SOG8: Trudeau and Johnston thumbs down on public inquiry into Chinese election interference + more | Stand on Guard Ep 8
Episode Stats
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Summary
Special Rapporteur David Johnson's report on Chinese election interference in Canada's election doesn't call for a public inquiry. Does that mean we don't need one? Is there a deep state in Canada? Or is there something else going on here?
Transcript
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Hi, welcome back to another episode of Stand on Guard with David Creighton.
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Almost the only topic we're going to talk about today is the report from the special
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So we are in a very precarious position in this country.
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We need political change, but we also need to resolve to resist.
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Nothing like a few technical problems start to show off with a bang.
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But of course, the big news this week, David Johnson, former governor general and ex-member
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of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Board of Directors, came out with his report on
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David Johnson has become synonymous with Mr. Cover-Up.
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You know, I've seen some crazy headlines around YouTube.
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No, if you think about this, this is a continuation of Trudeau's Canada.
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This is about a government that's run by insiders and who hire other insiders to cover things
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Based on my review, I have reached five clear conclusions.
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First, foreign governments are undoubtedly attempting to influence candidates and voters in Canada.
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Foreign interference is a real and growing threat, and more remains to be done promptly to strengthen
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our capacity to detect, deter, and counter foreign interference in elections.
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Second, when viewed in full context with all of the relevant intelligence, several leaked materials
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that raised legitimate questions turn out to have been misconstrued in some media reporting,
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presumably because of the lack of this context.
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Third, I have identified serious shortcomings in the way intelligence is communicated and
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processed from security agencies through to government.
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But there should not and need not be a separate formal public inquiry.
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A public inquiry examining the leaked materials could not be undertaken in public, given the sensitivity of the intelligence.
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And I bet you nobody had even heard of this position prior to Trudeau coming up with this fanciful idea
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of putting an old friend of the family in charge of this investigation who promptly comes back and says,
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Those public hearings are going to be loaded with friends of the liberals to ask the right questions.
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And get off this nonsense about it's all classified so we can't have a public inquiry.
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You know, I bet you Richard Nixon would have loved to have a special rapporteur when he was going through Watergate
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because it could have had somebody come back and say, hey, we don't need any more investigation.
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Well, we'll have a few public hearings and this will all be behind us.
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But, you know, as the member of Parliament, Michael Cooper, told me on Tuesday night,
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David Johnson isn't going to make the Chinese election scandal, interference scandal, go away.
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However, public hearings on the serious governance and policy issues identified to date should and will be held
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at the earliest possible date as part of the second phase of my mandate.
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I would sure like to know, because people like him have been on the government payroll for most of their lives,
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benefiting from either liberal or conservative governments that are in there.
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No, he may have been appointed by Stephen Harper, a conservative prime minister,
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but they're all part of the same Ottawa elite, the same Ottawa establishment.
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We don't talk much about the deep state in Canada.
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But if all we mean is the established bureaucracy that is essentially the tail wagging the dog,
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then there is a deep state because it exists in the form of a bureaucracy that is extremely hard to change
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Finally, I recognize this report's conclusions would be met with skepticism by some,
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especially by those who in good faith have worked to raise legitimate questions around these issues.
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What has allowed me to determine whether there has in fact been interference cannot be disclosed publicly.
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A public review of classified intelligence simply cannot be done.
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Therefore, fifth, I recommend the prime minister invite the two oversight committees on national security,
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This reminds me of the famous broadcast from Pope Pius XII when he was supposed to be addressing the Holocaust,
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except he never mentioned Nazis, Germany, or Jews in the entire broadcast.
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And this reminds me exactly what's going on here.
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To review my conclusions and provide them with all supporting materials,
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including an annex which contains the classified information.
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If they disagree with my conclusions, they should say that.
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Now we're coming up to a later part of the news conference when he addresses how the Conservative Party of Canada says there are up to 11 writings in the greater Toronto area that were targeted by the Chinese with election interference.
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And this could have been crucial to the last liberal minority win.
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Now, we have Johnson here saying that Conservative leader Pierre Paliyev refused to meet with him.
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So he sat down with the former Conservative leader, Aaron Atul, and this is what transpired.
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In which they set out allegations with respect to, I think, 11 different ridings.
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And we considered that going back to late April, early May.
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But around about May 23rd was the deadline from our report.
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We saw a meeting, and Mr. Atul responded quickly for a meeting, and that was on this past Wednesday, Sheila.
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Mr. Atul is a man for whom I have great respect.
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He's cleared for the top secret clearance, so he's no stranger to military intelligence.
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And he presented with us a review of the matters covered in the media and some modeling elections.
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In his view, that in perhaps a minimum of four or a maximum of nine instances,
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We did indicate that our report was a part of our report at that time had gone for translation
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because we were trying to deal with it, but it was not final.
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We responded to them with positions in our report, and we set them out.
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And we found what Mr. – we differ in our conclusion with Mr. Atul's conclusion,
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that there was a tilt in those elections in four to nine cases,
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and Elections Canada has found no interference.
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So that was our conclusion, which is different than Mr. Atul's.
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Now, we're going to get to another section here, and this is very interesting
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because this is a press conference the following day that became all about the special rapporteur's report.
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But reporters are not taking this cover-up lying down.
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They're clearly uncomfortable with what Justin Trudeau was trying to feed them.
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And I want you to watch this because it shows you how Justin Trudeau doesn't believe he's ever going to get a tough question
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Thank you. That will conclude today's press conference.
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Sorry, I'll take a question from Justin because I haven't seen him in a while.
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Prime Minister, the report does indicate that Handong, a former Liberal MP,
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was the unwitting beneficiary probably of the influence campaign on his nomination race.
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It indicates he went on to forge a relationship with the Chinese consulate in Toronto,
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and it said he was having conversations with the consulate about the two Michaels in detention in China,
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Can you tell us what the nature of those conversations were?
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And do you see a path back into the Liberal caucus for Mr. Dong?
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I think on this point, the report by Mr. Johnston was fairly unequivocal that there were false allegations made against Mr. Dong,
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and I look forward to having conversations with him.
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He decided to step away from caucus in order to clear his name.
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I will hear from him on what his thinking is going forward.
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I think the report by Mr. Johnston has been very clear that there were false allegations against Mr. Dong.
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As you know, Mr. Dong has chosen to be removed from caucus to be able to fight against his allegations.
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I will surely have a conversation with him on how he is at this moment and what his reflections are for the next steps.
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Just finally, you know, you're calling on Canadians to build trust, but as Mr. Johnston reports makes clear,
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you had intelligence and you were briefed on an attempt by Beijing to meddle in our democracy,
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Given that, you know, doesn't rebuilding trust have to start with you?
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And going forward, do you have to create a better disclosure regime?
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I thought I had these guys bought and paid for.
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How can this reporter be asking me a real tough question?
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And you see that look of shock in his face here.
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That discloses these sorts of attempts to meddle in our democracy,
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even or even especially when it benefits your party.
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I'm still hung up on the fact that you think I wasn't telling Canadians about foreign interference.
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I talked about foreign interference from the very beginnings of getting elected.
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That's why we move forward on a committee of parliamentarians to oversee what our security agencies were doing.
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That's why in January of 2019, we created the elections protocol that ensured that while our 2019 election was going on,
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our top public servants would be able to monitor through updates daily from our intelligence agencies,
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the state of foreign interference into our elections.
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and we have continually talked about the threat of foreign interference since then.
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There's a NSICOP report going back to 2017 on foreign interference that I highly recommend people look at.
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The subject of foreign interference isn't something that suddenly sprang up over the past months.
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This is something we have been taking seriously as a government for years.
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And not just here in Canada, but in 2018, when we hosted the G7 in Charlevoix,
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we created a rapid response mechanism for all G7 countries to respond
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So maybe you're just waking up to the fact that there's foreign interference,
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He's been talking about it actually for about three weeks now,
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because that's the only reason this became an issue for him,
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is because there is ceaseless whistleblowers, one or more,
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who brought the story to the attention of the national media,
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and in those press clippings dropped on Dustin Trudeau's desk.
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Suddenly, he became aware of it in the last two months, maybe.
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that China was interfering in Canadian elections,
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And that's what the reporter is getting at here,
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Justin Trudeau, like it was an issue of prominence for him?
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because it's been front and center in the media.