MacDougall: Trudeau still hasn't come clean on China's interference in our politics

Ottawa, the national capital, is a sleepy place at the best of times, but it needs to wake up to the fact that bad actors are doing bad things in its environs.

Published Oct 17, 2024  •  3 minute read

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appears as a witness at the Foreign Interference Commission in Ottawa on Oct. 16. Photo by Justin Tang /The Canadian Press

When former Alberta premier Jason Kenney was but a lowly minister of state for multiculturalism in Stephen Harper’s Ottawa, he used to be known as the “minister for curry in a hurry.”

The moniker was a nod to Kenney’s punishing weekend schedules: it wasn’t unusual for the minister, despite his work obligations in Ottawa, to wrack up 30 visits in a weekend of campaigning in multicultural hotspots such as Toronto and Vancouver. Kenney would dip into this temple and that, from this cultural celebration to another, sampling the culinary delights of each community as he went.

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As politics goes, it was highly effective. Combined with the Harper government’s emphasis on family, low tax and support for small business, Conservative numbers in many of Canada’s cultural communities ticked upward, helping the government finally reach majority status in 2011 — including a sprinkling of Ottawa-area seats.

That feels like a long time ago. The shocking details released this week by the RCMP about the Indian government’s alleged role in a series of serious crimes across Canada feel like something from a (bad) movie, not the real life horror they actually are. Justin Trudeau has done the right thing by exposing them.

If only the prime minister would now follow through and do the same about the other foreign malfeasance file on his desk: China. Trudeau’s recent Ottawa appearance before Justice Marie-Josée Hogue’s public inquiry into foreign interference was a masterclass in avoidance and projection. Instead of levelling about China’s activities, activities that have been all over our front pages for months, Trudeau chose to lob fresh accusations across the aisle, claiming that he actually had the skinny on some Conservative MPs who were targets for foreign actors.

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Now, our national capital is a sleepy place at the best of times, but it needs to wake up to the fact that bad actors are doing bad things in its environs. Getting serious will take more than an out-of-favour leader playing a game of “I know you are but what am I?” with his opponents. Instead of casting un-evidenced aspersions, the prime minister needs to make optimal use of the days he has left in power to clean up the mess he allowed to happen.

Sadly, the amount of seriousness on offer is nil. If Trudeau has evidence of compromised Conservatives, he should release it, as Pierre Poilievre is now urging him to do, not wave it around as some sort of partisan threat. Sunshine remains the best disinfectant. That Bill Blair, the former minister for Public Safety, didn’t know a CSIS warrant seeking his OK to investigate possible Chinese-led foreign interference targeting two Canadian parliamentarians was on his desk for 54 days is as unbelievable as the Indian government’s alleged morphing into a crime syndicate. It just doesn’t happen. Does anyone in Trudeau’s Ottawa know what the hell is going on? Or is it that they don’t want to know?

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More to the point, what does that lack of curiosity encourage? If malign actors around the world see Canada as a soft mark, or as a playground for their domestic politics, we can expect more activity. This is why a government must work to actively forge a Canadian identity, not simply portray our country as some kind of hotel, one where grievances are free to stay for as long as they like. And if those grievances contravene Canadian values — such as the rampant antisemitism we’ve witnessed since Oct. 7, 2023, including incidents in Ottawa itself — then it needs to be stamped out. The words “We are Hamas, we are Hezbollah” should not be heard in polite company, let alone chanted openly on Canadian streets. They are the sound of a sick society.

Trudeau’s increasing petulance and slow acceptance of the degrading reality around him are two of the main reasons Canadians are plumping for him to go. There can be no political turnaround but through principled action. We’re not living in the Kenney times anymore. Celebrating our differences is the old way; celebrating what unites us is the only way forward.

Andrew MacDougall is a London-based communications consultant and ex-director of communications to former prime minister Stephen Harper.

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