John Robson: Expect More CSIS Leaks Given Blair’s Inadequate Response to Latest Beijing Interference Allegations

Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Bill Blair rises during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Nov. 27, 2020. The Canadian Press/Justin Tang

Commentary

The disintegration continues. The latest revelation about the Trudeau Liberals’ blindness to Chinese election meddling is that then-public safety and emergency preparedness minister Bill Blair took months to grant CSIS a warrant to monitor election activities by former Ontario cabinet minister infamous for his links to communist China. And they still have no idea how to respond.

As my former Sun News colleague Alex Pierson tweeted, “Either they are complicit or incompetent. Everyday it is another jaw dropper.” To which I responded, “Of course they could be both.” And certainly, incompetence is playing a key role.

As I’ve written elsewhere, perhaps just Twitter, their immediate problem is that things are OODA control. OODA being an invention of military strategist John Boyd, a United States Air Force colonel, standing for “Observe-Orient-Decide-Act.” And Boyd’s point, since widely adopted including in places like management education that may not inspire confidence, is that if events are happening faster than you can manage this response process, you spiral into disaster.

A classic example is the spring 1940 Fall of France. A combination of factors from arrogance to disdain for modern communications technology to old-tyme ineptitude left French commanders reacting to where German forces had been several days ago, not where they were now… until the latter became “Paris” and the reaction was “We surrender.”

It’s also surprisingly common in political scandals, especially involving traditionally successful parties and people. Caught off balance, they apply outdated responses to situations they never catch up with and, like fuddled generals, send vital forces into positions where they are predictably cut off and destroyed.

Here the Liberals were hit by a Globe and Mail story bluntly saying “Michael Chan … has for years been a national-security target of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service because of alleged links to China’s Toronto consulate and association with proxies of Beijing” and “CSIS regarded Mr. Chan as a national-security target and sought a section 21 warrant under the CSIS Act in early 2021.” But Blair waited four months to sign off, too late to monitor “the long-time Liberal Party kingpin” in the 2021 election.

The Globe reported back in 2015 that CSIS was giving security briefings on Chan in Ontario. That Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne both happily included him in their cabinets anyway shows how complacently Canadian Liberal politicians wink at Beijing’s subversion. As did Blair’s pompous statement that this latest story was nonsense, and it was beneath his dignity to say why but he was marvellous so we should all just move along.

Specifically, lest you think I paraphrase unfairly, “the reporting by The Globe and Mail is factually incorrect. I will not and cannot comment on specific cases, however, during my time as Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, all warrant applications were reviewed with due diligence. They were signed expeditiously. No warrant application ever took as long as four months for approval. The signing of a warrant under the CSIS Act is a very serious matter and further operational questions should be directed to CSIS.”

Apparently Winston Churchill did not actually say, “I know of no case where a man added to his dignity by standing on it.” And rightly not, because if you are accused of something most people are convinced you would never stoop to, you can glare it away. But what happens if you once enjoyed the benefit of the doubt but have squandered it and don’t realize it? OODA dear. You’re in a world of hurt.

The Liberals are. With problems erupting on many fronts, I wrote in The Epoch Times two weeks ago, their early May national convention theme should have been “Still progressive, but older and wiser,” not “Only enemies could criticize our brilliant leader.” But they still don’t get it. It’s “inside the loop” for them.

Thus Blair tried the Canadian Jedi mind trick that has worked well in Laurentian circles for years: You citizens don’t need to see that information. But we do, and we know it. As my Postmedia colleague Brian Lilley retorted acidly, and rapidly, “I seem to recall standing feet from @JustinTrudeau a few years ago when he said, ‘The allegations in the Globe story this morning are false.’”

If Blair had said I’m sorry, this story was substantially true and part of our fumbling this whole file badly, he could credibly have claimed they were now taking serious action. Instead he went nyah nyah go whistle at CSIS for details, not grasping that CSIS has been reduced to leaking this stuff to the press for months because they can’t get the Liberals to take it seriously, and that his response guarantees they’ll feed us more jaw-dropping details, still inside the Liberals’ OODA loop.

Thus the disintegration will continue until Ottawa falls. To the citizens, not China, I hope.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.