Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s especially special and exceptionally eminent “rapporteur” better either have a time machine or a very long memory, because, as it stands, that’s the only hope Canadian voters have of getting a true sense of the Liberals’ China problem.
The most explosive and widely publicized allegations of Beijing-directed election interference focus on the two most recent federal elections in 2019 and 2021, and on the nomination of MP Han Dong in the safe Liberal riding of Don Valley North. This, however, only scratches the surface of the all-important question: what did the prime minister, Liberal MPs and senior party officials know and when did they know it?
The upsetting truth may very well extend much further back than 2019, perhaps even decades back to reveal a party systemically compromised by its wilful blindness — which also happens to be the title of investigative journalist Sam Cooper’s must-read book on how “Chinese Communist Party (CCP) agents infiltrated the West.”
This could explain why Trudeau would rather keep efforts to look into the matter limited and controlled in scope, lest they start finding rows of dark crawl spaces, many of them cob webbed and long forgotten, under the Liberal house.
Cooper’s latest reporting for Global News says the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP), the same panel Trudeau appointed to look into interference allegations on Monday and which indeed reports to him, has in fact already looked into the matter back in 2019. According to Cooper, it concluded “foreign states clandestinely direct contributions” to politicians and “targeting often begins during the nomination process” then continues through general elections.
It’s unclear what NSICOP could conclude differently this time around that Trudeau hasn’t already very likely been privy to and roundly ignored.
Moreover, NSICOP reported on specific alleged examples of CCP interference “from 2015 to 2018 that involved the targeting and funding of candidates.” To be clear, these would be incidents that go beyond and predate any of the allegations currently making headlines. They would span the entirety of Trudeau’s time in power.
This would, of course, be in addition to questions about allegedly CCP-linked donations to the Trudeau foundation and, according to Le Devoir, potentially Trudeau’s electoral riding association during this period.
However, there’s evidence that Beijing-directed interference dates back much farther. Former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien has long been one of China’s biggest boosters — going so far as to publicly and privately encourage the Liberals to capitulate to Beijing on the Meng Wanzhou case.
It’s no secret Jean Chrétien greatly expanded Canada’s relationship with the CCP during his prime ministership, something that wasn’t politically unique in the West at the time. However, it’s less widely known how Beijing may have courted him and the Liberal Party.
In his book Wilful Blindess, Cooper delves into some of that history, including allegations of a “shady Taiwanese immigration-consulting business funneling incredible amounts of money into Quebec’s immigration program, and directly into the riding of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.” There was also a proposed investment in a “money-losing hotel in the Quebec riding of Shawinigan” — again Chrétien’s riding and Chrétien “had a business interest in the hotel.” This is based on reporting by Fabian Dawson for the Vancouver Province, dating back to 1999.
Dawson’s stories also included allegations Canadian embassy staff received bribes, and that 30 Canadian officials may have taken gambling cash from “Triad figures” and had “since gone on to become senior government officials after only minor reprimands.”
Dawson further reported a RCMP External Review Committee’s findings on the matter, which were that the RCMP made a “deliberate choice not to pursue investigation into possible criminal wrongdoing” because, in Cooper’s the RCMP, “didn’t want to anger the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs.” This may ring a bell for those wondering why today’s RCMP is happy to investigate recent CSIS leaks, but not the allegations within the leaks themselves.
There is obviously plenty to be alarmed about here, and even more in Cooper’s book. Most Canadian voters remain blissfully unaware, and it’s without question many in the Liberal Party would prefer they stay that way.
The extent of not just CCP interference in Canadian elections, but potential complicity from the highest echelons of Liberal power over a matter of decades as they looked the other way, render Trudeau’s proposed “special rapporteur” and NSICOP review entirely inadequate.
Canadians need true transparency to restore their faith in Canada’s democratic processes and institutions, and the only way that can begin to happen is with a public inquiry that’s allowed to go wherever the evidence may lead.
National Post
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