The foreign interference saga is still more heat than light
Canada is still waiting for an 'open, apolitical' discussion about the challenge we face
In February, Australia's minister of home affairs (broadly analogous to Canada's minister of public safety) delivered a lengthy address on the topic of foreign interference in her country. Her goal, she said, was "a public discussion about this problem which is open, apolitical and commensurate with the size of the challenge that we face."
"it's time to bring foreign interference out of the shadows and into the light," Claire O'Neil said.
Australia is several years ahead of Canada on this issue, so perhaps it's not surprising the Canadian political system has not yet gotten to the point of having a suitably open, apolitical and light-filled discussion about foreign interference.
But Canada is not getting there fast — and the appearance of the prime minister's chief of staff before a parliamentary committee on Friday was not a great leap forward.
Not that it was ever meant to be. The questioning of Katie Telford was never meant to be much more than a political spectacle.
But this debate already had a surfeit of heat and a glaring deficit of light.
The basic questions remain the most important
From one day to the next, the foreign interference story offers any number of subplots to get lost in.
The operations of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. The credibility of David Johnston, the former governor general. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's judgment in choosing Johnston to advise him on how to move forward. The behaviour and rhetoric of the leader of the opposition, Pierre Poilievre, who has mocked Johnston and has accused the prime minister of working in China's interests. The media reporting on intelligence leaks and the Twitter-brained political discourse.
There is an overarching question about government transparency and the ability of Canada's democratic institutions to deal seriously with a serious challenge (the early returns are not encouraging).
But the most basic questions remain the most pertinent. What efforts did China make to interfere in the federal elections of 2019 and 2021? And did the Trudeau government do enough with the information it had on hand to deal with that threat?
Telford's appearance was not entirely without value. Like other officials before her, she cautioned that what we call "intelligence" sometimes includes claims that turn out to be wrong. She offered her account of how Trudeau and his advisers process intelligence reports and how responding to that information can be the responsibility of different departments.
New information provided by the Privy Council Office on Friday also details how often the prime minister and other ministers have been briefed by security officials on foreign interference.
But Telford warned in her opening statement that she was limited in what she could say about information that was considered classified. Her testimony repeatedly ran up against that constraint.
As if on cue, the Conservatives later complained that Telford had not been forthcoming.
If any party wants to propose changes to national security protocol and how the government decides what can be made public, they are welcome to do so. But a whole new information regime probably can't be put in place in time to solve the current conundrum.
Back in February, Australia's minister for home affairs said her government "strongly values integrity, openness and transparency." She also acknowledged that "in the national security sphere, some of these concepts are hard to put into practice."
"But in some of these areas also, knowledge dispels fear," O'Neil said. "Knowledge can make us stronger. And knowledge can help to keep us safe."
The dangers of incomplete information
On the issue of foreign interference, Canadian democracy finds itself at a point where it has only partial knowledge — bits of information, of unknown credibility, that have been leaked to journalists and turned into blaring headlines. The government might lament that the leaks have happened. But the only option now is to find a way to greater knowledge.
A full accounting might help or hurt the government's own case. But either way, it's the ambiguity that threatens to eat away at the foundations of Canadian democracy.
Telford said on Friday that it was exactly those "constraints" on sharing sensitive information that led the Trudeau government to create the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. That committee operates with such discretion that it is hard to know exactly what to expect, but those MPs and senators may yet be able to provide real answers.
There is also Johnston's work. Maligned he may be, but he also might be able to shed new light on the situation — or lay out a process for getting to that light.
But Friday's committee hearings primarily served to reinforce the fact that something more than the usual is required to get the needed answers — that what the system sorely lacks at the moment is an open, apolitical and commensurate discussion about the threats to Canadian democracy.
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