Canada

There were similarities to the departures of New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern and Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon — both stressed the toll of leadership, the time away from family and the human cost.

What they didn’t say was that they were both up against it politically. Polls suggested Ardern would lose the next election and the U.K.’s Supreme Court had ruled that Sturgeon’s Scottish Nationalist Party did not have the power to hold another independence vote unilaterally.

Could Justin Trudeau turn a coincidence into a trend?

Justin Trudeau wants Canadians to know they can have confidence in our democracy and institutions despite claims of election interference by China.

Trudeau turned down a call for public inquiry again Friday, the day after a Commons committee voted in favour of an inquiry.

“I would put the threat level at about eight out of 10. That’s mainly because the Chinese authorities are absolutely determined to achieve their goals, no matter what people think. I’m particularly concerned about their willingness to use almost any method to succeed.”

It was May 3, 2021, at a meeting of the House of Commons special committee on Canada-China relations, and Richard Fadden, former director of CSIS, had been asked by Conservative MP Pierre Paul-Hus how he would rate the threat posed by China to Canada’s economy, national security and defence.

Four overseas Chinese police stations reported to be functioning in various locations across Canada have now “ceased” operations, the RCMP says.

The RCMP’s deputy commissioner of federal policing Michael Duheme appeared before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs on March 2, where he was asked by Conservative MP Raquel Dancho about overseas Chinese police stations reported to be functioning in different locations in Canada.

The latest intelligence leaks about China’s influence operations in Canada are part of a trend that goes back at least three decades, though it has accelerated in recent years.

As early as the 1990s, a joint report by the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) was leaked to the media, warning about Beijing’s operatives and criminal gangs becoming entrenched in various Canadian sectors, but the authorities dismissed those concerns. Decades later, drug operations and money laundering became the subject of a B.C. public inquiry.

Lucki picked the right time to skip.

The head of Canada’s spy service says an investigation is under way to find the leakers of highly classified information on Chinese election interference, and suggested the whistleblowers may have been frustrated with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s handling of Beijing’s activities in the democratic process.

Appearing before a Commons committee investigating Chinese interference, David Vigneault, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, declined to answer questions about whether the government ignored warnings of China’s influence operations in the 2019 and 2021 elections.

FEARLESS SPECULATION: The leakers will never be caught because they aren’t CSIS.