Canadian politics thread

[inv4zn]

Originally Posted by Hondaracer

A lawyer and 20 year political analyst outlines the exact same shit I just said on the last page including Turd admitting under oath Liberal MP’s have been subject to the exact same thing he is accusing the cons of but has never said he will pursue it or do anything to rectify the situation

https://apple.news/AqLnFL_l5QfeV6uJKNEI8pg


Derrrrrrrr… how could he be wrong our faithful leader

Clearly unbiased media when the first sentence of the article is "Trudeau is a cockroach", lol.

Say what you want about CBC, but this article is written far better with a lot more information.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tru...uiry-1.7353342

[westopher]

Former CSIS director Richard Fadden told Power and Politics host David Cochrane on Wednesday that CSIS would not brief a chief of staff or a parliamentarian "on something this serious without the government's agreement."
"And I cannot envisage the government saying, 'Yes, this is a good idea. Talk to the chief of staff, not to the principal,' he said. "So I think this is a little bit [of] stretching the circumstances to suit a particular political objective."
Another former CSIS director, Ward Elcock, said there's "really no point to briefing the chief of staff on those issues."

Hmmm sounds familiar.

[whitev70r]

Now there is talk of potential loss of power on Saturday ... and paper backup for voting. Great for conspiracists.

[The Producer]

did the NDP borrow the radical left's weather machine for the weekend?

[AstulzerRZD]

Watch them run every station off a generator .... or an EV. The conservative tinfoil hat voters will lose their mind!

[Manic!]

Twitter X

[68style]

Conrad "I went to jail for many years but now I'm super honest with my hot takes" Black

[mikemhg]

This is a picture of that woman who runs that "Palestinian" group.



How is this not a psy-op?

[CivicBlues]

Fake. She doesn't have purple hair

Is that a recent pic btw? She's been in the news this Charlotte Kates, I think she looks more like this now:

[68style]

What's with all the weirdo ladies in Canada... that self-proclaimed Queen of Canada that made a name for herself during the trucker protest was some whackjob old filipino hag.

Whatever happened to her? She still compounded up in Richmound, SK?

I only remember the name cuz it was like a knockoff Richmond lol

[CivicBlues]

Some of them hook up and marry some wackjob and take on their husband's identity like that Kates lady.

Others are just wackos in their own right.

[underscore]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tru...ance-1.7355350

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made waves Wednesday by turning what started as an examination of his government's response to foreign interference into a pointed criticism of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.

"I'm getting a little more partisan than I tried to in this case, but it is so egregious to me that the leader of the Official Opposition, who is certainly trying very hard to become prime minister, is choosing to play partisan games with foreign interference," Trudeau told the public inquiry into foreign interference on Wednesday.

Trudeau went after Poilievre over the Conservative leader's refusal to receive a security clearance and get briefed on top-secret and classified information regarding his party and some of its members.

Poilievre responded with a lengthy statement that included a claim that Trudeau was lying under oath and called on the prime minister to release the names of allegedly compromised politicians.
What Trudeau said

In testimony before the inquiry, the prime minister said he had seen the names of Conservative parliamentarians, former parliamentarians and/or candidates who are "engaged, or at high risk of, or for whom there is clear intelligence around foreign interference." He said that while he directed CSIS to pass that information along to Poilievre, the agency is unable to do so without giving him a security clearance first.

"The decision of the leader of the Conservative Party to not receive the necessary clearance to get those names and protect the integrity of his party is bewildering to me and entirely lacks common sense," Trudeau added.

Trudeau later said under cross-examination that he was aware of members of other parties, including his own, being vulnerable to foreign interference activities.

Wesley Wark, a national security expert with the Centre for International Governance Innovation, said Trudeau's testimony wasn't terribly revealing.

"Prime Minister Trudeau made this sound a bit more sensational I think than it was," Wark told CBC News.

Wark pointed to the report the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) released in June, which suggested some parliamentarians had been "'semi-witting or witting participants" in foreign interference activities.

CSIS officials testifying before the inquiry called into question some of the conclusions in the NSICOP report. One CSIS official, in an interview behind closed doors, specifically questioned the use of the word "witting."

Wark also said it's not clear to what extent the unnamed parliamentarians could be compromised — and suggested many may not even be aware that they are.

"We're talking about people who are being lured into the embrace of foreign threat actors in ways that they may not even fully appreciate themselves," he said, noting that most foreign actors are looking to "groom" politicians.

Richard Fadden and Ward Elcock — two former CSIS directors — told CBC News' Power & Politics on Wednesday that Trudeau probably shouldn't have taken such a partisan turn in his testimony.

"He lapsed into really extreme partisanship when he made this accusation and he made it in terms that could not help but enrage the Conservative leader. So that was his objective. I think it worked," Fadden told host David Cochrane.

"Did it advance the cause of national security? Did it advance the interest of the inquiry and the commissioners' work? I'm not so sure."
How Poilievre responded

In a lengthy statement released in response to Trudeau's testimony, Poilievre accused the prime minister of "lying."

"My message to Justin Trudeau is: release the names of all MPs that have collaborated with foreign interference," Poilievre wrote. "But he won't. Because Justin Trudeau is doing what he always does: he is lying."

In the past, Poilievre has defended his decision not to receive a national security clearance and get briefed by intelligence agencies by arguing that it would prevent him from speaking freely and criticizing the government on foreign interference issues.

Fadden said that wouldn't be the case.

"Just because you have a security clearance doesn't mean you have to become a Carthusian monk and never speak," he said. He also said that Poilievre could choose to be briefed only on issues affecting his own party if he wanted to create a buffer ensuring he could criticize the government on foreign interference.

In his statement on Wednesday, Poilievre said his chief of staff has received classified briefings.

"At no time has the government told me or my chief of staff of any current or former Conservative parliamentarian or candidate knowingly participating in foreign interference," he said.

But Elcock said that CSIS would not brief a chief of staff on foreign interference issues pertaining to individual parliamentarians.

"What could the chief of staff do with the information?" Elcock said. "Mr. Poilievre doesn't have a clearance, so the chief of staff can't tell him the information. And the chief of staff has no power to do anything about the MPs or make decisions about the MPs because he's not the leader of the party."

During the inquiry hearing on Wednesday, lawyer Nando De Luca, acting for the Conservative Party, argued that CSIS could use something called a "threat reduction measure" to inform Poilievre about members of his party who may be compromised by foreign interference actors.

But Fadden said those threat reduction measures are meant to inform politicians when they may themselves be targeted and wouldn't be used to share classified information with the leader of a party.

"You can't give classified information to people if they don't have security clearances. Can you muck around on the margins and try and get people to think differently? Yes, but that's not what we're talking about," he said.
Why doesn't the government release the names?

Poilievre and the Conservatives have been calling on Trudeau to release the names of allegedly compromised parliamentarians. They repeated that demand on Wednesday.

But law enforcement and national security agencies have been clear on this point: sharing any classified information is a crime.

"Anyone who reveals classified information is subject to the law equally and obviously, in this case, those names are classified at this time and to reveal them publicly would be a criminal offence," RCMP Deputy Commissioner Mark Flynn told MPs on the public accounts committee in June.

When CBC News later asked Flynn whether the names could be released in the House of Commons, where MPs enjoy certain legal protections, he suggested that could be a legal grey area.

"That's a question that should be asked, due to the complexities of parliamentary privilege, of a legal expert," Flynn said.

Stephanie Carvin, a former CSIS national security analyst, said there are several reasons why national security agencies wouldn't want the names made public — starting with the fact that it could compromise ongoing investigations.

"We don't want foreign governments knowing how we are collecting information. That's why we protect our sources and methods," she said.

Elcock echoed Carvin's point.

"If information is derived from a highly classified intercept, the instant you disclose that you have information, then it alerts the people who were communicating that their communications have been intercepted," he told CBC News.

"So you're actually revealing more than just the name. You're also revealing the sources and methods."

Elcock and Carvin also pointed out that intelligence doesn't always equal evidence that would hold up in a court of law.

"Intelligence can be hearsay. It can be rumours. It can be something someone overheard without context," Carvin said. She cautioned that simply releasing the names without context could trigger a "witch hunt."

"[The named parliamentarians would] not be able to defend themselves," she said. "They may not know the context in which they have been accused. They don't know who their accusers are. And that's really, really problematic under our system."

In his testimony on Wednesday, Trudeau argued there are ways in which a party leader can use intelligence to mitigate the risk of foreign interference in a party without revealing classified information. He suggested a compromised candidate could be quietly disqualified from running, while a compromised politician could be denied committee, ministerial or critic roles.

"We have many tools to respond, depending on the seriousness of the allegation," Trudeau said.

Former Conservative leader Erin O'Toole told the commission last month that he contemplated expelling a Conservative senator from his party's caucus over concerns that the senator was involved in foreign influence.

Carvin argued that focusing on releasing the names may not help address the threat of foreign interference in Canadian politics.

"I understand why people are focusing on it," she said. "But this isn't going to be the thing that fixes our democracy. What fixes our democracy are strong, healthy political parties that are well informed of the target of the threats against them."

So they can't legally be released, and even if they could it would compromise informants and investigations.

[westopher]

BUT HONDA NEEDS TO KNOW

[CivicBlues]

[Manic!]

On the left is a person who went to Russia as a junkie. The government claims he is a Russian asset. On the right is Rustad.

[Traum]

Originally Posted by 68style

What's with all the weirdo ladies in Canada... that self-proclaimed Queen of Canada that made a name for herself during the trucker protest was some whackjob old filipino hag.

Whatever happened to her? She still compounded up in Richmound, SK?

I only remember the name cuz it was like a knockoff Richmond lol

Last I heard/read about that whackjob old hag back in June was -- she and her group were pretty dug in at some abandoned school in Richmound, SK, and they were allowed to continue doing this because the property owner of that school is sympathetic to her "cause", so they were allowed them to stay (in that building). But it is causing a lot of tension in the tiny village.

As Canadian citizens, Didulo and her group have the right to live anywhere in Canada of their own choosing as long as they are not breaking any laws. Up until the time of the June news report that I read, the RCMP has not found them to have broken any laws, so there is nothing they can do other than continuing to monitor the situation. But for the locals, their biggest concern is that people in her group will run for city council and win with their numbers, and then they can start doing whacky stuff.

[CivicBlues]

Imagine immigrating to Canada from the Philippines, gaining citizenship, starting a business, then falling down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theorists, proclaiming yourself an absolute monarch and moving to Saskatchewan to live in a field with a bunch of inbred rednecks. It's like a reverse Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now

[Great68]

I find it wild that I hold a higher security level clearance than the leader of our country's official opposition.

[GLOW]

mind you, you actually do work and get stuff done

[whitev70r]

What is your prediction for today's Provincial election?

I'm going with NDP minority with a small difference of a couple or few seats and the previous BC United/Independent who are elected becomes the kingpin as they form a small voting block. With undercurrents and big talk of BC Cons joining with the ex-BC United to form government but .. Lieutenant Governor says no.

[unit]

ndp should walk away with a minority. conservatives really took a nose dive in the last few weeks

[spoon.ek9]

Voted a few days ago. Glad I didn't wait until today to deal with crowds and this horrible weather.

[Traum]

One of the prediction websites that I came across was saying they have a 69% confidence that the NDP will walk away with a majority gov. I am nowhere close to being that optimistic, but my impression from following the news is that voters are shifting more towards another NDP gov instead of a dead heat race with the Cons.

And boy... am I glad that I voted early so that I don't have to put up with the crap weather today...

[Badhobz]

I’m gonna go walk and vote naaaoooo!! Wish me luck.

[hud 91gt]

The weather made it the best experience I’ve had yet. Walked straight in, checked a box and straight out. Lol