Gong show

The Right Honourable David Johnston resigns

Astonishing breaking news, on a late Friday afternoon. My first intimation was a text from a friend, clearly more attuned than I, with the title “gong show.” I have borrowed this very apt phrase (but my source must remain confidential).

David Johnston, appointed by the Government to serve as a special rapporteur on foreign interference in March, has just announced his resignation in a brief letter addressed to the Prime Minister. He blames a “highly partisan atmosphere” for impeding his work and undermining any trust in his efforts.

Mr. Johnston is not retreating from any of his findings, released in his first public report on May 23. He continues to argue that a public inquiry is “not a useful way to deal with what is almost exclusively classified information.” He underscore his belief in the value of public hearings. Most importantly, he reiterates the need to press ahead with the areas of study regarding intelligence and national security practices that he identified at the conclusion of his first report. He calls on the Prime Minister to conduct a “deep and comprehensive review of foreign interference.”

A final piece of advice in his resignation letter—”appoint a respected person, with national security experience, to complete the work that I recommended in my first report.” Ideally, he says, that person would be appointed after consultation with the opposition parties. That’s good advice—it should have been followed originally in appointing a special rapporteur. It might have saved Mr. Johnston' a world of grief and months of possibly fruitless endeavour.

Johnston says in his resignation letter that he plans to submit a “brief final report,” no later than the end of June. He wants a chance at a final word, but I am sure he knows it won’t be his.

You have to feel sorry for Mr. Johnston. He has been given the thumbs down from the crowd. His corpse has been left bleeding in the colosseum. Perhaps what he really feels most strongly from that painful, prone position is that scant attention has been paid to his actual recommendations.

Speculation will run riot, for a bit at least, about why he resigned. After all, only three days earlier, he had withstood three hours of questions from a Parliamentary committee, defended his report, and said he would not resign, in fact would not bow to assaults on his independence and integrity. Now he has.

What changed? I have no idea.

I said in a previous column that I felt that Mr. Johnston stood on a precipice after his first report. I felt the thing that would push him over the cliff and end his work would be evidence that his report had failed to properly capture the available intelligence on the nature of Chinese foreign interference in such a way that would paint him as being too disposed to the government’s position. Is there any evidence of that? Not to date.

I could speculate that Mr. Johnston was affected by Erin O’Toole’s parliamentary privilege motion last Friday, based on the classified evidence presented to him in a briefing by CSIS. Perhaps Mr. Johnston felt that if he could not win over adults in the room, like Mr. O’Toole, there was no future ahead. But this would be speculation only.

In its first account of Mr. Johnston’s resignation, the Globe and Mail reports responsibly on the contents of Mr. Johnston’s resignation letter but also implicitly pats itself on the back for speeding Mr. Johnston’s resignation. Nice try, but I don’t think there is anything in it. Over at Global News, a sober account. Mr. Cooper, their lead reporter on Chinese foreign interference, has left the media organization.

Was Mr. Johnston quietly pushed out? I can’t see it.

For what it’s worth, and it may not be a hill of beans (as I am into phrase derivations at the moment, I promise to hunt that one down), I think Mr. Johnston just decided that he didn't want to stand on a precipice for the next five months. Who would? Can’t blame him.

What next? Who knows.

But here is some free advice for their government (free advice is cheap). Promise that you will study Mr. Johnston’s first report carefully and issue a formal response to be tabled in Parliament. Stand by the first report even though it is critical. Say that you are going to consider how best to proceed and will consult with the leaders of the opposition parties about the appointment of a replacement special rapporteur. Say that you intend to wait on the reports from the two independent review bodies, NSIRA and NSICOP, and indicate that you have asked for those reports to be delivered by X date [sharpish], as they will help determine the best path forward (you don’t have to admit in the same breath that you should have done this in the first place).

Say that you will be pressing ahead with reforms to improve Canada’s capacity to respond to foreign interference and name them, dammit.

Oh, and thank Mr. Johnston for his service.