Prime Minister Trudeau says that in a free democracy, “it is not up to unelected security officials to dictate to political parties who can and cannot run.”.Interesting he’d say that. There is no evidence that unelected security officials said anything of the kind..But if the Canadian Security Intelligence Service thinks somebody has been compromised, as is supposedly the case with candidates in as many as 11 riding election campaigns during the last election, it would be the duty of intelligence officials to report it right away, wouldn’t it? To the top..If not, for what do we have security agencies? .CSIS apparently did its job. It’s just that as nine of the eleven situations involved Liberal candidates and MPs, it would have been hard to for the prime minister to hear..'Darn these guys. Can’t they see I’m busy trying to change a country?'.So, Prime Minister Trudeau did what he always does when confronted with an awkward situation: In his well-practiced way, he blustered, obfuscated, draped himself in democracy’s flag and attacked the good faith of the honest messengers… .And what was the message the honest messengers brought?.According to CSIS documents viewed by the Globe and Mail and as reported by them, “China employed a sophisticated strategy to disrupt Canada’s democracy in the 2021 federal election campaign as Chinese diplomats and their proxies backed the re-election of Justin Trudeau’s Liberals — but only to another minority government — and worked to defeat Conservative politicians considered to be unfriendly to Beijing.”.It's easy enough to understand how upsetting that would be for any prime minister, to hear allegations that some of his people had been set up potentially as agents of influence for a foreign power..Still, the first, obvious and correct response was to acknowledge the magnitude of the CSIS allegations, the good work done by CSIS and that their report merited a full enquiry… preferably one chaired by somebody whose loyalties were not to any party or faction, but to the public good..And this is what must now happen. Canadians deserve just such an accounting from a full, thorough and above all unbiassed public inquiry into the CSIS allegations of Chinese election interference..We need to know what happened. Even more, Canadians deserve transparency on whether the prime minister was briefed by Canadian intelligence officials that China was targeting Canada — something he denies..So far the prime minister has refused. Yet, when retired elections Chief Electoral Officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley says it’s time, along with NDP leader Jagmeet Singh who buttresses his government and Gerry Butts who once effectively ran it for him have joined experts such as retired National Security Adviser Dick Fadden who have also called for a non-partisan inquiry, the weight of informed opinion agrees... maybe it is time. Let’s have the facts..We’ll see how long the prime minister lasts. First, without an inquiry..Then, even as prime minister.
