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Giving the highest possible benefit of the doubt - what could Poilievre’s angle possibly be by saying this? What does he think it gains him?
Wouldn’t a better political move be to say something like “run whoever you want. x, y, and z policies are what matter and that’s what our party is going to fight for”? I mean, even if it’s a lie, wouldn’t that be a much more politically savvy thing to say? Off the top of my head I can think of 3 or 4 other angles to take that seem a lot better than “the Liberals have a moral responsibility to keep their current leader”. That’s like, high school debate level shit.
Poilievre has been on Parliament Hill for 20 years. I’m just continually baffled by what appear to me to be obvious blunders in a game he should know very well. Is there something I’m missing?
It would be nice if the current Election Interference Commission was initiated 7 years ago, after the PM was first briefed on election interference. Instead they sat on numerous subsequent briefings, and allowed 2 federal elections to take place (one of which they themselves called) where the issue was unresolved, and it remains unresolved today.
What could they have done differently? I don’t know, I’m not an elected policymaker. All I see is the result, where, there’s this ominous list of compromised parliamentarians that, from the outside, it doesn’t seem like there is anything being done about. A provably compromised MP is still sitting in the House. There doesn’t appear to be any consequence or even disincentive for foreign nations to interfere in Canadian politics. A Canadian citizen was murdered on Canadian soil by the Indian government, and all it has resulted in are meek discussions and shuffling around of ambassadors. This is a very bad situation for Canadian sovereignty.
The solutions might not be straightforward, but we should be demanding that our government do better. It’s not a partisan thing.
So these are two different things right? Election interference is one thing, but MPs being compromised by a foreign government is another different thing.
They’re not always different. The Han Dong case is an example where they’re intertwined. We know for a fact that Han Dong’s nomination for Liberal candidate in the safe Liberal riding of Don Valley North was influenced by Chinese government pressure on Canadian citizens. It doesn’t properly fall into Elections Canada’s purview. The Liberals only ejected him from their party once it became publicly known that his candidacy was influenced by China. Somehow, he’s still a sitting MP.
I don’t think it should be left up to the leader of the party to make a call on what to do. Liberals w/ Han Dong (and possibly others, we don’t know), and Conservatives, with their leader not even being briefed. There needs to be some other system or mechanism to address foreign compromise that doesn’t rely on the whim of party leaders who have proven that they’ll choose to deal or not deal with interference issues depending on how it might benefit or harm their party.
If RCMP investigations get bound up, and information sealed away for instances of interference that ultimately don’t end up being criminal (like in Han Dong’s case), something should still be done to remove them from Parliament, or censure / warn them, as the circumstance dictates. It seems to me that the secrecy of active investigations functionally acts to shield foreign influence operations from being exposed and properly responded to.
I know what you mean when you say that the government shouldn’t be relied on to investigate itself. At the same time, I think they are the only body right now that can put effective mechanisms in place to deal with this issue. The fact that neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives are trustworthy enough to do this, is neither here nor there. Government should be doing something, and a responsible government that worked for the people would have started 7 years ago.
My hope is that the Election Interference Commission provides sound recommendations that are actionable before the next federal election. However, we’re in a situation where the next federal election could be any day now. This is all happening too late, and I can’t see how that’s anybody but the Liberals’ fault.
Two elections have passed since the PM was briefed on election interference, and he knew about the issue for years before Poilievre was leader of the CPC. The fact that they’re talking about Poilievre at all seems to me to be an abdication of responsibility.
Hours of logjammed question periods of Poilievre saying “release the names” and Liberals saying “get the clearance”. Liberals are framing the issue around Poilievre’s obstinance, in the house, and now in testimony to the Foreign Interference Commission. It’s not honest.
I agree. Poilievre’s choice to not be cleared, like many of his other choices and positions, is asinine and idiotic.
The Liberal talking point of, “if only Poilievre would get the clearance, we could get to work on fixing this” is also asinine.
It’s worth remembering that the CSIS-briefed, PM-known issue of election interference predates Poilievre by 5 years, and a span of 2 federal elections, one of which the Liberals enjoyed a majority government. The Liberals are being insincere when they throw their hands up and say there’s nothing they can do because Poilievre won’t do something he’s made clear he won’t do. Trudeau and the Liberals have been happy to sit on their hands on this issue, for years, and it has left parliament vulnerable to foreign influence. That’s uniquely Trudeau and the Liberals’ fault, and they ought to be taken to task for that. It’s a huge deal.
Dear downvoter in the thread: just testing something out here-
Parliamentarians who are wittingly working with foreign powers to interfere in Canadian politics, should be expelled from parliament.
Your thoughts?
Out of curiosity, and if you don’t mind sharing, do you think the Liberals have done a good job of dealing with election interference issues?
I think a responsible government would be having an open conversation about it, getting consensus from the other parties, and doing something, rather than nothing. That conversation should have started 7 years ago, when the PM was first briefed on election interference. A responsible government wouldn’t have tried to minimize or bury the issue.
We’ve had two federal elections since the PM was first briefed on interference, and are about to have another without a clear plan for how to deal with compromised parliamentarians. As a citizen, I don’t find that acceptable.
The line that gets trotted out is that interference “didn’t change the outcome of the election” in 2019 and 2021. That is absolutely not a satisfactory threshold for action to be taken. Nobody is talking about how the threshold should be much, much lower. If the current government isn’t making an attempt at defining that threshold in an ethical and non-partisan way, that’s their failure.
To your question, I think egregious examples of foreign compromise should absolutely be criminalized, and handled by the judicial branch. But the legislative branch needs to be empowered to act swiftly to prevent compromised parliamentarians from operating in Ottawa unhindered.
It’s an unusual axe to choose to grind during testimony. Take it from two former CSIS directors:
Richard Fadden and Ward Elcock — two former CSIS directors — told CBC News’ Power & Politics on Wednesday that Trudeau probably shouldn’t have taken such a partisan turn in his testimony.
“He lapsed into really extreme partisanship when he made this accusation and he made it in terms that could not help but enrage the Conservative leader. So that was his objective. I think it worked,” Fadden told host David Cochrane.
“Did it advance the cause of national security? Did it advance the interest of the inquiry and the commissioners’ work? I’m not so sure.”
The issue is that foreign interference isn’t properly encompassed by the legal system in Canada. The party in charge doesn’t seem to be bothered by this fact, and has done nothing to actively remedy it. They could be setting definitions, and standards for what counts as interference, determining where the bar for intelligence credibility should be set, etc. Instead, they’ve left the door open to interference, and made it clear that when it happens, nothing will be done about it.
“I have the names of a number of parliamentarians, former parliamentarians and/or candidates in the Conservative Party of Canada who are engaged, or at high risk of, or for whom there is clear intelligence around foreign interference,” [Trudeau] said.
The fact that Trudeau is comfortable using foreign interference as a cudgel against a political opponent is outrageous. FFS, the Liberals knew about Han Dong, and didn’t do anything about it until it became public and their hand was forced. Had that not happened, there is no reason to expect that Han Dong wouldn’t still be happily sitting as a Liberal.
If the Prime Minister cared about foreign interference, he would be putting measures in place immediately to ensure that if anybody sitting in the house of commons is compromised by foreign interests, they should be expelled. He’s the Prime Minister. He could make this a priority. But no, it’s still somehow a bickering match about security clearances. Crazy.
PP is going ‘young, hip’
Such a laughable turn. I think it’s a marker that literally anybody could be in his shoes, doing and saying anything at all, and they’d be polling well.
Freeland is incredibly capable - but can be tied, hand in glove, with everything Trudeau
Yep. Liberals are zugzwanged.
FWIW, in terms of % of the popular vote in 2021, Alberta voted NDP at a higher rate than Ontario. So I think the results of a FPTP election obscure the diversity of views in Alberta.
What I mean to say is not that the LPC’s choice for leader would be bullshit, but that, whatever their choice is, it’s hard to imagine how they would be able to credibly separate themselves from what has made the LPC so unpopular.
So for that reason, I’m not sure why Freeland would be the obvious choice. If the Liberals want to win a federal election, I think she’d be a poor choice for party leader. Any barbs that could be directed at Trudeau could be easily directed at Freeland. From an optics standpoint, I don’t think it’s possible to differentiate Freeland from Trudeau, and the Liberal party of the past decade. That’s a problem that I think would override who she is or her credentials, at least in the public eye.
Even if the Liberals somehow manage to find a credible, electable leader that doesn’t end up being a Michael Ignatieff 2.0, I see no reason to trust that they won’t deliver more of the same bullshit.
When it comes to leadership in American politics, it’s said that democrats fall in love, and republicans fall in line.
I don’t want to fall in love. The past decade of Canadian politics has been a parade of ‘charisma’ and it hasn’t gotten us anywhere. I want a sincere and straightforward leader, who won’t get embroiled in scandals, has a strong stance on foreign policy, a plan for foreign interference, the housing & affordability crisis, and an ability to deal with issues in a straightforward and policy-focused way. I guess what I’m trying to say is I want a prime minister with a short skirt and a long jacket.
An election must be in the air, he’s saying the thing again.
Also, I can see from the NDP perspective, the view that the Liberals weren’t holding up their part of the deal to advance NDP policy. In this circumstance, it’s not like quitting a job. Trudeau wasn’t Singh’s boss. They had an agreement that the NDP said was mutable from the start based on their discretion. For Trudeau to bellyache about it all now is, I think, a bit silly, considering the essentially cost-free benefit his party gained from the agreement for years.
Could be. Even then, it’s still so odd. He’s in this political win-win situation, where he has an advantage if Trudeau stays on, and he has an advantage if the Liberals make a last-minute change and roll into the election (that we all know is lingering) with an untested newbie.
Although, the CPC and Poilievre didn’t earn this excellent spot on the chessboard by any strategic triumph, so maybe it’s not so surprising that he appears to have no idea how to work the pieces.