new throne speech.
There will be pushback, because the Liberals had hollered and wailed when Stephen Harper pulled the prorogation plug. Trudeau knows he will also gain irresistible advantages and won’t hesitate. He and his ministers would still have their roles. They could travel about the country all summer on the public dime, making all the announcements they want.
Trudeau will have a crucial yet simple decision to make: does he call the election before the required throne speech, the better to ensure Pierre Poilievre doesn’t get back his megaphone in the House, or does he continue to play for time and hope for improvement in the polls? The more time Poilievre gets, the better he appears to be doing in Liberal strongholds such as the Greater Toronto Area. Going early has its risks but so does giving more time to an energized Poilievre.
The China file has more twists and turns to it than any political soap opera we’ve seen in Canada since the sponsorship scandal. It was the Gomery Commission of inquiry that sank the Liberal ship for years after that debacle. Trudeau knows his party’s history inside out. He also knows that his decisions on an inquiry could lead to another long period of darkness for the Liberals if he doesn’t get it right.
Trudeau loves going “all in,” and that moxie often pays off. But, for the first time, he and his handlers appear unable to bluff their way out. Poilievre could wind up the big winner.
Tom Mulcair was the leader of the federal New Democratic Party of Canada between 2012 and 2017
