Prosecutions are the right response but we know they wont take place because the RCMP isnt capable of investigating. They lack the resources. They lack the skills. They lack the will. And our political leaders wont reform them. So there is no solution available through the criminal courts.
So given these truths, what shall we do? Political parties must act. They are willing and quick to expel members from caucus or to refuse candidate nominations ( how quickly would the Liberals or NDP act to expel from caucus a MP who uttered an indigenous slur, used the n word, was accused of sexual harassment. ? Surely, our political leaders can review these serious accusations and take responsible actions to ensure they are not endorsing individuals who have betrayed their country. Asking too much?
We might just be asking too much for them to be sidelined if these MPs are very popular within Canada, and accumulate a lot of votes for the party. At the end of the day, the leaders of each party have to do the right thing to not undermine Canada's democracy, Canada's national security, or Canada's election process.
As Michael Chong made abundantly clear, the Leader of the CPC-HQ does not have the power to expel an MP. I expect Michael Chong knows more than any other Member of Parliament about what can and should be done. Michael Chong is a serious MP.
Apologies: you are , of course, correct. Parties control membership in their caucus . They cannot expel an MP from Parliament. Looking ahead to the next election for the next Parliament, they can refuse to nominate a candidate, including current members of their caucus, to run as their party’s candidate.
I appreciate your concern for caution and for the upholding of court justice principles which demand evidence rather than quick but damaging allegations. I do. But I would love to see the people named in the House of Commons as i do not believe for one minute that this government is capable and willing to name the names. We need to shake things up and something needs to break the dam or at least start a small torrent of information so that the public can decide. Lets face it, we have heard these allegations for years and for years the public has consistently raised concerns in comments on news stories only to be discouraged by moderators who will deactivate accounts as spreading dis-information. There is a huge silent group of people who know things but can't speak in this woke era.
Are any MPs, past or present shaking in their boots right now, fearful of being exposed as stooge for a foreign government?
I would highly doubt it. The Government has tendencies for secrecy and stonewalling and controls the information flow through Cabinet confidentiality and heavy redacting of documents. (Notwithstanding the drip, drip, drip of leaks.)
Add interdepartmental chaos and an under resourced RCMP to the government agenda of secrecy and doubt sowing, Canadians are a long, long way from seeing any MP walking a plank.
I was astounded a few days ago reading that $110 million (from my potentially flawed memory) for some type of BS program to combat racism in Canada. This at a time when $110 million to the RCMP could do so much good to solve this problem. Trudeau and the Liberals are so out of touch. Do we not have enough DEI and woke policy, programs, funded by unwilling and/or unknowing taxpayers to just give it a rest. There are more pressing issues now surely.
Well folks, I am sure they spent a shite load checking out the Afghanistan vet from Pictou who along with a few buddies played the antihate folks - even an old lady like myself could recognize a hurting vet spouting off at a Dalhousie speech by someone given 10 million tax payer dollars , if the USA wanted to pay the kid off so be it, but my tax dollars- I think not
Likely not from the legal perspective, but from a historic perspective, I dare say that some of the reputations may not fair well at all and legacy is what many in politics cling to.
As Michel Juneau-Katsuya has stated publicly, every single Prime Minister since Brian Mulroney has been compromised by agents of influence of the Chinese communist party. (Operation Dragon Lord, Optimum)
This is a reality of the times we lived in but we seem to relive this every day!
The PRC, and other threat actors have found ingenious ways in which to co-opt our political academic bureaucratic and business elite and look no further than ‘following the money’.
I have reviewed thousands of pages of declassified, parliamentary, police and journalist reports on malign state actors linked to organized crime and it is a treasure trove of insight. 6 books later with 4 more in the offing, I can assure you that history will not look kindly on previous PM’s and Ministers who lined up to take the cash from the PRC to advance their long term objectives outlined in the 2049 Plan.
Most of the cash was legal under previous definitions (lobbying or consulting) of taking cash from Hong Kong and Beijing proxy corporations. If we get this right it this time many former politicians and business elites like Chretien, The Demarais’, Paul Martin, Mulroney and this Trudeau will be viewed in a very dim light. I am not altogether sure that Trudeau is not named in this report but his NSIA has certainly attempted to obfuscate and insulate him from being implicated.
But is incompetence a defence for our PM and some of his cabinet who over the past 18 months have been attempting to distance themselves from their wilful blindness on the CCP’s political and espionage operations inside our country.
At least in the public’s view, it is no longer ok to engage with or pass information to our friends from the PRC.
But cash to the children of leaders or setting them up in bogus businesses to receive forgivable loans etc as documented by numerous intelligence and academic sources could finger numerous former Canadian politicians was just one of the many ingenious schemes outlined in Hidden Hand by Clive Hamilton and Mareike Olberg foreword by Charles Burton.
Ah the 2015 cash for access fundraisers were the tip of the iceberg with respect to the infiltration by the Chinese communist party‘s united front and it’s oversize role in helping to shape the liberal Party make up.
(But Conservatives have there own skeletons here. )
We document this both in Wilful Blindness, and in the most recently released the Mosaic Effect, and if you read the chapter on Trudeau, you would certainly get the impression the CCP had firmly embedded itself within the highest office in the Land.
The notion we can negotiate and be friends with totalitarian regimes must cease and they need to be treated as hostile to the state ( Canada’s ) interests unless proven otherwise.
While Trudeau and company are coming to this realization. (American and NATO INDUCED) and have been shiting our foreign policy on Asia for about 2 years.
it's not enough to cover up the stench of this scandal which Useful idiots, willing participants (who loved the fantasy spin by Beijing) played an oversized role in. Many movies and documentaries will be made of this time
Interesting standards in naming and shaming. Someone, who can’t be named, alleges a General officer in our military did something sexually inappropriate twenty years in the past and that the military police are investigating. There is no concrete evidence or charge to date, simply an allegation. The officer’s name is plastered across the media, career is slammed to a halt and likely over even if there is no charge resulting from the allegation. What is the difference beyond one being able to hide behind ‘the protecting intelligence’, too readily used excuse.
I grow tired of, ‘we can’t do this, we can’t do that’, without defining what can be done. We have become a country lacking the will to defend itself. Stop excusing that lack of will with hand wringing over lack of means.
An MP takes an oath to king and country, and that includes not being treasonous. Our MP's have a duty and obligation to take action to expel any government official, elected or hired, who commits treason by giving our secrets to foreign nations or doing their bidding. This obligation exists regardless of how hard Justin Trudeau and the Liberals try to cover this mess up. It's time for all MP's to do their duty to Canada.
Perhaps I have spent too many days, in too many hearings, in which litigants assert a plausible and often worrying “story”, for which, in the end, there turns out to be inadequate proof - on the balance of probabilities, let alone on the more exacting criminal standard.
Moreover, some readers will recall the herculean efforts expended by police to get to the bottom of the Air India murders - without success, but raising understandable concerns, about the competence of local police, and about the sympathy, or investigatory zeal, of politicians who might benefit from diaspora politics.
And of course neither the word “intelligence” nor the word “evidence” have any settled meaning outside the context in which they are being used; and in a legal context, it has a very particular legal meaning.
Thus, “Show me the evidence” is a reasonable request to make; and it isn’t necessarily answered by the reply “here is a document affirming that someone said that something nefarious happened”.
Which, being hearsay, (probably) is only the beginning of “legal proof”.
And that is quite apart from impediments to revealing how you came to know about the allegation in the first place and whether it can be disclosed: the particular source of this information, and the protections, if any, for “confidential” sources or informants.
***
That said, it is important to remember that political parties are run on the same legal principles as private clubs, so that they typically have the ability to expel members, or demand resignations for behaviour that compromises the image, or the interests, of the party - as the party defines it; and the alleged fault need not be criminal or even justiciable. [Subject to some club law and church law, which I will not get into].
That is how, not so long ago, a couple of Ontario Tory MPPs got bounced: one just for being a mouthy maverick and another for refusing to get vaccinated. And remember what happened to Carolyn Parrish, once a Liberal star, who became too overtly anti-American?
Accordingly, whether or not “Parliament” can act, or criminal sanctions are available, the political parties are certainly able to take action; and there is no necessity for trials or issues about someone having a “right” to their “day in court”.
What matters is whether the party believes that it is in its own interest to distance itself from the behaviour that is under a cloud.
Indeed, isn’t that how both Sarah Jama (a provincial MPP) and Han Dong, (federal MPP) got booted from their respective caucuses?
And what about the travails of Scott Andrews or Massimo Pacetti who were suspected of impropriety?
So, in my submission, the tools are probably there to deal with this issue on the political level; and we must look elsewhere for the reason for inaction. Which is likely “political” self interest and may explain the appetite to just kick the can down the road.
Because of course, politicians don’t want to deal with the problems within their own ranks, particularly when it comes to the benefits of vote harvesting, by pandering to ethnic communities; so, in the result, it appears that in this case, they plan to punt the problem to a public enquiry that, in practical terms, will not be able to deal with it either; and certainly not in a timely way.
Great analysis Wesley and would be on point but for one problem; our institutions are totally and willfully incapable (or worse unwilling) to confront this issue head on and do the hard work necessary to root out the rot in our politics. If we had a robust counter intelligence service, if the RCMP had the resources necessary to conduct spying investigations, if our parliamentarians were serious people who viewed the world with a "Canada first" lens, and if our courts were fully staffed to hear the cases in a reasonable time, then we could get to the bottom of this. But this is Canada and everything is "too hard" to do right.
In all due respect sir, as a Canadian citizen who understands the innocent until proven guilty Schlick , the Coutts boys spent 0ver 900 days in remand to be found not guilty on charges of conspiracy to commit murder- I prefer to know the names of the compromised- “even allegedly” characters - who are dipping their fingers in other cookie jars, particularly given that during the past few years getting a response from a polico has become almost a full time job.
Why do you think it’s treason? That provision only applies to military and scientific information, and we have no idea what information was shared. SOIA strikes me as a more likely offence, but even that is probably a stretch.
Why do I have a hard time believing anything coming from the mouth of the dude( who I voted for) saying to mandate a jab would be UN Canadian AND then ranted and raved about boats and planes- I promptly gave up my long time - think Pierre Elliott time- liberal membership
Oh Barry, I am in Nova Scotia , perhaps it would be of interest to check out the last RCMP head honcho, Brenda Luckie and then tell me JT and his ilk, doesn’t direct anything -
I do not want Pierre Poilievre muzzled by this. If Blanchet caves, that leaves Mr. Poilievre as the ONLY opposition member doing his job of attempting to hold this wretched government to account. Trudeau has had this information since MARCH! As to the intelligence isn’t evidence argument, Trudeau ignored intelligence regarding Han Dong, a popular and ultimately winning Liberal candidate (Katie Telford deemed the intelligence inaccurate); however, he stood in the House of Commons and accused the India Government of murdering a Canadian - based on intelligence that was not evidence. This Trudeau government ALWAYS wants it both ways - keep the cake, but eat it. The RCMP is slow, has been shown to be not equal to the task of investigating foreign interference, has a failure to communicate with the security agencies, and appears to be completely captured by the Liberal government. NAME THE NAMES AND THE NATURE OF THE ALLEGED INVOLVEMENT.
Prosecutions are the right response but we know they wont take place because the RCMP isnt capable of investigating. They lack the resources. They lack the skills. They lack the will. And our political leaders wont reform them. So there is no solution available through the criminal courts.
So given these truths, what shall we do? Political parties must act. They are willing and quick to expel members from caucus or to refuse candidate nominations ( how quickly would the Liberals or NDP act to expel from caucus a MP who uttered an indigenous slur, used the n word, was accused of sexual harassment. ? Surely, our political leaders can review these serious accusations and take responsible actions to ensure they are not endorsing individuals who have betrayed their country. Asking too much?
We might just be asking too much for them to be sidelined if these MPs are very popular within Canada, and accumulate a lot of votes for the party. At the end of the day, the leaders of each party have to do the right thing to not undermine Canada's democracy, Canada's national security, or Canada's election process.
As Michael Chong made abundantly clear, the Leader of the CPC-HQ does not have the power to expel an MP. I expect Michael Chong knows more than any other Member of Parliament about what can and should be done. Michael Chong is a serious MP.
Political parties control who is a member of caucus.
I did not say the parties didn’t. I said, repeat, and stand by, “the Leader of the CPC-HQ does not have the power to expel an MP.”
Apologies: you are , of course, correct. Parties control membership in their caucus . They cannot expel an MP from Parliament. Looking ahead to the next election for the next Parliament, they can refuse to nominate a candidate, including current members of their caucus, to run as their party’s candidate.
I appreciate your concern for caution and for the upholding of court justice principles which demand evidence rather than quick but damaging allegations. I do. But I would love to see the people named in the House of Commons as i do not believe for one minute that this government is capable and willing to name the names. We need to shake things up and something needs to break the dam or at least start a small torrent of information so that the public can decide. Lets face it, we have heard these allegations for years and for years the public has consistently raised concerns in comments on news stories only to be discouraged by moderators who will deactivate accounts as spreading dis-information. There is a huge silent group of people who know things but can't speak in this woke era.
As always, impressive analysis
It is fair to wonder:
Are any MPs, past or present shaking in their boots right now, fearful of being exposed as stooge for a foreign government?
I would highly doubt it. The Government has tendencies for secrecy and stonewalling and controls the information flow through Cabinet confidentiality and heavy redacting of documents. (Notwithstanding the drip, drip, drip of leaks.)
Add interdepartmental chaos and an under resourced RCMP to the government agenda of secrecy and doubt sowing, Canadians are a long, long way from seeing any MP walking a plank.
I was astounded a few days ago reading that $110 million (from my potentially flawed memory) for some type of BS program to combat racism in Canada. This at a time when $110 million to the RCMP could do so much good to solve this problem. Trudeau and the Liberals are so out of touch. Do we not have enough DEI and woke policy, programs, funded by unwilling and/or unknowing taxpayers to just give it a rest. There are more pressing issues now surely.
Well folks, I am sure they spent a shite load checking out the Afghanistan vet from Pictou who along with a few buddies played the antihate folks - even an old lady like myself could recognize a hurting vet spouting off at a Dalhousie speech by someone given 10 million tax payer dollars , if the USA wanted to pay the kid off so be it, but my tax dollars- I think not
Likely not from the legal perspective, but from a historic perspective, I dare say that some of the reputations may not fair well at all and legacy is what many in politics cling to.
As Michel Juneau-Katsuya has stated publicly, every single Prime Minister since Brian Mulroney has been compromised by agents of influence of the Chinese communist party. (Operation Dragon Lord, Optimum)
This is a reality of the times we lived in but we seem to relive this every day!
The PRC, and other threat actors have found ingenious ways in which to co-opt our political academic bureaucratic and business elite and look no further than ‘following the money’.
I have reviewed thousands of pages of declassified, parliamentary, police and journalist reports on malign state actors linked to organized crime and it is a treasure trove of insight. 6 books later with 4 more in the offing, I can assure you that history will not look kindly on previous PM’s and Ministers who lined up to take the cash from the PRC to advance their long term objectives outlined in the 2049 Plan.
Most of the cash was legal under previous definitions (lobbying or consulting) of taking cash from Hong Kong and Beijing proxy corporations. If we get this right it this time many former politicians and business elites like Chretien, The Demarais’, Paul Martin, Mulroney and this Trudeau will be viewed in a very dim light. I am not altogether sure that Trudeau is not named in this report but his NSIA has certainly attempted to obfuscate and insulate him from being implicated.
But is incompetence a defence for our PM and some of his cabinet who over the past 18 months have been attempting to distance themselves from their wilful blindness on the CCP’s political and espionage operations inside our country.
At least in the public’s view, it is no longer ok to engage with or pass information to our friends from the PRC.
But cash to the children of leaders or setting them up in bogus businesses to receive forgivable loans etc as documented by numerous intelligence and academic sources could finger numerous former Canadian politicians was just one of the many ingenious schemes outlined in Hidden Hand by Clive Hamilton and Mareike Olberg foreword by Charles Burton.
Thanks for the book recommendation. Just ordered it from my library.
Reported on several times in the past from several sources - Chinese funds and Trudeau. The MSM has never seemed overly interested.
https://www.biv.com/news/economy-law-politics/cash-flew-west-coast-donors-trudeaus-montreal-riding-2015-and-2016-8270890
Ah the 2015 cash for access fundraisers were the tip of the iceberg with respect to the infiltration by the Chinese communist party‘s united front and it’s oversize role in helping to shape the liberal Party make up.
(But Conservatives have there own skeletons here. )
We document this both in Wilful Blindness, and in the most recently released the Mosaic Effect, and if you read the chapter on Trudeau, you would certainly get the impression the CCP had firmly embedded itself within the highest office in the Land.
The notion we can negotiate and be friends with totalitarian regimes must cease and they need to be treated as hostile to the state ( Canada’s ) interests unless proven otherwise.
While Trudeau and company are coming to this realization. (American and NATO INDUCED) and have been shiting our foreign policy on Asia for about 2 years.
it's not enough to cover up the stench of this scandal which Useful idiots, willing participants (who loved the fantasy spin by Beijing) played an oversized role in. Many movies and documentaries will be made of this time
Interesting standards in naming and shaming. Someone, who can’t be named, alleges a General officer in our military did something sexually inappropriate twenty years in the past and that the military police are investigating. There is no concrete evidence or charge to date, simply an allegation. The officer’s name is plastered across the media, career is slammed to a halt and likely over even if there is no charge resulting from the allegation. What is the difference beyond one being able to hide behind ‘the protecting intelligence’, too readily used excuse.
I grow tired of, ‘we can’t do this, we can’t do that’, without defining what can be done. We have become a country lacking the will to defend itself. Stop excusing that lack of will with hand wringing over lack of means.
An MP takes an oath to king and country, and that includes not being treasonous. Our MP's have a duty and obligation to take action to expel any government official, elected or hired, who commits treason by giving our secrets to foreign nations or doing their bidding. This obligation exists regardless of how hard Justin Trudeau and the Liberals try to cover this mess up. It's time for all MP's to do their duty to Canada.
Perhaps I have spent too many days, in too many hearings, in which litigants assert a plausible and often worrying “story”, for which, in the end, there turns out to be inadequate proof - on the balance of probabilities, let alone on the more exacting criminal standard.
Moreover, some readers will recall the herculean efforts expended by police to get to the bottom of the Air India murders - without success, but raising understandable concerns, about the competence of local police, and about the sympathy, or investigatory zeal, of politicians who might benefit from diaspora politics.
And of course neither the word “intelligence” nor the word “evidence” have any settled meaning outside the context in which they are being used; and in a legal context, it has a very particular legal meaning.
Thus, “Show me the evidence” is a reasonable request to make; and it isn’t necessarily answered by the reply “here is a document affirming that someone said that something nefarious happened”.
Which, being hearsay, (probably) is only the beginning of “legal proof”.
And that is quite apart from impediments to revealing how you came to know about the allegation in the first place and whether it can be disclosed: the particular source of this information, and the protections, if any, for “confidential” sources or informants.
***
That said, it is important to remember that political parties are run on the same legal principles as private clubs, so that they typically have the ability to expel members, or demand resignations for behaviour that compromises the image, or the interests, of the party - as the party defines it; and the alleged fault need not be criminal or even justiciable. [Subject to some club law and church law, which I will not get into].
That is how, not so long ago, a couple of Ontario Tory MPPs got bounced: one just for being a mouthy maverick and another for refusing to get vaccinated. And remember what happened to Carolyn Parrish, once a Liberal star, who became too overtly anti-American?
Accordingly, whether or not “Parliament” can act, or criminal sanctions are available, the political parties are certainly able to take action; and there is no necessity for trials or issues about someone having a “right” to their “day in court”.
What matters is whether the party believes that it is in its own interest to distance itself from the behaviour that is under a cloud.
Indeed, isn’t that how both Sarah Jama (a provincial MPP) and Han Dong, (federal MPP) got booted from their respective caucuses?
And what about the travails of Scott Andrews or Massimo Pacetti who were suspected of impropriety?
So, in my submission, the tools are probably there to deal with this issue on the political level; and we must look elsewhere for the reason for inaction. Which is likely “political” self interest and may explain the appetite to just kick the can down the road.
Because of course, politicians don’t want to deal with the problems within their own ranks, particularly when it comes to the benefits of vote harvesting, by pandering to ethnic communities; so, in the result, it appears that in this case, they plan to punt the problem to a public enquiry that, in practical terms, will not be able to deal with it either; and certainly not in a timely way.
Great analysis Wesley and would be on point but for one problem; our institutions are totally and willfully incapable (or worse unwilling) to confront this issue head on and do the hard work necessary to root out the rot in our politics. If we had a robust counter intelligence service, if the RCMP had the resources necessary to conduct spying investigations, if our parliamentarians were serious people who viewed the world with a "Canada first" lens, and if our courts were fully staffed to hear the cases in a reasonable time, then we could get to the bottom of this. But this is Canada and everything is "too hard" to do right.
In all due respect sir, as a Canadian citizen who understands the innocent until proven guilty Schlick , the Coutts boys spent 0ver 900 days in remand to be found not guilty on charges of conspiracy to commit murder- I prefer to know the names of the compromised- “even allegedly” characters - who are dipping their fingers in other cookie jars, particularly given that during the past few years getting a response from a polico has become almost a full time job.
Why do you think it’s treason? That provision only applies to military and scientific information, and we have no idea what information was shared. SOIA strikes me as a more likely offence, but even that is probably a stretch.
Trudeau knows who these MPs are and has he called for a RCMP investigation?
Why do I have a hard time believing anything coming from the mouth of the dude( who I voted for) saying to mandate a jab would be UN Canadian AND then ranted and raved about boats and planes- I promptly gave up my long time - think Pierre Elliott time- liberal membership
Fortunately the PM does not direct the RCMP as to investigations, they are the legally designated agency to decide to go forward on this case.
Unfortunately the RCMP are not up to the task and may have lost the confidence of the public?
Oh Barry, I am in Nova Scotia , perhaps it would be of interest to check out the last RCMP head honcho, Brenda Luckie and then tell me JT and his ilk, doesn’t direct anything -
He doesn’t “officially” direct them, but…
I do not want Pierre Poilievre muzzled by this. If Blanchet caves, that leaves Mr. Poilievre as the ONLY opposition member doing his job of attempting to hold this wretched government to account. Trudeau has had this information since MARCH! As to the intelligence isn’t evidence argument, Trudeau ignored intelligence regarding Han Dong, a popular and ultimately winning Liberal candidate (Katie Telford deemed the intelligence inaccurate); however, he stood in the House of Commons and accused the India Government of murdering a Canadian - based on intelligence that was not evidence. This Trudeau government ALWAYS wants it both ways - keep the cake, but eat it. The RCMP is slow, has been shown to be not equal to the task of investigating foreign interference, has a failure to communicate with the security agencies, and appears to be completely captured by the Liberal government. NAME THE NAMES AND THE NATURE OF THE ALLEGED INVOLVEMENT.