What next for the investigation of foreign interference?

Only the shadow knows for sure

The day following David Johnston’s surprise resignation from the post of special rapporteur for foreign interference, Dominic Leblanc, the Minister for Democratic Institutions, and right-hand man of the PM, held a press conference to announce…well that the road ahead is not clear. But it’s someone else’s problem now.

You can watch the full press conference at the link below, courtesy of CPAC.

Also worth reading is Paul Well’s humorous take, “Ostriches on the Runway,” at his substack. I would quote his final two sentences, except that would be a real spoiler and take away some of the fun. 

paulwells@substack.com

The LeBlanc press conference made it clear that the government wants to pass the buck to the opposition parties and try to force them to come up with ideas for an acceptable public process to address foreign interference. Ideas that could then, in the political arena, be found wanting, and tables could be miraculously turned for a much-suffering Liberal government. 

LeBlanc batted away suggestions that the government was now agreeing to a public inquiry, saying the government had always been open to one, but had accepted David Johnston’s recommendation against.

The government will now extend not an olive branch but a fistful of nettles to opposition parties in Parliament. Grasp it and come up with substantive (non-partisan) proposals that would address four key issues:

who would lead a public inquiry? 

what would the terms of reference be?

what would the timelines be for the work?

how would the opposition parties propose to deal with an inquiry that would be focused on highly classified intelligence material?

Never mind nettles, there are landmines planted in all of these questions. Deliberately planted, no doubt. Really there, also no doubt.

Opposition political leaders might come up with individual party lists of names of “eminent” Canadians they would support. But the idea of the Conservatives, NDP and Bloc all agreeing on a consolidated list seems far-fetched to me.

Wedge alert!

Terms of reference put opposition parties on the spot by forcing them to choose between a forensic analysis of what occurred in the past (who knew what, when, and what did they do about it), and attention to policy changes to improve capabilities for the future. David Johnston was very focused on the second agenda—policy changes. That focus seemed to displease opposition parties, perhaps based on an assumption that it deprived them of partisan ammunition. But a backward-looking forensic analysis may not serve the national interest, or slake a public appetite for change and better protection against foreign interference threats in future, or produce much of value beyond the material presented in David Johnston’s first report.

Divide and conquer alert!

Timelines are a real problem if opposition parties want to insist on a judicial inquiry. They would have to accept a process stretching out for multiple years, potentially beyond the next (scheduled) federal election in 2025.  They might try to point to the Rouleau commission, which presented its recommendations in the one-year window demanded by the Emergencies Act. But in doing so, they would have to overlook four things. One is that Justice Rouleau complained on, many occasions, about the problems created by such a tight time frame and recommended it be expanded in any revision of the Emergencies Act. A second is that Justice Rouleau himself provided the government with a full year’s grace to respond to his recommendations, presumably because he wanted that response to be substantive. A third is that the Rouleau Commission was, let’s face it, a failure when it came to understanding intelligence and national security issues, the very matters which would be at the heart of any judicial inquiry into foreign interference. A fourth is that the Rouleau commission did not have to engage in legal fights with the government over claims of national security privilege (access to classified records, in non-legalese). There is little likelihood that would prove to be the case with a judicial inquiry into foreign interference.

References have been made to the Arar Commission of inquiry, headed by Justice O’Connor as another model. It took two and a half years to complete. Should this be the chosen model, it would be wise to study Justice O’Connor’s own reflections on a very challenging process.

We don’t really know what we are talking about alert!

Problematic timelines, of course, relate to the final question pressed by LeBlanc on the opposition parties. How to protect highly classified intelligence in a process that is, allegedly, designed to restore Canadian faith in the soundness of Canadian democracy and its electoral processes?  There is no simple answer here and the question cannot be waived away.  David Johnston’s answer was that it can’t be done. Let’s see if the opposition parties can come up with something different (while staying onside the facts and preferably doing some historical research).

Good luck alert!

Minister LeBlanc indicated that we would be discussing these issues with the opposition parties. He wants ideas by the end of June (wait, doesn’t Parliament dissolve at the end of June)? He also said he was going to consult with “former justices” and experts. Hopefully this will be done in a transparent manner.

What he didn’t say was that he was eagerly awaiting David Johnston’s final (brief) report, which the former special rapporteur indicated he would deliver by the end of June. He didn’t mention it at all. One more piece added to the misery that was the special rapporteur’s job.

Minister LeBlanc also didn’t say anything about when Parliament and the Canadian public might hear from the two review bodies, the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA) and the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP), about their study of Mr. Johnston’s classified annex, or their broader look at the efforts made by the government and its intelligence agencies to combat foreign interference.

If Minister LeBlanc had a feeling that these were coming down the pike, he could have told the opposition parties that he would start consultations with them as soon as the reports were out and their findings could be read.

But, it seems, no (turn)pike for these reports.

If opposition parties accept the government’s invitation to consult, and take a non-partisan approach, what might we get? Paul Wells imagines ostriches on the runway. That’s hilarious.

I am thinking of something more ungainly still, a Spruce Goose (see Howard Hughes) engineered by a committee of warring politicians, and never really able to fly.

I can spare you the reach to Wikipedia. The original Spruce Goose flying boat had 8 engines, a wingspan of 97.82 metres, was constructed of plywood, and weighed 181,436 kgs.  Oh yes, by the time it was ready to be tested, the Second World War was over. But it makes for a nice museum display.