The prime minister’s stonewalling of a full public inquiry into the evidence of foreign interference in our electoral institutions and practices, can be explained in two ways: first, the incompetence of an unserious government under the influence of an establishment intent on advancing financial or other interests; or, second, a cover-up of serious ethical transgressions by both his government and the Liberal Party of Canada.
With respect to the first explanation, the idealization of China by the prime minister and elite advisors has been baked in over many years. [See this piece by Geoff Russ in The Hub about the elite capture by Communist Party of China (CPC) operatives. The fact that CPC operatives appear to have carefully targeted key Liberal ridings to promote friendly candidates, while reserving other CPC tactics such as voter suppression, misinformation, and threats to candidates and their families for Conservative and New Democrat candidates/MPs, lends support to the view that the CPC saw the Liberal Party and government as open to influence.
Journalist Paul Wells has noted that the media allowed Justin Trudeau a free pass from any serious debates during his leadership bid that would have raised red flags about his views of China. Writing in June 2019, Wells highlighted Trudeau’s comments during the Liberal leadership race depicting China as a benign actor on the world stage. Wells wondered whether we might have avoided the standoff with China flowing from the arbitrary imprisonment of the two Michaels had there been more scrutiny of, and challenge to, the Liberal leader’s naïve views much earlier in his mandate. Some of us tried to initiate debate on this and other critical topics, but the leadership selection process was too carefully controlled—and the media coverage too narrow.
With respect to the second explanation for Trudeau’s stonewalling, classified information from CSIS is not required to conclude that the nomination contests to select the candidates of the established political parties are the seedy undemocratic/autocratic underbelly of our increasingly fragile democracy. Nomination contests are too often political Hunger Games – amoral competitions among self-absorbed party elites, sustained by ego and personal ambition, not the public interest. The contests are tightly controlled by the party leadership unsupervised by Elections Canada (except for filing campaign expenditures) or the Privacy Commissioner.
The public inquiry should reach back to 2014, for the reasons comprehensively addressed at the time in this excellent article by journalist Althia Raj. Ms. Raj describes events in 2014 when the newly minted Liberal leader, Justin Trudeau, was forced to abandon his support for a preferred candidate and effectively concede the nomination race to what is alleged to be local Communist Party of China operatives in the newly-created riding of Don Valley North—now at the epicenter of the current scandal. This was unusual since all party leaders have at their disposal almost unlimited arbitrary powers to manipulate nomination races when they want a star candidate, hence, Chrystia Freeland, Bill Morneau, Andrew Leslie, Marc Miller were successful in their nomination contests going on around the same time. [The prime minister subsequently appointed the defeated candidate for nomination in Don Valley North to be the Consul-General in San Francisco in 2017.]
To analyze how CPC operatives hijacked this nomination process and more generally infiltrated the political process, the public inquiry should hear testimony under oath from Liberal Party officials, nomination contestants, and community residents, and the conduct of the nomination process generally, and especially how community residents are coerced into becoming members in the riding association to vote for a designated candidate on the day of the nomination meeting.
The practice of mass recruitment of members of local ethnic communities to vote for a designated candidate is common in the Liberal Party. Targeted communities including Chinese, Somali, Indian, Pakistani, Tamils and others have long protested the practice. The public inquiry should have no difficulty calling witnesses able to testify how easily foreign operatives infiltrate communities and hijack our own undemocratic nomination processes to push their preferred candidates and political objectives.
The public inquiry should be able to recommend practical and effective safeguards and specific measures to reform the nomination process and bring nomination contests for all political parties under the supervision of Elections Canada and the Privacy Commissioner. [See some proposals for serious reform that will introduce respect for democratic values and high ethical standards into the nomination process in the conclusion of Ch 6 Canada’s Faux Democracy.]