LILLEY: MPs must call Trudeau’s bluff on inquiry and force an election

Parliament has voted for a second time to call for a public inquiry into China’s interference in our democracy. For a second time, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is ignoring the will of Parliament and refusing to call an inquiry, saying that the investigation headed up by his good friend David Johnston is enough.

While Trudeau is the prime minister, he leads a minority government and the majority of elected members in the House of Commons have not only called for an inquiry twice now, but for Johnston, his special rapporteur, to be shown the door.

In refusing to move on his position on either matter, Trudeau is essentially daring MPs on the opposition benches to force an election – and they should.

Faith in our democracy is being undermined by the foreign actors in Beijing and one man — Trudeau — is standing in the way of the Canadian voting public finding out more about that interference. Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet voiced the question everyone was asking Wednesday as Trudeau again refused to call an inquiry.

“What we are seeing now is a government which is paying a heavy political price to hide something. The question is what the hell is he trying to hide?” Blanchet asked on Parliament Hill ahead of question period and the vote on the motion to remove Johnston and call an inquiry.

The vote on that motion passed 174 in favour and 150 against.

Despite the majority of elected members of the House of Commons telling Johnston they didn’t trust him and didn’t want him to stay on the job, the former governor general released a statement saying he wasn’t going anywhere.

“I deeply respect the right of the House of Commons to express its opinion about my work going forward, but my mandate comes from the government. I have a duty to pursue that work until my mandate is completed,” Johnston said.

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There you have it, a man asked to look into the attempts by a dictatorship trying to influence the politics of a democracy ignoring the will of the democratic majority in the House of Commons and saying he will stay on because the government asked him to.

Johnston, a man I once had immense respect for, is now a joke and not someone worth listening to.

Given his personal connections to Trudeau, his role with the Trudeau Foundation and his connections to China, he simply should have said no when Trudeau asked him to take on this role. That he not only took it, but has issued a defiant statement saying “to hell with your democracy, the leader asked me to do this,” makes me wonder if anyone should have ever held Johnston in high esteem.

His judgment is off, to say the least.

On Tuesday, former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole stood in the House and gave a broad stroke description of how CSIS described the ways China interfered with him and the Conservative party in the 2021 election. It boils down to China providing money, workers and lies to defeat the Conservatives and elect the Liberals in the last election.

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The Trudeau government was briefed about all of this and simply didn’t act. They can claim they didn’t know, that they couldn’t access secret email accounts after six years on the job, but no one believes them on that except their most diehard supporters.

Every intelligence official that will speak publicly on this issue says that all parties will be hit with the fallout of a public inquiry. China doesn’t put all of its eggs in one basket, they spread them out.

Yet while the Conservatives, NDP and Bloc are willing to take a hit to get to the truth of the matter, the Liberals stand alone in saying a public inquiry is the wrong path.

The Trudeau Liberals are acting like a guilty party. So if Trudeau won’t call an inquiry, MPs must call an election instead.