Commentary
The Old Testament is full of stories of prophets who tried to warn their populations of impending disasters. Jeremiah is a good example. All these accounts tend to follow a pattern: prophet sees something about to happen, tells local leadership about it, is criticized and jailed/punished for doing so, and sees his warnings shunted aside. In the end the bad event transpires anyway. Had the early admonitions been heeded, things would have turned out quite differently.
Are we in Canada living through a similar situation today? Do we have 21st-century prophets? Perhaps we are facing an analogous threat when it comes to what the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is getting away with in our land (except that life-altering disasters are already here and have been for some time). The prophet is CSIS, while those dismissing the warnings is the Canadian government (with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the starring role as king).
Maybe I am pushing the religious angle a little but the parallels are startling. The Trudeau government’s claims that CSIS has not been giving it adequate intelligence (i.e., warnings) about China’s activities in our country (actions such as threatening the families of MPs like Michael Chong, harassing Falun Gong, Uyghur, and Tibetan Canadians, etc.) and that the spy agency has for some reason decided that direct interference and threats in our society against citizens did not warrant telling anyone outside the organization. So, it paints CSIS at fault for letting the PRC get away with blatant foreign influence (which, by the way, CSIS investigates undersection 2 (b) of the CSIS Act).
Although I retired from CSIS back in 2015, and thus have not had access to any intelligence proffered to government clients in close to a decade, I cannot accept the Liberal government’s claims at all. The CSIS I worked for took its responsibilities seriously. Yes, it collects and analyzes intelligence carefully and verifies/corroborates to the best of its ability before it sends information out to the client base (which most definitely includes the PM), but it does not sit on information indefinitely. And, trust me, what the PRC has been doing here for decades has most assuredly been passed up the chain to senior decision-makers, so that appropriate action (up to and including the expulsion of diplomats) can be taken. (Note that CSIS itself does not take such action—it is an advisory body.)
Many of my former colleagues share the frustration I experience with the ongoing denials by the Trudeau government when it comes to what the PRC is getting up to on Canadian soil. The government is trying to shift ownership for its lack of action to the messenger, in effect shooting him/her. This is not how a responsible government acts.
Whether we are talking about threats to the family of a sitting MP or to ethnic communities, theft of our technology, or setting up “police stations” to monitor Chinese Canadians, CSIS has been doing its job as its mandate requires and providing the best product it can for those in charge. What the recipients do with it—and this would encompass how and to whom to share within the upper echelons—is not something CSIS would or could dictate.
Canadians are seeing incompetence at the highest level. A major power which is not an ally (i.e., China) has been allowed to do just about whatever it wants for many years with little to nothing to worry about. Our security service (i.e., CSIS) tries and tries to sound the alarm bells but does not seem to be getting the required response. So now what?
Some would say CSIS has to try harder. Ok, sure, but what does this mean? It can identify officials in positions to make decisions and seek to ensure they are on the distribution list for intelligence assessments, but it cannot force them to read their product and act on it (“you can take a horse to water…”). Imagine the hue and cry if CSIS were to demand action by the government!
No, what we are witnessing is a series of coverups, badly framed. Minister after minister is trying to shed responsibility for not doing what they should have to stop Chinese interference after having been handed evidence of such on a silver platter by CSIS. Note that this would also mean ensuring that the PM is in on the matter (CSIS rarely briefs the PM directly in my experience). The fault lies with them, not with CSIS.
I cannot imagine what this is doing to morale within CSIS. It is bad enough to learn that your efforts are cast aside; now you are blamed for not making the efforts in the first place. I feel for the prophet who is seldom accepted in his own land. Welcome to Canada in 2023!
