David Johnston, the Prime Minister’s pick to serve as “Independent special rapporteur (ISR) on Foreign Interference,” has lived, these past two months since his appointment, in a box.
Imagine.
The box has a large clock on the wall. In moments of mild hallucination, the ISR thinks he sees a Salvador Dali image. He hears the ominous ticking. Its annoying. Pain killers don’t help.
At the door of the box sits a very helpful official from the Privy Council Office, a gatekeeper. Selected VIPs, including the PM, and political leaders from opposition parties, come and go. Hurtfully, Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader, did not visit the box. More hurtfully, he has called Mr. Johnston’s work, a “fake job.” The ISR used to like reading the Globe and Mail in the morning with his coffee, but now it just refers to him as a “friend of the Prime Minister.” Sigh, all those other accomplishments in public life, GG, University principal, dean of a law faculty, all washed away.
On a desk in the box are stacked reams of printouts of highly classified records. Four years worth of them. They spill over everywhere. The box is a mess. Sometimes the ISR imagines he is George Smiley in John le Carre’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, trying to figure out what his old boss knew about plots and moles. The consolation is fleeting. When someone whispers in his ear that his acronym also stands for “intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance” he doesn’t quite get it. Is this a joke?
The ISR knows he will need a new prescription after this job is all done. He’s made an appointment with his optometrist for October. He wonders whether he should have taken on the job.
Outside the box, a clamorous crowd, not yet with firebrands, but pretty heated. Politicians, media columnists know what they want to hear from Mr. Johnston. Public inquiry! Get it on. On the shoulders of the crowd, Mr. Poilievre and his principal spear-carriers from the ranks of the Conservative Party.
Ok, enough of this fantasy portrait (with elements of truth).
The Independent Special Rapporteur is required by his terms of reference, to submit “interim recommendations” by May 23. No Victoria Day holiday for the ISR. This comes only two months after Mr. Johnston entered the box of his own free will. Interim recommendations about what?
The terms of reference acknowledge the “challenges involved in these complex deliberations,” but cite the public interest to justify speed. Interim recommendations are to be “on the advisability of additional mechanisms or transparent processes that in the opinion of the Special Rapporteur may be necessary to answer any issues in connection with this mandate…recommendations could include the recommendation to initiate a formal public inquiry.”
https://www.canada.ca/en/democratic-institutions/services/independent-special-rapporteur/terms-conditions.html
Over to you Mr. Johnston. In an effort to escape further political damage from its handling of Chinese state election interference reporting in the media, taken up in full cry by opposition parties, the Government passed over decision-making on a public inquiry etc. to the ISR. It’s doubtful this will end the political damage, but that is for down the road, maybe as far down as the next federal election.
The key consideration in Mr. Johnston’s mandate, if looked at calmly, reasonably, is not public inquiry. That just one possible outcome—though possibly unavoidable in the media/political climate (the walls of the box do seem awfully narrow). The key is additional mechanisms or transparent processes necessary to “answer any issues…”
So what are the issues that Mr. Johnston has been asked to “answer.” They are essentially four:
The first is the “extent and impact of foreign interference in Canada’s electoral processes” (going back to the 2019 election).
The second is the work of the national security and intelligence system in monitoring the threat of foreign interference
The third concerns the interface between intelligence and policy-makers, particularly at the political level. What were decision-makers told? What did they do about warnings (or tell their agencies to do)?
The fourth is governance, especially with regard to the ability to coordinate intelligence reporting and responses across a decentralized national security and intelligence system.
Everything actually revolves around Issue #2, the work of the intelligence system. The Canadian IC (intelligence community) has the mandate to understand the first question and the mandate to exercise the third question. It is hamstrung by the fourth issue on governance.
The work of the intelligence system on foreign interference (and other current national security threats) is the thing that may require “additional mechanisms or transparent processes.”
It shouldn’t have taken a furore over media-driven and politically inspired allegations of Chinese state election interference to reach this conclusion. It shouldn't have needed the ISR.
May I just say that a CIGI special report entitled “Reimagining a Canadian National Security Strategy, published in early December 2021 had already reached this conclusion, even without leaks of classified documents! (Self-promotion alert)
Among the key recommendations, which emerged from an ambitious study of multiple national security threats facing the country, was the following:
“the government should undertake a comprehensive internal review of its national security capabilities in relation to the new threat landscape.”
This called-for study was described as “the first review of its kind on national security capabilities since the Cold War.” (That would make it the first in 30 plus years).
https://www.cigionline.org/publications/reimagining-a-canadian-national-security-strategy/
Maybe now it will happen. Maybe now we can take stock of lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, from climate change security impacts (think Canadian forest fires), from the coming and, thankfully, going, of the “Freedom Convoy,” from challenges to our economic security, from the new geopolitics, and, as a minor subset of it all, from election interference threats.
But I have no prediction for what Mr. Johnston’s interim report on May 23 will say or how broad-ranging it might be. What he has come to understand about the complex world of national security and intelligence in two short months is known only to him.
The only safe prediction is that, as an avowed hockey fan, he won’t have time to watch game 2 of the Panthers-Hurricanes epic battle on Saturday night, especially if it goes into 4th overtime again. Such are the sacrifices of public duty.
By now it should be clear that a made up job to push the issues down the road is not the solution. While you can blame leakers, political opposition and so on, the real issues remain. Compromised politicians, a compromised so called democracy by outside actors, so far not addressed. All checks and balances have failed top to bottom in my opinion. I personally believe the 2015 election was compromised, notwithstanding the next two. These are not new issues. Sam Coopers book “Wilful Blindness”, tracks CCP involvement beginning in 1986. This began in BC and has since moved across Canada. It’s called “money laundering”. That money reaches every institution and levels of government. The only surprise in my opinion, is how long it took to reach media and how naive the majority are. The fact this is only coming to light now is mind bending. As for Johnston, a person of real integrity would have passed over this job given his close connections. End of.
He will use language like "The government should undertake a comprehensive internal review...yada yada yada". And the citizens of Canada will be left in the dark forever.