Justin Trudeau

Thursday March 9, 2023

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday March 9, 2023

Ottawa says special rapporteur on election interference will be named within weeks

As the Trudeau government promises to appoint a special rapporteur within weeks to investigate claims that China meddled in Canada’s last two elections, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is casting doubt on the independence of the new role.

February 25, 2023

On Monday night, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he will name an “eminent” and independent person as a special rapporteur on election interference. He said the special rapporteur “will have a wide mandate and make expert recommendations on combating interference and strengthening our democracy.”

The next day, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said the government wants to appoint the special rapporteur in a very short period of time.

“We’re talking about weeks, not months,” he said.

Trudeau said he’s open to consulting with the opposition parties on choosing someone for the role. Poilievre said he was skeptical.

“He could pick someone independent but he won’t,” Poilievre told reporters Tuesday morning.

“He’ll pick another Liberal establishment insider, a real Ottawa insider with some grey hair who looks like a reasonable fellow, but we all know that it will be someone tied to him, tied to the Liberals.”

March 2, 2023

The Conservatives have largely dismissed a recent report highlighting foreign interference observations during the 2021 election. The report was written by Morris Rosenberg, who was appointed to the role by the public service. 

The veteran former public servant also worked as the head of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. Poilievre’s party has said that fact makes him not credible.

“[Trudeau is] going to appoint a special rapporteur that will be appointed by him who will come out and say, ‘Oh, everything is fine, let’s move on,'” said Poilievre.

“He wants closed and controlled and we want an open and independent inquiry to make sure it never happens again.”

‘Special rapporteur’ is term often used in the context of the United Nations. Special rapporteurs are are often appointed to conduct fact-finding missions or investigate allegations of human rights violations.

April 24, 2009

During a separate news conference, Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet said the special rapporteur should be appointed by Parliament, not the prime minister.

NDP House Leader Peter Julian told CBC’s Power & Politics that Monday’s announcement was a baby step and the special rapporteur needs to be “impeccable.”

“It cannot be somebody who is considered partisan and cannot be somebody who is not considered independent from the Liberal government,” he said.

Trudeau said Tuesday he will consider names floated by his political opponents.

“We will of course be open to suggestions that the various parties put forward for names for this independent special rapporteur,” he said during a news conference in Kingston, Ont. (CBC) 

From sketch to finish in 30 seconds, see the current way Graeme completes an editorial cartoon using an iPencil, the Procreate app, and a couple of cheats on an iPad Pro …

 

Friday March 3, 2023

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday March 3, 2023

Did foreigners interfere in Canada’s elections? Don’t expect politicians to sort it out

The best argument so far for an independent inquiry into foreign election interference in Canada has come from the least independent voices in this escalating furor — politicians and members of Parliament.

February 25, 2023

A hearing at a Commons committee on Wednesday vividly proved the point. National security discussions should come with a warning label — don’t try this at home. Or more accurately, don’t try this in the House.

It comes down simply to this: the question of whether foreign actors have been meddling in Canadian elections is simply too important to be litigated by the people who were players in those elections, with vested interests. That goes for all the political parties: the governing Liberals and their opposition rivals.

Opposition parties are in fact on side with the idea of some independent inquiry, though Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre also wants MPs to continue their Commons committee investigation, such as it is right now.

“We cannot allow this affair to simply go up in smoke with a secret private investigation, it must be public so that Canadians know exactly what is going on,” Poilievre told reporters on Wednesday. “We cannot shut those parliamentary inquiries down with a promise that in two years there will be some report on a public inquiry.”

But if Wednesday’s Commons hearings were any indication, Canadians aren’t going to get many answers from the political arena. Justin Trudeau’s national security adviser, Jody Thomas, explained as much during her testimony.

January 16, 2020

“We cannot talk about national security information in a public forum,” said Jody Thomas, who stared down this committee with the same, flat, no-nonsense tone she brought to last fall’s public inquiry into the “freedom convoy.” Thomas said at those hearings that she was one of the influential advisers saying yes to a declaration of emergency on the convoy last winter. On Wednesday, she made clear she’s one of the people on the inside arguing against a wide-open public inquiry.

A lot of the back and forth between MPs, Thomas and other senior security officials testifying on Wednesday proved the national security adviser’s point. MPs — who do come from political parties — were gamely trying to get the security people to say how much political parties were in the loop about possible election threats in 2019 and 2022.

Sorry, the politicians were told — that’s top secret. (Though the officials did manage to reveal that the RCMP is not investigating any of the allegations surfacing in the media of late, which is significant.)

The problem with politicians looking into political interference is that they’re not the ones who need to be reassured that Canadian elections are free and fair. It’s the voting public, and the news on that right now is not good.

November 24, 2020

An Angus Reid poll released this week showed that a disturbing two-thirds of Canadians believed that China either definitely or probably tried to influence the past two elections in Canada. An even more disturbing 42 per cent of past Conservative voters were inclined to believe the elections had been “stolen.” Sound familiar?

That means that the horse is already out of the barn on this one. Reassurances from the Liberal government will just feed the cynicism of non-Liberal voters, while opposition’s continuing attempts to cry foul could make those parties sound like they have an axe to grind — a pox on all their houses, in other words.

The opposition leaders are right to ask that their parties have a voice in determining the shape of any future inquiry. In the past, I’ve been told, no election-reform legislation proceeded without broad agreement between all the parties.

That may have been a myth, I haven’t tested that against the long historical record. But it seems the point is wise. On something as important as democracy and electoral legitimacy, you don’t want anyone saying that the ruling party put its thumb on the scale.

Trudeau continues to say that we have all the inquiries we need into electoral interference right now and they need to run their course. The current Commons committee hearings, with no offence to any of the MPs doing their questioning, is not going to be the final word — any more than the various parliamentary hearings into the convoy, which paled in comparison to Justice Paul Rouleau’s inquiry.

Trudeau’s next move should be to convene a meeting of all the opposition leaders, swear them to the highest levels of security clearance, and hammer out how they can get a grasp on this issue before the public gets any more cynical about the fairness of elections. That one gesture in itself would prove that the politicians are putting democracy over their partisan interests.

It would also, as a bonus, be enormously frustrating to whatever foreign actors are enjoying the current spectacle of Canadians questioning whether their democracy works. (The Toronto Star)

 

Friday March 3, 2023

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday March 3, 2023

Bused out of Quebec, francophone asylum seekers struggle to get medical services

Over the phone, the woman’s voice is regretful but hurried — she says she’s sorry, but if the French-speaking migrant on the other end of the line cannot find someone to translate English, the doctor won’t see him for the medical exam he needs in order to claim asylum in Canada.

March 24, 2022

CBC News obtained a recording of the phone conversation the man says took place Wednesday in Niagara Falls, Ont. 

“It’s not possible to speak with the doctor if you can’t speak English,” the woman tells him in French. “You have to find someone at your hotel to help you.” 

“I don’t know anyone here,” Guirlin — whose last name CBC News has agreed to withhold because of his precarious immigration status — replies.

Guirlin and his family are among the more than 5,500 asylum seekers who have been bused by Canada’s government from Quebec’s border with the U.S. to cities in Ontario, including Windsor, Cornwall and Niagara Falls. 

They are also among a number of those — mostly francophones from Haiti or countries in Africa — for whom the transfer happened against their wishes since they could not afford to find a place to stay immediately. Their plan all along was to live in Quebec.

February 17, 2023

Guirlin, his wife, who is six months pregnant, and their four-year-old son ended up in Niagara Falls on Feb. 14. Originally from Haiti, the family had been struggling to make ends meet in Brazil, when they decided to travel north through a dozen countries to make their way to Canada. 

When they arrived on Feb. 11 via Roxham Road, the popular irregular border crossing south of Montreal, they were asked by immigration officers where they planned to live in Canada.

“I said we want to stay in Montreal because I don’t speak English and my wife doesn’t either, and she needs to have medical appointments for the pregnancy,” Guirlin said in a phone interview Thursday. 

He says they were told in the following days there was no space for them in Montreal, and that they were being sent to Ontario. They boarded a bus with roughly 40 other asylum seekers from a number of other countries last Tuesday. For now, the government has put them up in a hotel. (CBC) 

 

Thursday March 2, 2023

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday March 2, 2023

Trudeau slaps down questions about public inquiry into election meddling

February 25, 2023

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pushed back at questions Friday about calling a public inquiry into claims that Beijing interfered in Canada’s recent elections, telling reporters that the probes already underway are sufficient.

Trudeau is under pressure from his political opponents to launch an inquiry after media reports citing unnamed sources said the Chinese communist regime has co-opted some Canadian politicians. A Commons committee passed a motion Thursday in an attempt to compel the government to act.

Speaking to reporters at a child care announcement in Winnipeg, an animated Trudeau said his government has been seized with the issue of foreign interference for years and put in place a system to actively monitor meddling by China and other bad actors.

When asked why he won’t call an inquiry now, Trudeau said senior public servants working on the Critical Election Incident Public Protocol (CEIPP) already have reviewed the 2019 and 2021 campaigns and concluded that, while there was some Chinese interference, those actions did not compromise the final outcomes.

During the news conference, Trudeau appeared to be annoyed by reporters repeating questions about the calls for an inquiry.

February 20, 2021

Former senior public servant Morris Rosenberg released his review of the 2021 campaign earlier this week.

He found that the Government of Canada did not detect foreign interference that threatened Canada’s ability to hold free and fair elections in 2019 and 2021. He also offered a series of recommendations meant to prevent foreign interference in the future.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has said the Rosenberg report isn’t credible because Rosenberg previously held a role with the Trudeau Foundation, a non-profit named for the prime minister’s father. That foundation also received a $200,000 donation from an individual with ties to China’s government — money that was returned this week.

Trudeau said Friday the public service picked Rosenberg for the job — and his government had no role in the appointment.

T

December 5, 2017

rudeau also pointed out that the House of Commons procedure and House affairs committee is also in the midst of its own probe and the top-secret National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP), which was created by the Liberal government, is reviewing all of the intelligence about the 2021 vote.

“All of these processes are going on and demonstrate the seriousness with which this government and this country needs to take the question of foreign interference,” Trudeau said.

“Canadians can have confidence in our institutions, in our democracies and our ability to defend ourselves.” (CBC) 

 

Saturday February 25, 2023

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday February 25, 2023

Ottawa should get serious about Chinese meddling in elections

November 16, 2022

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau presumably meant to be reassuring when he commented on the latest revelations about Chinese interference in Canada’s last two federal elections. He failed in at least a couple of ways.

After it was reported last week that the Chinese government orchestrated an extensive campaign of disinformation, undeclared cash donations and string-pulling in an attempt to influence public opinion and limit the Liberals to another minority 

government, the prime minister had this to say:

“All Canadians can have confidence that the outcomes of the 2019 and 2021 elections were determined by Canadians, and Canadians alone, at the voting booth.”

The first problem with that statement is that no one is claiming that non-Canadians, and certainly not Chinese agents, actually showed up at the polls to vote. Nor is anyone claiming that Chinese-orchestrated interference was extensive or effective enough to affect the overall result of the elections.

That’s a classic straw man — an argument no one is making and that can be brushed aside with ease. The concern is quite different but still worrisome: that China has been meddling in a host of indirect ways designed to swing public opinion in its favour and affect the outcome in some specific places. Oh, and that are often illegal to boot.

February 20, 2021

To that the government has offered no convincing reply. On the contrary, it seems remarkably complacent about the latest information, contained in internal documents prepared by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and reported by the Globe and Mail.

The government’s response to these revelations, and other ones last fall concerning the 2019 election, can be summed up as: we know all about this, nothing new here, it’s under control, please move on. That wasn’t working very well before (a Commons committee has been looking into the 2019 vote) and it certainly isn’t going to work now after the latest dump of CSIS documents.

Even if the overall result of the elections wasn’t at stake, it’s impossible to tell what effect the Chinese operation might have had in the 11 ridings it reportedly targeted in 2019, involving nine Liberal and two Conservative MPs. One former Conservative MP, Kenny Chiu, claims he lost his Vancouver-area seat in 2021 because Beijing used Chinese social media to paint him as “anti-Chinese” in a riding with many Chinese-heritage voters. Isn’t that serious all by itself?

We don’t need to accept everything in the CSIS information at face value to be concerned. For example, a former Chinese consul-general in Vancouver, Tong Xiaoling, reportedly boasted about defeating two Conservative MPs. She may well have been just puffing herself up in front of her bosses — people do that sort of thing — but who knows?

November 20, 2020

What’s missing from the government’s response isn’t just stronger words, though those would be welcome. What’s missing is any sign of concrete action to stop and indeed punish this kind of meddlesome behaviour by a foreign power that has shown it doesn’t respect our country or our government.

One of the actions reportedly orchestrated through China’s “diplomats” in Canada involved persuading sympathetic or intimidated people to donate to a candidate that Beijing wanted to see elected. The donor got a partial tax refund, and the embassy or consulate then kicked back the rest.

If that’s really been going on, it would be entirely illegal under Canada’s election laws. But there’s no sign that the RCMP or any other body has been unleashed to investigate and punish such activity. If it was really organized by Chinese representatives, they should be ordered out of the country pronto.

Canada has toughened its stance toward China in some other areas — notably in cracking down on university research funded by Chinese military or security entities. That makes the government’s continuing complacency on election interference even harder to explain. (Toronto Star editorial) 

From sketch to finish, see the current way Graeme completes an editorial cartoon using an iPencil, the Procreate app, and a couple of cheats on an iPad Pro …