GUNTER: Liberal blindness allowing Chinese interference

The true threat to Canadian democracy from the infiltration of the Liberal Party of Canada by China’s communist government is not that the outcome of elections has been altered, but rather that the government has been compromised in its ability to serve Canadians by caucus members and staffers who are nearly as loyal to a hostile foreign power as they are to this country.

No one may serve two masters, not even a Liberal MP.

The threat is evident in the case of Toronto-area MP Han Dong, who resigned from the Liberal caucus Thursday to sit as an independent.

Before going any further, it is worth emphasising that Dong has not been convicted of anything. He hasn’t even been charged with anything.

That’s important. In our system, it is essential we each be assumed innocent until proven guilty. That applies to Dong, too.

The evidence against Dong, if true, is damning. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service claims to have audio recordings of Dong urging Chinese government officials on two occasions not to release the Two Michaels, Canadian citizens Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, who were held on phoney charges in a Chinese prison for nearly three years.

The veracity of the intelligence against Dong has not been established in court. We don’t even know whether CSIS’s collection of this intelligence was legal.

If it is legal, that raises another problem for the Trudeau government. By law, the intelligence service is required to get approval from the Public Safety minister before surveilling Canadian citizens. If CSIS were following Dong (as opposed to listening in to China’s consulate in Toronto and coincidentally overhearing Dong), that would mean the Liberals knew early of China’s efforts yet did nothing.

Which brings us back to the most dangerous aspect of the meddling scandal.

As I have written repeatedly, the outrage is not that the 2019 and 2021 elections were stolen; that somehow absent meddling by Chinese diplomats and their Chinese-Canadian dupes, the Conservatives would have won instead of the Liberals.

The Conservatives did, indeed, win slightly more of the popular vote in both campaigns. However, given how the Liberals dominate Atlantic Canada, Montreal and (especially) Greater Toronto, they nonetheless won the elections by 36 seats and 41 seats respectively.

The highest estimate of seats affected by Chinese interference is 11. The math doesn’t back up the “stolen” claim.

Suggesting that Chinese operatives “stole” the election is Trumpian. But the only people talking much about “stolen” elections – and thus the only real Trumpians – were Liberal MPs. Early in this scandal, several Trudeau ministers and caucus members tried to silence criticism from the opposition by comparing concerns over Chinese meddling to Donald Trump’s unhinged conspiracy theories following the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

No, the true threat from China’s meddling is not that China’s thumb was on the scales and changed the results. Rather, it is now impossible to tell how deeply China has infiltrated the corridors of Canadian power; how much control of our government, bureaucracy and boardrooms they have bought and finagled without having to deliver an election to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabal.

It has been a two-way relationship. Trudeau has been just as keen to forge an unbreakable bond with Beijing.

Our PM has always been naively awe-struck by China, just as Canada’s Laurentian elites (political, cultural, corporate and bureaucratic) have been so eager to abandon Canada’s long-standing military and economic reliance on the United States that they have obsequiously cozied up to China while blind-eyeing the risk.

Han Dong may well turn out to be innocent of colluding with China to keep two Canadians hostage, but there is more than enough evidence to assert the Liberal party has been co-opted.