Thursday, May 04, 2023

Today's News: The Story Behind The Story?

Trudeau's brother Sacha testified today to the Ethics Committee and for a non-politician he did very well -- he didn't "spin a story", he didn't punch up a headline or two, he didn't trade insults with the insulting Con MPs who were trying to goad him. 
He just talked about the history about the Chinese donation - noting in passing his own expertise about China society, and his respect for the Chinese people = and also told the committee that the PET Foundation management had been disfunctional. Evan Scrimshaw (Scrimshaw Unscripted) notes the real issue isn't the Trudeau family at all, its Canada's intelligence agencies: CSIS' Leaking Ship A National, not Political Crisis:
...why is nobody else able to see what has been obvious for the last two months, which is that the real story here is a RCMP-CSIS war?
...I don’t have national security sources who can clue me in on this shit, but what I do have is a bullshit detector and a functioning brain, and this is the only theory of this story that adds up. CSIS, or elements within it, are mad at the lack of action that’s been taken on foreign interference and they’d like it to change. The RCMP has not listened to them, for reasons unclear. And now there’s a turf war.
...the matter at hand when it comes to CSIS is not why is the Prime Minister sitting on all of this incredibly important intelligence but why isn’t CSIS acting on this information if it’s as valuable and credible as the way it’s reported out suggests? Why can’t CSIS persuade the RCMP to do something about any of this if it is credible, and if it’s not credible enough for the RCMP to do anything why is it being given to Bob Fife?
...Trudeau said today that the reason Chong wasn’t told, and implicitly why he wasn’t told, was that CSIS made the determination that it did not rise to a sufficient level for it to be disseminated broadly. Maybe that call was right, maybe it wasn’t, argue with a rock for all I care. But what matters in that is that CSIS doesn’t get to have their cake and eat it too. Either these leaks are justified by the truly important nature of the information disclosed, or the information disclosed wasn’t important enough to disclose to the PMO or to Chong.
...We have an unserious spy agency at war with either our political government, our national police force, or both. We have a spy agency willing to leak things to the press they deemed insufficiently important to brief the PMO about. We have a pundit class eager to make the Prime Minister to blame for things he did not know about. And we have an opposition accusing the Prime Minister of knowingly holding back information when the PM never had it.
Others are also starting to notice:
And here's a couple of interesting threads: And here's a couple of tweets from a longer thread:
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4 comments:

e.a.f. said...

Given there is most likely no love lost between CSIS and the RCMP, they are most likely at war and given CSIS may not like they have to report to politicians, they may be at war with the government also. Perhaps CSIS thinks they should be able to operate like the CIA or MOSAD. No luck guys, this is Canada.

Most of us know what is required for someone to become an RCMP officer and their duties. With CISIS staff, who knows. We don't know who they are and there are good reasons for that, but it might be helpful if we knew what they did for the country in a general sense.

It has been alleged we have Chinese government police stations in Canada. How the fxxck did that happen and why did it take so long for that little tidbit to come out. You'd have thought CISIS might have been on to that and ended the practise and had the government send them packing.

I'm sure Mr. Chong has been "leaned on" by the Government of China and its representatives. That ought to have been discussed, not some paper perhaps going over, with the P.M. or his Deputy P.M. Then we ought to have shown those employees of the Government of China, the door. If China doesn't like it too bad, so sad. we are not some territory of China's. We are not Hong Kong. We are Canada an independant sovereign nation. China butt out.
Last year the embassador from China was giving a press conferance where he was lecturing us on our decisions and shaking his finger. Like who the hell does that guy think he is, shaking his finger at us, He's a guest here, representing another country. He might try for better manners. N?ext time a chinese official in Canada is lecturing us and shaking his finger at us, send him out of the country. Who the hell does THE GOVERNMENT of China think they are/

Canada does a fair amount of trade with China, but if Canada stands up and tells them what the game rules are it is doubtful they will break off trade. Might hold onto some of our citizens in China, but if you want to be safe in this world, you stay in your own country when things get a tad tense.

Perhaps it is time for the Deputy P.M. to go over and straighten out CISIS. They RCMP is beyond help. Then she can pay a call to the Government of China and explain good manners.

5:10 am
Cap said...

So now we have Public Safety Minister Mendicino pointing the finger at CSIS, "What I would say is that it's a serious problem that in July 2021 that neither the prime minister or the public safety minister at the time were briefed directly by CSIS." Note the weasel word "directly" - it's quite possible that the PM was briefed indirectly, with CSIS briefing someone in the Privy Council who passed on the information (or didn't).

In any case, I find it frustrating that news reports fail to put all this in historical context:

March 2021 - Spavor and Kovrig are tried for espionage in China. Spavor is sentenced to 11 years in prison, no outcome was announced for Kovrig.

July 2021 - CSIS allegedly informs government of Chinese election interference.

September 2021 - Meng reaches a deal with US prosecutors to avoid felony fraud charges, and is released in Vancouver. Hours later, Kovrig and Spavor are on a flight back to Canada.

So, is it not quite possible that in July 2021 the government had good reason not to publicize election interference and kick out Chinese diplomats?

8:41 am
Cathie from Canada said...

Cap, you are likely right - I hadn't put the timeline together at all. Thanks for this. It may well explain what e.a.f.is finding questionable.

That whole Meng case was a mess from beginning to end. I hope if there is one thing Canada has learned now, it is to think twice before we just follow US orders to arrest someone in transit without seeing any of the evidence the US says it has, especially if they ever have another president like Trump.

11:41 pm
e.a.f. said...

Cap does have a point there, about the time lines.
However, it still doesn't answer the question of why Canada had 3 Chinese government police stations in our country. like how dare they.

As to bullying the Conservative M.P. at a time when Canada thought it best not to deal with it, it is most likely Chong wasnt the only person to be "pressured". There have been enough press stories about the Chinese Government's activitties in other countries. CISIS needs to get off their coffee break and start working at what they were hired ot do. Perhaps they all ought to be give a copy of their job description and read it. It might also be a good idea for the head of CISIS to report on a weekly basis to the Deputy P.M. Obviously there doesn't seem to be meaningful communication between the beaurocrats and the political arm of government.

In the meantime I'm tired of China's bullying in other countries and international waters. Its time to deal with them in a meaninful manner.

5:09 pm

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