Friday, March 24, 2023

Today's News: the Han Dong accusations

Today's biggest story was the Han Dong accusations. This is what he said yesterday to Parliament: Tonight, I see on Twitter this might all be just a stupid error in translation: Could it really be this simple? 
If so, then CSIS and Global News owe Canada an enormous apology. 
As Chantal Herbert said tonight on At Issue, these should be called "allegations, not revelations":
The formser CSIS director was not impressed: Dale Smith, who attends Question Period every day so the rest of us don't have to, had this to say today:
...Overall, it was a bit of a stomach-churning day in that the opposition had pretty much all declared Dong’s guilt based on the media reports of anonymous allegations (and the fact that it came from two sources is worthless because they could have been reading from the same document, and intelligence is not evidence), and they knew the Liberals were going to flail in replying. The Conservatives not only had the strategy of getting as many MPs to ask the same question as possible, but they had even scripted the number of times that they didn’t get an answer from the Liberals because they knew they wouldn’t get an answer. If that isn’t a sign of just how debased the level of discourse in this Parliament has become, I’m not sure what else is. And less than an hour after QP ended, the shitposts using those clips were already circulating on Twitter, because that’s the point of Question Period right now. This is a problem for our democracy.
And the Liberals? Completely useless. It was another day of flailing in the face of allegations on foreign interference....
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2 comments:

Cap said...

Lots of questions, but no answers. Han Dong (LPC) and Vincent Ke (OPC) both represent the same riding - Don Valley North. Coincidence or is there more to it?

If the allegations are true that CSIS was monitoring phone traffic between the Chinese consulate and these politicians, then a judge must have issued a warrant. They don't do that without sworn evidence. It's unlikely we'll ever find out, but what evidence?

Dong hasn't denied talking to Chinese officials. Indeed, he says he asked them to release the two Michaels immediately. Presumably, this was between his resigning as a provincial MPP and his election as a federal MP. If not, what was a backbencher doing advising the Chinese government?

When Global first reported on Dong, the word "alleged" was conspicuously missing from the headline. Who screwed up there?

And who gave the green light to run the story after the Globe & Mail had passed because there was no transcript to substantiate it? This CSIS leaker must have had some credibility. Did any senior official leave under a cloud after insisting that the Chinese Communist Party had cultivated agents of influence at various levels of government in Canada?

Like I said, lots of questions that I doubt will ever be answered.

2:28 pm
Cathie from Canada said...

The more that comes out, the less credible these stories look. The tragedy may be that two honest politicians could lose their careers if someone in CSIS maybe had an ax to grind. I hadn't realized they are both from the same area - I wonder about disgruntled ex-volunteer or ex-staff?

11:29 pm

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