The Foreign Interference Commission will have Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the witness stand this afternoon as it reaches the end of nine days of public hearings. Then it must rush to publish its first report on May 3.
Although this is meant to be a fact-finding, quasi-judicial inquiry, the day will have a high degree of political theatre.
What can we expect? The PM will defend his government’s record in monitoring foreign interference in Canada’s elections. He will insist, and reassure Canadians, that the 2019 and 2021 election outcomes were not affected by foreign interference attempts and were “free and fair.” He will defend his government’s actions in not interfering in the nomination of MP Han Dong in 2019 and in not issuing any warning to the public about foreign interference attempts during the 2021 federal election. He will dismiss claims that foreign state illicit money went to candidates in 2021. He will roundly denounce foreign state interference in Canada’s democratic practices. He won’t call foreign interference an “existential” threat, as some CSIS briefing notes have described it. He may even draw on some notes that his Chiefs of State, Katie Telford, revealed to the Commission in testimony yesterday, to the effect that foreign officials’ “bragging” about election interference is not the same as action. He will say that Canadians need to remain vigilant and that diaspora communities will be protected against threats. That will be the defensive play.
Expect some offense.
Trudeau may well remind Canadians that his government, unlike past Conservative regimes, actually created mechanisms to ensure the protection of Canadian elections from foreign interference, having taken stock of global developments that followed Russian interference in the US 2016 presidential election. He may denounce the Conservative party for misleading Canadians about the reasons why its lost the election in 2021 and remind the party that it was unpopular stances around vaccine mandates and the gun registry that cost it seats, not Chinese foreign interference. He may call out particular foreign states, such as China and India, for their foreign interference attempts and warn that that Canada will be vigilant and will not hesitate to take action (of some sort). He may denounce leakers of classified documents. He may even highlight misleading media reporting based on leaks.
Will the PM be inclined to throw his own intelligence community’s actions under the bus? Suggest that he could have been better informed or informed in a more timely manner? That seems unlikely to me. It would be a bad political play which makes his government and his leadership vulnerable. But expect to hear words to the effect that he is confident his national security and intelligence officials are working hard to ensure effective collection, assessment and reporting on any foreign interference attempts and will improve their capacity for doing so.
Any gestures of political reconciliation? The PM may well indicate that his government has taken steps to ensure that all Parliamentarians of whatever political stripe are promptly informed about any foreign interference attempts against them and that, in future, during an election writ period (think late summer 2025), there will be enhanced efforts to ensure that political parties are kept fully in the know.
As the Hogue Inquiry is now constituted, with counsel for political parties and interests fully represented with cross-examination powers, expect energetic political attacks on the PM. Attacks for burying his head in the sand about foreign interference; for failing to warn Canadians about interference attempts in 2019 and 2021; for putting his party’s interests ahead of the interests of the country; for blithely ignoring those Canadians who were the targets of foreign interference; for not recognizing, in the words of Erin O’Toole, that every effort to suppress the vote of any single Canadian matters.
All in a quasi-courtroom setting, but really just another day in Parliament for the PM.
At the end of the day, how much will the PM’s defence and offence prevail. How many bruises will counter-punching by the political parties leave? How much will it matter?
Will the day be weighed beyond the headlines?
It will be up to the Hogue Commission to tether political theatre to reality in its first report on May 3. Good luck to it.
And a PS. Although today was meant to be the final day of hearings, there is a coda. The CSIS Director is to be recalled for a video session on Friday (the Library and Archives Canada room was not available) to explain his failure to deliver saltier language in a briefing to senior officials on foreign interference. Failure to speak truth to power or a better sense of the truth?
Interesting how the bogus 2016 "Russiagate" election interference allegations are still being used by the left. As if America has never interfered in the internal affairs of other countries.
Experience tells me that I will believe little of what I hear from Trudeau and his minions. He and they have shown too many times that they put the Liberal party first, absolutely.
Trudeau has shown that he hasn’t even a nodding acquaintance with the truth time and again.
It is disgraceful that he will believe Katie Telford’s take on the warnings from CSIS, not the actual security organization. Staggering, actually. I could go on and on.
How this person is still our Prime Minister shows what a servile country we are. In the UK or Australia, he would have been booted out if he had not resigned soon enough.