No doubt I am unduly influenced by having worked, for years, in a legal milieu, where there is a distinction between fears, speculation or allegations, on the one hand, and actual proof of wrongdoing, on the other.
Which is to say: between what you worry about, or fear MIGHT be true, and the actual evidence establishing whether or not it IS, in fact, true - and if so, to what extent. Because things are seldom black or white.
All of which is complicated, in this case, by lots of media hype and the shenanigans of politicians, who are keen to either find, or to cover up, possible scandal or mismanagement.
However, it seems to me, (as a rank outsider) that, so far, there has been a significant institutional effort and monetary expenditure, and lots of political and media posturing and public angst, but, in the end, it has produced some fairly thin evidentiary gruel.
Lots of suspicion and speculation and hand-wringing.
But far less hard evidence of actual interference or wrongdoing on any significant scale - let alone evidence of any significant deleterious impact on the polity. That the hobnobbing with foreigners has had a seriously corrosive effect.
Moreover, India remains a “special case”, in this milieu, because it is a nominal ally of Canada, while Canada has chosen to provide a safe haven for politically well-situated Sikh separatists, some of whom were involved in the Air India bombing. Which readers will recall, killed 268 Canadian citizens, 27 British citizens, and 24 Indian citizens.
Yet only one, low-level minion was prosecuted, and he is now free.
In other words: the alleged Indian involvement in Canadian affairs is happening in the context of Canadian institutional ineptitude, and remains complicated by the trolling for votes in a Canadian ethnic diaspora.
So, it is probably no surprise that India may doubt Canada’s willingness or capacity to keep an eye on things that might harm India’s interests. Like the murder of the Indians mentioned above Even though projecting that interest might intrude on Canadian “sovereignty”?
Be that as it may, I look forward to the Report of the Enquiry Commission and I thank you for your periodic updates and summaries.
Although I must confess that I am beginning to doubt whether the Enquiry will provide much real and instrumental enlightenment, or will fairly illuminate whether existing prophylactic measures are up to the task.
Is this going to be finished before Trudeau prorogues Parliament? I hope so. I don't think anyone will let this Commission go further if we end up having an election.
Semi-witting? That pretty much describes the capacity of many of today's MPs. Read the recent obit of Francis Fox to see an example of the calibre and education of past parliamentarians. Then see Andrew Scheer, for example, or Pierre Poilievre or numerous current cabinet ministers. Virtually no meaningful professional or life experience prior to running for office to bring to the table. This is not meant as a partisan comment, just notice that candidates used to have significant and varied professional experience and achievements in their back story before running for office.
Complicated by the abandonment of Ministerial responsibility and transfer of decision making power to the PMO, which as currently staffed and led is preoccupied with performance.
What this excellent analysis underlines is the fallacy of looking at complex issues and attempting to impose a single focus or fault to them.
Start with the real difficulty of looking at multiple instances of engagement with foreign actors and determining what is a legitimate attempt at influence (which is what diplomacy is) and an illegitimate effort at interference. Building on that the difficulty of looking at the actions of an MP or government official when engaging and then determining whether such actions posed a threat to Canada.
And if there was a threat was it because that person was naive, lacked knowledge to understand fully the importance of their actions or the information shared, or that this person knew or should have known the risk. Also, commentators too quickly throw around accusations such as treason when instances of foreign interference can pose a real threat to Canada without our being able to hold anyone legally accountable.
Finally, because of such complexities it likely has limited utility for us to choose teams and decide that one report is completely correct (and damning) or that a specific commentator has the goods and we should thus metaphorically start putting heads on pikes.
This is an excellent review of Hogue Commission proceedings - better than any attempts I've seen in MSM. However, the more I read about this whole sorry mess, the more I'm inclined to think it should be an RCMP national security/criminal investigation, because the aim seems to be essentially finding out who did something wrong/illegal. CSIS attention might be more profitably focussed on the authors Question 5, which is a 'real' intelligence question. All the others are investigation questions.
I might also add, what is 'foreign interference' anyway? How does it differ from normal 'diplomatic activity'?
No doubt I am unduly influenced by having worked, for years, in a legal milieu, where there is a distinction between fears, speculation or allegations, on the one hand, and actual proof of wrongdoing, on the other.
Which is to say: between what you worry about, or fear MIGHT be true, and the actual evidence establishing whether or not it IS, in fact, true - and if so, to what extent. Because things are seldom black or white.
All of which is complicated, in this case, by lots of media hype and the shenanigans of politicians, who are keen to either find, or to cover up, possible scandal or mismanagement.
However, it seems to me, (as a rank outsider) that, so far, there has been a significant institutional effort and monetary expenditure, and lots of political and media posturing and public angst, but, in the end, it has produced some fairly thin evidentiary gruel.
Lots of suspicion and speculation and hand-wringing.
But far less hard evidence of actual interference or wrongdoing on any significant scale - let alone evidence of any significant deleterious impact on the polity. That the hobnobbing with foreigners has had a seriously corrosive effect.
Moreover, India remains a “special case”, in this milieu, because it is a nominal ally of Canada, while Canada has chosen to provide a safe haven for politically well-situated Sikh separatists, some of whom were involved in the Air India bombing. Which readers will recall, killed 268 Canadian citizens, 27 British citizens, and 24 Indian citizens.
Yet only one, low-level minion was prosecuted, and he is now free.
In other words: the alleged Indian involvement in Canadian affairs is happening in the context of Canadian institutional ineptitude, and remains complicated by the trolling for votes in a Canadian ethnic diaspora.
So, it is probably no surprise that India may doubt Canada’s willingness or capacity to keep an eye on things that might harm India’s interests. Like the murder of the Indians mentioned above Even though projecting that interest might intrude on Canadian “sovereignty”?
Be that as it may, I look forward to the Report of the Enquiry Commission and I thank you for your periodic updates and summaries.
Although I must confess that I am beginning to doubt whether the Enquiry will provide much real and instrumental enlightenment, or will fairly illuminate whether existing prophylactic measures are up to the task.
Although I hope that I am wrong.
Is this going to be finished before Trudeau prorogues Parliament? I hope so. I don't think anyone will let this Commission go further if we end up having an election.
Semi-witting? That pretty much describes the capacity of many of today's MPs. Read the recent obit of Francis Fox to see an example of the calibre and education of past parliamentarians. Then see Andrew Scheer, for example, or Pierre Poilievre or numerous current cabinet ministers. Virtually no meaningful professional or life experience prior to running for office to bring to the table. This is not meant as a partisan comment, just notice that candidates used to have significant and varied professional experience and achievements in their back story before running for office.
Complicated by the abandonment of Ministerial responsibility and transfer of decision making power to the PMO, which as currently staffed and led is preoccupied with performance.
What this excellent analysis underlines is the fallacy of looking at complex issues and attempting to impose a single focus or fault to them.
Start with the real difficulty of looking at multiple instances of engagement with foreign actors and determining what is a legitimate attempt at influence (which is what diplomacy is) and an illegitimate effort at interference. Building on that the difficulty of looking at the actions of an MP or government official when engaging and then determining whether such actions posed a threat to Canada.
And if there was a threat was it because that person was naive, lacked knowledge to understand fully the importance of their actions or the information shared, or that this person knew or should have known the risk. Also, commentators too quickly throw around accusations such as treason when instances of foreign interference can pose a real threat to Canada without our being able to hold anyone legally accountable.
Finally, because of such complexities it likely has limited utility for us to choose teams and decide that one report is completely correct (and damning) or that a specific commentator has the goods and we should thus metaphorically start putting heads on pikes.
This is an excellent review of Hogue Commission proceedings - better than any attempts I've seen in MSM. However, the more I read about this whole sorry mess, the more I'm inclined to think it should be an RCMP national security/criminal investigation, because the aim seems to be essentially finding out who did something wrong/illegal. CSIS attention might be more profitably focussed on the authors Question 5, which is a 'real' intelligence question. All the others are investigation questions.
I might also add, what is 'foreign interference' anyway? How does it differ from normal 'diplomatic activity'?
Disconcerting that NSICOP's exaggerations (and errors) are corrected by the agency whose operations they review. Has rigour been trumped by clickbait?