Rapporteur David Johnson, Eminent Canadian
- Thread starter Ron in Regina
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Has he been checked for Jeffrey Epstein connections?
Snicker. Yeah, like a chump-change Canadian demi-politician could get an invite to Nubile Island. . .
Yeah, because that's what Chinese interference is all about, Jeffrey Epstein.
The House of Commons has voted 172-149 in favour of a public inquiry. Canada’s elected representatives should mind their own business, and a public inquiry would disturb the confidence of Canadians in their government’s abilities to detect and defeat the intrusions of a hostile foreign state into the political life of the country. “I have concluded it would not serve a useful purpose to enhance trust,” Johnston concluded.
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There will be no public inquiry into the steady stream of shocking headlines (or “media allegations” as Johnston calls them) to the effect that Beijing’s emissaries and their wealthy Mandarin bloc friends in Greater Toronto and Metro Vancouver exerted themselves with unseemly and apparently illegal enthusiasms in the Liberal party’s favour during the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.
There will be no public inquiry into this catastrophic mess, Johnston has conveniently ruled. His pretexts are a hodgepodge of contradiction and brazen misdirection.
A public inquiry would be “a clear overlap with the work I have already started doing,” Johnston declares. A commissioner appointed under the Inquiries Act would have powers to order documents and subpoena witnesses to testify truthfully about what Beijing has been up to, but “I do not need the subpoena powers” provided by the Inquiries Act, Johnston advises.
Johnston’s connections to the prime minister should have disqualified him from being appointed, not because the former governor general is incapable of performing his duties objectively, but because reasonable Canadians will find it difficult to accept Johnston’s conclusions were not influenced in some way.
Trudeau has described Johnston as a “family friend” and as a friend of Trudeau’s father. Johnston is involved with the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, as a “member” who advises and helps select the board of directors. The foundation is, of course, implicated in allegations the Chinese government tried to use it to influence Justin Trudeau ahead of the 2015 election. That doesn’t mean Johnston himself is implicated, but someone with more distance from the matters being investigated would have clearly been preferable.
As head of the federal leaders debate commission, Johnston appointed WE Charity cofounder Craig Kielburger to the advisory board. A Trudeau friend appointing someone whose charity regularly paid Trudeau family members to speak at events and was granted a plum government contract in 2020, is the sort of thing that is just expected in Liberal circles, it seems.
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Terry Glavin: David Johnston escapes inquiry into his own China dealings — National Post
The former governor general is a poster boy for 'elite capture'
There will be no public inquiry into the steady stream of shocking headlines (or “media allegations” as Johnston calls them) to the effect that Beijing’s emissaries and their wealthy Mandarin bloc friends in Greater Toronto and Metro Vancouver exerted themselves with unseemly and apparently illegal enthusiasms in the Liberal party’s favour during the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.
There will be no public inquiry into this catastrophic mess, Johnston has conveniently ruled. His pretexts are a hodgepodge of contradiction and brazen misdirection.
A public inquiry would be “a clear overlap with the work I have already started doing,” Johnston declares. A commissioner appointed under the Inquiries Act would have powers to order documents and subpoena witnesses to testify truthfully about what Beijing has been up to, but “I do not need the subpoena powers” provided by the Inquiries Act, Johnston advises.
Johnston’s connections to the prime minister should have disqualified him from being appointed, not because the former governor general is incapable of performing his duties objectively, but because reasonable Canadians will find it difficult to accept Johnston’s conclusions were not influenced in some way.
Trudeau has described Johnston as a “family friend” and as a friend of Trudeau’s father. Johnston is involved with the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, as a “member” who advises and helps select the board of directors. The foundation is, of course, implicated in allegations the Chinese government tried to use it to influence Justin Trudeau ahead of the 2015 election. That doesn’t mean Johnston himself is implicated, but someone with more distance from the matters being investigated would have clearly been preferable.
As head of the federal leaders debate commission, Johnston appointed WE Charity cofounder Craig Kielburger to the advisory board. A Trudeau friend appointing someone whose charity regularly paid Trudeau family members to speak at events and was granted a plum government contract in 2020, is the sort of thing that is just expected in Liberal circles, it seems.
Carson Jerema: Trudeau 'family friend' David Johnston not the man to restore election confidence — National Post
There is no indication that Johnston is anything but a man of integrity, which is why he should have turned down the special rapporteur job
Not that I’ve read yet.
I hear he was seen in a Chinese restaurant. . .Yeah, because that's what Chinese interference is all about, Jeffrey Epstein.
Fuck off Tec. Johnston has professed that it would be “wonderful” if all Canadians learned to speak Chinese — his three daughters have done so, having attended several universities in China. When he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Nanjing University in 2012, Johnston had already made more than a dozen visits to China. As president of the University of Waterloo, Johnston oversaw the establishment of one of China’s propaganda-and-espionage Confucius Institutes. He has met Xi Jinping several times and has accompanied several trade delegations to China.
Quite apart from his Trudeau Foundation connections, Johnston’s own Rideau Hall Foundation boasts several key figures from the Canada-China trade establishment among its leading lights. From Paul Desmarais III, whose family founded the Canada-China Business Council to Dominic Barton, the global corporate champion of China’s state-capitalist empire and briefly the Trudeau government’s ambassador to China, the Rideau Hall Foundation board is a minor who’s-who of Beijing’s collaborators in this country.
So. . . fucking. . . what?
For fuck's sake, they're Chinese people, not Orcs of Mordor. What are you so afraid of? Think that Canadian democracy and values will fall due to Chinese influence?
I'd suggest if that happens, they weren't strong enough to deserve to continue anyhow.
The House of Commons has voted 172-149 in favour of a public inquiry. Canada’s elected representatives should mind their own business, and a public inquiry would disturb the confidence of Canadians in their government’s abilities to detect and defeat the intrusions of a hostile foreign state into the political life of the country. “I have concluded it would not serve a useful purpose to enhance trust,” Johnston concluded.
Terry Glavin: David Johnston escapes inquiry into his own China dealings — National Post
The former governor general is a poster boy for 'elite capture'
There will be no public inquiry into the steady stream of shocking headlines (or “media allegations” as Johnston calls them) to the effect that Beijing’s emissaries and their wealthy Mandarin bloc friends in Greater Toronto and Metro Vancouver exerted themselves with unseemly and apparently illegal enthusiasms in the Liberal party’s favour during the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.
There will be no public inquiry into this catastrophic mess, Johnston has conveniently ruled. His pretexts are a hodgepodge of contradiction and brazen misdirection.
A public inquiry would be “a clear overlap with the work I have already started doing,” Johnston declares. A commissioner appointed under the Inquiries Act would have powers to order documents and subpoena witnesses to testify truthfully about what Beijing has been up to, but “I do not need the subpoena powers” provided by the Inquiries Act, Johnston advises.
Johnston’s connections to the prime minister should have disqualified him from being appointed, not because the former governor general is incapable of performing his duties objectively, but because reasonable Canadians will find it difficult to accept Johnston’s conclusions were not influenced in some way.
Trudeau has described Johnston as a “family friend” and as a friend of Trudeau’s father. Johnston is involved with the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, as a “member” who advises and helps select the board of directors. The foundation is, of course, implicated in allegations the Chinese government tried to use it to influence Justin Trudeau ahead of the 2015 election. That doesn’t mean Johnston himself is implicated, but someone with more distance from the matters being investigated would have clearly been preferable.
As head of the federal leaders debate commission, Johnston appointed WE Charity cofounder Craig Kielburger to the advisory board. A Trudeau friend appointing someone whose charity regularly paid Trudeau family members to speak at events and was granted a plum government contract in 2020, is the sort of thing that is just expected in Liberal circles, it seems.
Carson Jerema: Trudeau 'family friend' David Johnston not the man to restore election confidence — National Post
There is no indication that Johnston is anything but a man of integrity, which is why he should have turned down the special rapporteur job
Not that I’ve read yet.
Meh.
More I hear/read, the more I still think that yes, there needs to be a 'public inquiry' but not one that shows our secrets.
And if the party leadership have to STFU over things they're shown, then so be it. I would think though then if they stopped being so pushy about needing to "see the goods" as it were, after seeing the classified stuff, that'd be clear enough that they were convinced that Johnston made the right decision.
If they do push even after, then they disagree and things are no worse off.
He may be all those things to Trudeau but he could also be called a lot of things for Cons too - Harper trusted the man, Libs assumed he was Mulroney's man - so this back and forth "partisan" stuff is BS.
That said, Personally I do not trust the Chinese Government what so fucking ever. So yeah, I can see them interfering, maybe not directly, in our shit. I can see them doing a lot of things, actually and I still think the world needs to see them for the threat they are.
That he likes the Chinese and his kids got educated in China, fine, that's on him, and I can understand why that'd suddenly be suspicious. But I don't think he's a stooge for the Chinese.
I guess the Reds under the bed turned yellow.
But there's the continuing thread of "our culture isn't strong enough to endure exposure to another culture." Gutless.
But there's the continuing thread of "our culture isn't strong enough to endure exposure to another culture." Gutless.
I think it’s irrelevant that it’s the Chinese, or the Redz under the Bedz, or some other player(s) from the Middle East to Martians, it’s the fact that it’s happening.
Voter Confidence is in the toilet, and maybe that was the ultimate goal with the Interference (?) but that’s what it is currently. If the Trudeau Gov’t wasn’t so AgaKahn/SNC/WE,etc…riden, the “Just Trust Us” thing might fly, but they’re not & it’s not, so it won’t.
(Putting Chinese Canadians in Public Hearings with Mr Johnston with a Chinese Gov’t Rep across the street with the camera, waving at them and taking their pictures…. Could be very discouraging to those attending the public hearings, especially if they still have family back in the old country, etc…)
Voters (Myself, anyway) would need to know that something real is being done, and the rocks are turned over, and the cockroaches are squished or removed. “Just Trust Us ‘cuz we have proven to be so trustworthy already” is about eight years & a dozen scandals too late.
I don’t think this is going to go away without a Public Inquiry (some of it not released to the public for security reasons), and actionable results like both Australia & the USA (and others) have taken like a registry for foreign influence, etc…as right now the 5Eyes intelligence sharing group is the 4Eyes or 3Eyes, & we’re the weak sister as you have put it elsewhere, so we need to clean house, & I think that’s gonna take more than Uncle David and his public hearings, and his reports only to the PMO who intern decides what to retract and redact before disseminating that elsewhere.
The next Gov’t to come in it’s gonna have enough on their plate been acting damage control over the last eight years of ridiculous spending, costume parties in India, lecturing the Italian Prime Minister on Transgender Whatever, and so on and so forth….without this also…& I would like to see the next election, whenever that happens, be seen as fair and honest and transparent because right now I’d hate to have the whole Trump/Jan6/Semi-Retardedness thing up here too.
Again, this is like a slow motion accident where you can’t hurt your eyes, but we can stop the crunching to assess the damage by governing ourselves accordingly, and that’s not with what’s currently happening where 149 overrules 172 in our Parliament.
'A trap': Opposition rejects Trudeau's security clearance offer to access confidential annex of Johnston report — CTV News
The leaders of the two largest federal opposition parties are rejecting Justin Trudeau's invitation to receive security clearances in order to review the confidential annex of special rapporteur David Johnston's report, prompting the prime minister to accuse them of hiding behind 'a veil of...
Don Martin: David Johnston's reputation is but a smouldering ruin — CTV News
Special rapporteur David Johnston didn't recommend public inquiry knowing it was a pathetically insufficient response for a foreign democratic assault of this magnitude, writes Don Martin in an exclusive column for CTVNews.ca.
More conflict allegations face David Johnston over Liberal-donor legal adviser — National Post
'It makes it smell even worse that the key advisor (Johnston) selects seems to be a long-time donor only to the Liberal party,' says a Democracy Watch official
Erin O'Toole says special rapporteur only met with him as report was already being translated — National Post
Review was 'set up to fail' by Liberals, says former Conservative leader
Trudeau imperils his career with continued bad judgment — Toronto Star
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau thumbs through the First Report by David Johnston, Independent Special Rapporteur on Foreign Interference, as he holds a press conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Tuesday.
Chris Selley: So much for David Johnston — National Post
It's a pity no one talked him out of taking this crazy, no-win job
It's clearly the goal of the small-c conservatives (I have no idea whether it's an official goal of the CPC).
As I've said pretty consistently, come up with laws that have been broken, or need to be passed, or it's all just Reds-under-the-bed slobbering hysteria.
I certainly agree, though, that the players don't matter. H.L. Mencken nailed it a century back. . .
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
Transparency about the workings of an organization prevents corruption.quotations ▲
- 1989 January 5, Phil Berger, “Lawyers Slug It Out In Tyson-Cayton Case”, in New York Times, retrieved 8 January 2016:
"Sunlight is the best disinfectant," said Puccio in explaining his decision to open the proceeding to reporters.
Heard an assistant Secretary of the Treasury once say "Complexity trumps transparency every time."
Wouldn't it just be easier to hates Trudeauxes forever, preciousss?
Is it really necessary to come up with nefarious goings-on and darkly hint that True Dope knew all about it and approved? Your myth this week is that True Dope plans to turn over Canada to Xi Jinping. Nothing will change that except a new myth (Easter Island, maybe?).
Wouldn't it just be easier to hates Trudeauxes forever, preciousss?
Is it really necessary to come up with nefarious goings-on and darkly hint that True Dope knew all about it and approved? Your myth this week is that True Dope plans to turn over Canada to Xi Jinping. Nothing will change that except a new myth (Easter Island, maybe?).