Missing the point on growing foreign interference

The heated reaction to the report by David Johnston, the special rapporteur to investigate foreign interference, tells us more about the frayed state of politics and the fractured national political mood in Canada than about the contents of his 56-page analysis.

Accelerating mistrust of government, revealed by responses to COVID-19 public health measures, and the outbreak of the Freedom Convoy protests, are now playing out on a different canvas, as the country grapples with the national security threat posed by Chinese state interference in our electoral process.

Legitimate questions about the government’s handling of the foreign interference file have spilled over into evidencefree suspicion that the federal elections of 2019 and 2021 were corrupted by the shadowy plans of Chinese diplomatic officials in Canada and unnamed proxies acting on their behalf. There is hot pursuit of scandal and scapegoats.

Have we lost faith in the ability of Canadians to make up their own minds about election campaigns and mark their own ballots with intention? Or maybe not all Canadians, just new immigrants and diaspora communities with homeland ties? Thus does the democratic spirit come unstuck in a multicultural society.

Johnston’s reading of classified intelligence reports has led him to discount allegations of political malfeasance on the part of the Trudeau government and to call into question aspects of media reporting based on leaked documents. He serves up a powerful but convincing critique of a dysfunctional governmental system for using intelligence.

This is not the juicy narrative that some were expecting. Cock-up is never as satisfying a tale as conspiracy. And if you don’t like the story, well, there are alternative truths.

There are two dangers here. We risk losing sight — in pursuing side battles over public inquiry vs. public hearings, and the impugned fitness of Johnston to perform as “special rapporteur” — of the real story of an escalating threat from foreign interference and the need to quickly reach a political consensus on how to deal with it.

A second danger concerns self-inflicted wounds. Deeply partisan political approaches, and weak trust in governance and institutions creates vulnerabilities, which authoritarian states will surely try to take advantage of.

Johnston urges that, “national security is an area in which facts and truth must always have primacy over partisanship.” His report goes on to say, “There has been too much posturing, and ignoring facts in favour of slogans, from all parties. And many of the slogans turned out to be wrong.”

We can look for an exercise of greater transparency about national security by government, lowering the walls of secrecy to encourage and achieve greater public understanding. We need a system of properly declassified documents made available to all. A strengthened independent review system, including an election monitoring system would have immense value. We could look to the enforcement of our laws against foreign interference, and the recasting of those laws as necessary. We could find it in expert accounts, not just by Canadians, but by those from fellow democracies that share the same threat experience. All of these avenues are suggested in the Johnston report.

Public hearings offer a starting point, and a fast launch, for finding the remedies.