Canadians are twice as likely to support a formal inquiry into foreign interference, as opposed to public hearings, according to new polling from Nanos Research for CTV News.
Nearly six in 10 Canadians say they prefer the idea of a formal public inquiry headed by a judge with full subpoena powers, according to the survey.
Meanwhile, a quarter of respondents say they would prefer the public hearings option “to shine more light on the problem of foreign interference and the threat it poses.”
It’s quite the bombshell. It’s a 77-page investigative report on Beijing’s influence operations in Canada’s democratic institutions. It examines the Chinese Communist Party’s sinister engagements with this country’s political processes, universities, civil society, corporate sector, Chinese-language news media and social media.
Rich in documentary evidence and fact-based analysis, the report also relies on expert advice and named informants, except in cases where the security of individuals and entities would be put at risk. It’s titled Murky Waters: Beijing’s Influence in Canadian Democratic and Electoral Processes.
Oh my! Have a look at who is on the board of David Johnston’s so called “non partisan” charity The Rideau Hall Foundation. It’s only the literal who’s who of CCP creme of the captured crop bootlicker$. It’s so in our bloody faces, ABSOLUTELY CIRCLE JERK AAAAMAZINE I tell ya.… pic.twitter.com/Jfd3NQq5t9
— Laura Love (@Panopticonomy) June 7, 2023
Former governor general David Johnston has revealed he’s been using not one, but two reputation-management firms to do his work looking into foreign interference in Canada’s democracy. He might need a couple more.
For more than three hours on Tuesday, Johnston was plunged into the politics he’s tried to stay above during his long career in public service and academia.
His mission was to defend the work he’s done to date for Justin Trudeau’s government, looking into the white-hot issue of whether this country is vulnerable to foreign interference in its elections, notably from China.
David Johnston says China interference findings may have been based on incomplete intelligence
Former governor-general David Johnston conceded Tuesday that his findings that China did not orchestrate a campaign against the Conservative Party may have been based on incomplete intelligence, casting doubt on the special rapporteur’s report that a public inquiry into Beijing interference in Canadian democracy is not warranted.
In testimony before the Commons committee on procedure and House affairs, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh pressed Mr. Johnston to explain a contradiction between his report and what former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole told Parliament last week.
After all, how much intelligence is needed for a whitewash?
Johnston did not interview Han Dong for foreign interference report
… David Johnston, a former governor general appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to review allegations of foreign meddling, told a House of Commons’ committee Tuesday that he did not interview Don Valley North MP Han Dong during his two-month probe.
That’s despite finding that “there clearly were strange practices, unusual practices going on” during Dong’s 2019 nomination contest in the safe Liberal riding. Johnston said his team did not conclude that those “strange practices” could be attributed to the People’s Republic of China, though his report noted suspicions that they could be.
Stellantis has what it needs to make decision on Windsor battery plant: Champagne
OTTAWA – Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne says Stellantis and LG Energy Solutions have what they need to make a decision on a proposed electric vehicle battery plant in Windsor.
A spokeswoman for Stellantis says the two companies received a “written offer” and are currently analyzing it.
The companies put the brakes on construction of the plant in May after their talks with Ottawa stalled.
As mentioned this will be a couple of hours of how dare you question my integrity blah blah blah …
David Johnston’s lead counsel on foreign interference probe attended Trudeau fundraiser in 2021
The lead counsel for special rapporteur David Johnston, who oversees the government-appointed probe into Chinese foreign interference, has not only donated exclusively to the Liberal Party but also attended a private fundraiser where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was the guest of honour.
Elections Canada records show that Toronto lawyer Sheila Block participated in a private Zoom webinar fundraiser in late March, 2021, billed as a “Virtual Conversation with Anita Anand and Justin Trudeau.” Ms. Anand, now Defence Minister, was minister responsible for public services and procurement at the time.
h/t DM
” … a new working paper from a trio of Canadian academic economists digs deeper into the issues around immigration. The paper, currently circulating in draft form under the title, The Economics of Canadian Immigration Levels, offers a scholarly but withering critique of current policy.
The authors – Matthew Doyle and Mikal Skuterud of the University of Waterloo, and Christopher Worswick of Carleton University – argue that policy makers are mistaken to conclude “that if some immigration is good for the economy, then more must be better.”
The Trudeau Foundation has investments in Chinese companies Baidu and Tencent, a former board member told MPs on a parliamentary committee. Both companies have been subjects of security warnings.
The Trudeau Foundation was created with a $125 million endowment from the federal government in 2001 in memory of former prime minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, to provide grants and academic scholarships.
Newly released documents say the intelligence community’s relationship with its key watchdog has been particularly strained over the last year due to a “level of resistance” to scrutiny.
The assessment appears in briefing materials prepared for Canada’s top public servant in advance of a late January meeting with the chair of the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says that despite special rapporteur David Johnston’s personal credibility, the appearance of bias in favour of the Liberal government is undermining the very work that he’s trying to accomplish.
“I believe he’s a person that is very credible and has worked for the country in a way that is really honourable,” Singh said in an interview on Rosemary Barton Live Sunday.
“The problem we’re up against, though, is the work he’s supposed to do is restore confidence in our electoral system, and the appearance of bias is so strong now that he can no longer do that work. The trust necessary is eroded because of the appearance of bias,” Singh told CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is defending his party’s decision not to make its motion calling for David Johnston to step down as special rapporteur binding and says an election does not “make sense” if the goal is protecting Canada’s democracy.
Singh told The West Block’s Mercedes Stephenson in an interview that aired Sunday that he wants to get a better understanding of the full extent of allegations of foreign interference.
Canada sticking with 2050 net zero targets, but progress may come faster than expected, minister says
Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson says the federal government is not ruling out finding ways to achieve net zero sooner than the existing 2050 goal, but would not say whether there would be a definitive commitment to move up the target.
The government’s current target is to hit net zero emissions — the point at which the amount of greenhouse gas emitted is equal to the amount that is removed from the atmosphere — by 2050, a goal shared by the other G7 countries. But in March, a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change prompted United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres to encourage developed countries move up their net-zero timelines to 2040.
Net Zero Lunacy from the Times – Time’s up for Drax’s tree-burning racket
… The most heinous example of this racket is the way the government has subsidised the wood-chip burning (“biomass”) of Drax to the extent of many billions of pounds. This Yorkshire-based power station company does not burn a single British tree among the 27 million it gets through a year. It imports all its wood chips — mostly shipped in colossal diesel-powered vessels across the Atlantic from forests in Canada and Louisiana.
As I wrote here in February: “The CO2 ‘chimney emissions’ in the process are not recorded in the UK’s carbon accounts . . . they are on the American and Canadian carbon balance sheet.” Crazier still, more than £6 billion of subsidies have been funnelled to Drax — it would not have a viable business model otherwise — on the basis that its contribution to the national grid is “carbon neutral” because these millions of trees are replaced by newly planted ones that will absorb carbon in the atmosphere as they grow.
Senators Yuen Pau Woo and Victor Oh have ramped up efforts against enacting a foreign agent registration act as the Canadian government considers the legislation to combat foreign influence.
Both senators brought up the issue again at a conference that marked the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Immigration Act, held at the Splendid China Mall in Scarborough, Ont., on Saturday, May 27.
The act, introduced on July 1, 1923, is commonly known as the Chinese Exclusion Act, as it resulted from an effort to stop Chinese immigration, stated a May 30 federal government news release recognizing “the national historic significance” of this legislation.
Not trusting these two for some reason.
The Trudeau government’s carbon pricing regime and climate change policies are adding to the financial hardships faced by Canadians
Here’s the thing.
Making people pay more to heat their homes in Atlantic Canada isn’t going to stop wildfires in Alberta, or for that matter in Atlantic Canada.
