Commentary
David Johnston was appointed special rapporteur by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in March to look into allegations of Chinese interference in Canada’s election process. The former governor general has apparently met with Trudeau, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, and Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-François Blanchet to discuss his role and mandate.
No such meeting will be taking place with Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, however.
An unnamed spokesperson originally told CBC News on May 18 that Poilievre was offered a 48-hour window to set up a meeting, which didn’t work with his schedule.
The story went down a different path a few hours later. “He is Justin Trudeau’s ski buddy, his cottage neighbour, his family friend, and a member of the Trudeau Foundation, which got $140,000 from Beijing,” Poilievre told reporters. “He has a fake job and he’s unable to do it impartially. He needs to simply hand it over and allow an independent public inquiry into Beijing’s interference.”
Poilievre, to his credit, had taken a principled stance and made some valid points.
Johnston’s association with the Trudeau family goes back to the 1970s. “I have known [Trudeau] for a long time because our children played together,” he said in a 2017 Globe and Mail interview. “It’s been a friendship for a long time.” Trudeau, in turn, called Johnston a “family friend.”
Johnston was also a member of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation up until his special rapporteur appointment. It got embroiled in the controversy when the Conservatives revealed then-president and CEO Morris Rosenberg helped facilitate a “controversial $200,000 donation from influential CCP official Bin Zhang, who was also intimately involved in Trudeau’s 2016 billionaire cash-for-access scandal.” Rosenberg’s successor, Pascale Fournier, originally claimed the donation has been reimbursed—which turned out to be untrue, leading to her resignation along with the board of directors.
Poilievre told the media he sent Johnston a letter asking him how he could investigate the foundation independently. It’s a fair question. No response was ever received.
Was this a slight against Johnston, a decent man who is widely respected across the political aisle? Hardly. If anything, it was a slight against Trudeau for appointing a special rapporteur to create an impression that Ottawa was doing something to prevent any further escalation of foreign interference—which it is not.
A special rapporteur doesn’t have the political power or legal authority to make sweeping changes to help prevent further interference in Canadian elections from countries like China, Russia, Iran, and other totalitarian nations. Even if Trudeau had asked Johnston to step aside and replaced him with someone else, these deficiencies with the role would have remained.
The Conservative leader, unlike his Liberal, NDP, and Bloc counterparts, simply refused to create an aura of legitimacy for a position that many Canadians believe isn’t legitimate.
If Trudeau had legitimately wanted to stop the scourge of foreign interference, he would have announced a public inquiry right off the bat. In late March, a non-binding NDP motion in support of this very measure passed 172-149 in the House of Commons. All of the opposition parties, including Poilievre and the Conservatives, supported the motion. The Liberals, along with the PM, predictably opposed it.
“I think in this case, the allegations are so serious they need to be looked into,” Richard Fadden, former head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, told Mercedes Stephenson on Global News’s The West Block in February. “I think a public inquiry is really the route to go.” He suggested the public inquiry “should be given a limited mandate so that they report” before the next federal election is called. “There should be an inquiry under the Inquiries Act so that they can ... subpoena people and documents if need be.”
The former spymaster also made this notable assessment: “I can’t see any compelling reason not to do it in the public interest except some partisan considerations.”
Indeed, there was no reason why a public inquiry couldn’t have been introduced by Ottawa at the same time as other measures, including the special rapporteur. “We need a public inquiry that is truly independent to get to the bottom of it all while continuing the parliamentary investigation,” Poilievre correctly said back in March.
Johnston, as it happens, is expected to announce on May 23 whether he believes a public inquiry on Beijing’s election interference is required. If he doesn’t believe it’s warranted, many Canadians will believe it was Trudeau who blocked it behind the scenes for questionable reasons. If he does believe it’s warranted, many Canadians will believe it was Trudeau who allowed it to go through because of escalating public pressure.
It’s a catch-22 that could have been easily avoided if Trudeau, rather than Johnston, had done his job properly.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
