We Need To Investigate American Interference

On The New Crisis Of Foreign Interference

At some point there has to be consequences for actively trying to undermine our country.

The PQ and the Bloc are, for their many flaws and my many disagreements with them, attempts to advocate for Quebec independence through our democratic process. That’s fine, and if Alberta separatists want to do so, that’s their right. But what some supporters of a “free” Alberta have done at this point is crossing a line.

By going to the US to take meetings, without any sort of democratic mandate or authority conferred by anybody, the merry band of ruffians led by Jeffrey Rath have attempted to get the US government to become co-conspirators in an effort to weaken Canada. That is plainly unacceptable. Whether it meets the legal definition of treason as currently defined is a question for lawyers, of which I am mercifully not one. But it is absolutely within our rights as a country to say that conspiring with a government that has been hostile to us to achieve the aim of weakening Canada is a line that people must not cross.

Canada’s response to foreign interference has never been a strong one, but the ambivalence of our political class to an explicit, public request for a foreign government help to break up our country is a new low. It is the kind of thing that healthy countries do not let slip. And it’s the kind of thing that Parliament has to take the lead on. Whether or not Rath’s trip violates the law is a question I can’t answer, but whether it should be illegal is a political question that Parliament needs to address.

It is clear that the rules around foreign interference are not fit for a world where individuals can be the ones attempting to influence and interfere, and are the instigators of the conspiracy. We have a very Cold War understanding of treason and foreign interference - spying done by compromised people, forced into their state and into the shadows, but that’s not what this is now. We have a class of people openly rooting for, and trying to coordinate, what is an attack on Canada. And it’s time Parliament stepped up to the plate.

We need a new Parliamentary committee designed to look at this new form of interference. We need expert testimony on how to protect Canadians from this serious foreign interference. We need to look at the role of social media companies in ramping up divisive and anti-Canadian messaging as a matter of algorithms. And we need to have a venue to challenge those who think that Canada will just roll over in the face of blatant attempts to undermine our democracy.

The Convoy was the right time to look at these complex matters, but the second best time is right now. Most of the right in this country are loyal Canadians who support our country and who believe in its ideals, but there is undeniably a radical element of the right whose ideological objections to this federal Liberal government is justifying anti-democratic fetish for solutions that don’t involve winning over people who vote Liberal. They think that they represent some silent majority, but because of their contempt for anybody who doesn’t vote with them in a democracy, they actually represent the nutbar fringe. And it’s time we shine a light on it.

Jamil Jivani’s trip to the US, where he appointed himself negotiator for Canada and then did a media round declaring that Canada’s having a “hissy fit”, should be investigated. There are clear problems with an opposition MP going abroad to attempt to conduct foreign policy without the government’s approval or backing. Jivani’s faced no such tough questions because he’s chosen to avoid the press. A Parliamentary committee would not be ducked.

Questions about who paid for the trip, what he said to the Americans, the nature and length of his meeting with Trump, and how much the government was told before, during, and after his trip are necessary for Canadians. We have a MP freelancing foreign policy in a crisis, and we need a new way to know exactly what was said and what was done, both so Parliament and the government can fix the damage he might have done, and so the Canadian public are not left in the lurch.

There are right ways to go about expressing political discontent. Doug Ford’s Ontario is a land full of it, but nobody here is attempting to get the Lieutenant Governor to appoint Marit Stiles Premier despite losing the election - a real thing the Convoy wanted to do in 2022! - because we know we lost. These people are unwilling to accept what Ontario progressives know all too well - our only chance to win is if we get off our asses and do the work. Begging the Americans for cash isn’t a solution, it’s an attack.

We need to take this seriously. Canadians take their views on what issues do and don’t matter from our political elites, and the performative indifference many of them use to this serious issue is becoming a national problem. We need to be a confident enough country to deal with problems without throwing them aside and pretending they don’t exist simply because they’re hard. We need to be willing to deal with hard things while we’re in government.

And yes, given the massive revelations south of the border, we need to not be squeamish about using the fact we’re in government to do hard things even if bad faith actors will call us partisanly motivated. Treasonous Albertans trying to get Donald Trump to help break this country up are not conservatives, but if Conservatives would like to claim them then it shouldn’t be on the Liberals to protect them by not raising the issue. There are serious points of law - about what is and isn’t treason, what is and isn’t legal expression around breaking up this country, and we need to get that right. Allowing people to hide sedition in the comfort of expression is an easy way to erode our country and make a future government get away with a much greater erosion of our freedom of speech.

America’s not an idle threat to Canada at this point - it is a country that is openly hostile to us and openly willing to meddle in the politics and governance of other countries it’s decided they don’t like. The nature of American actions towards Greenland should disabuse us of the notion that this is solely a matter of going after bad countries. The idea that they want to hurt us economically, but that they’d never do anything else, is nonsensical. Taking meetings for the sole purpose of negotiating the terms of a line of credit with Alberta separatists is not something you do to a country you’re loyal to.

Parliament was fine investigating a foreign hostile power when it was politically expedient for the Conservatives, and now it’s time for Parliament to reclaim that same concern it once had, but turn it inwards. Canadians are engaging in borderline treason to crown and country - and Parliament should be the ones to investigate it, and come up with how to fix it.

And they need to do it quick.