LILLEY: Justin Trudeau wants Canadians kept in the dark on foreign interference

Meanwhile, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has called for names of those involved to be released for more than a year

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Published Oct 17, 2024  •  Last updated 5 minutes ago  •  3 minute read

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is sworn in as a witness at the Foreign Interference Commission in Ottawa, on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. Photo by Justin Tang /THE CANADIAN PRESS

Here is the latest from 35,000 feet above the middle of the USA.

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If Justin Trudeau had his way, Canadians would never know about foreign interference in this country, never mind the names of those involved. Trudeau made that abundantly clear in his highly partisan appearance at the Foreign Interference Commission on Wednesday.

In his testimony, Trudeau lashed out at those who leaked information to the public and explained how this could all be handled without coming clean to the public.

If you were hopeful that Trudeau would heed the call by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to “release the names of all MPs that have collaborated with foreign interference,” don’t hold your breath. If it were up to Trudeau, there wouldn’t even be a Foreign Interference Commission.

“There is no question that the criminal who leaked the information to the media, had a role to play in our decision,” Trudeau said of the government’s expulsion of Zhao Wei.

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The decision to declare Zhao Wei, a Chinese diplomat, persona non grata in Canada only came after The Globe and Mail published a story exposing his gathering of information on Conservative MP Michael Chong and his extended family in Hong Kong.

“We will not tolerate any form of foreign interference in our internal affairs,” Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly said in a statement at the time.

The truth is, the Trudeau government had been allowing this Chinese diplomat to gather information on Chong, and New Democrat MP Jenny Kwan, who also has family in China. They were both targeted because they had been critical of the government in Beijing.

Despite knowing about these activities and other questionable acts of Mr. Wei, the Trudeau government did nothing. They allowed him to continue to operate for years and only acted when the story hit the media.

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Worse, they didn’t even inform Chong or Kwan that a Chinese diplomat in Canada was gathering information on them and their family members in China and shipping it back to China’s domestic spy agency. Trudeau even tried to downplay that these actions constituted a threat against the family members of Kwan or Chong.

Perhaps that’s why he allowed the illegal Chinese police stations to operate in Canada for so long, he didn’t see Chinese officials telling Canadian citizens to smarten up or something would happen to their family in China as a threat.

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The pattern here is that Trudeau only acted when his government was embarrassed into doing so through a public shaming. It was the same with Han Dong, the now former Liberal MP accused of being helped by China in securing his Liberal nomination for the riding of Don Valley North in 2019.

While Dong has denied any knowledge or complicity with China’s actions, the inquiry has heard that Chinese officials worked to help him win the Liberal nomination. Trudeau was informed of this weeks before the 2019 election but allowed him to run and then didn’t follow up.

Dong ran and won again as a Liberal in 2021 and only left the Liberal caucus when a story was published about the allegations in March of 2023. Trudeau knew about the allegations for three years and did nothing with Dong, nor did he act against the Chinese diplomats involved.

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On Wednesday, while going on several partisan rants to attack Poilievre, Trudeau explained more than once that a leader can drop candidates without ever going public. He described how they can deny to sign papers for candidates, or invent a story about past problems for public consumption.

It was another example of how Trudeau simply doesn’t want the public to know the depths of foreign interference. This is why he won’t release the names, this is why he called an inquiry with a very limited mandate only after public outrage.

It’s worth remembering that Trudeau originally rejected the idea of an inquiry, that his party shut down Commons committees looking into the issue, and that he tried to whitewash the whole thing by appointing his ski buddy David Johnston.

Poilievre has called for names of those involved to be released for more than a year, but Trudeau wants the public to know as little as possible. That tells you all you need to know about both leaders.

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