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Poilievre calls on NDP to topple PM

Singh says forcing an election would just be playing games with political process

STEPHANIE LEVITZ

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre dared NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh Tuesday to bring down the government over a lack of a public inquiry into foreign interference, an issue that Poilievre’s predecessor brought into sharper focus by disclosing new details about how he and the party were targeted by Beijing.

Former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole’s decision to reveal elements of what he was told by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) last week came as MPs were debating an NDP motion calling on the special rapporteur for foreign interference, David Johnston, to step down from the job and for the government to do what he didn’t — call a public inquiry.

Singh said he’s not attacking Johnston personally, but the appearance of bias given his ties to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has grown to a point where he simply cannot continue on.

Forcing Parliament to vote on that question is using the NDP’s power to force to the government’s hand, he said.

“We’re saying, ‘Mr. Trudeau, you’re wrong not to declare a public inquiry.’ You can’t just sweep this under the rug,” Singh said.

But if that were true, Poilievre argued, Singh would use another power — that his party has a deal with the minority Liberal government to keep it afloat — as leverage to force an inquiry.

He pointed out that Parliament has already voted in favour of a public inquiry — just ahead of Johnston’s appointment — and the government ignored it.

“Conservatives call on the NDP to set a condition that if there is no public inquiry, the NDP will break the coalition and stand up for Canada and Canadians,” Poilievre said.

Singh brushed aside Poilievre’s suggestion, saying it would just be playing games with the political process.

“I would question the approach of creating the conditions for an election or triggering an election as not serious about protecting our democracy,” he said.

Opposition motions aren’t binding on government, and the Liberals ducked questions Wednesday about whether Johnston ought to continue in his job if the majority of the Commons thinks otherwise.

Liberal House Leader Mark Holland said the focus needs to remain on the problem at hand.

“The problem is that we have foreign actors in foreign nations that are trying to undermine Canadian democracy,” he told reporters.

O’Toole disclosed elements of his CSIS briefing in a request to the Speaker of the House of Commons Tuesday to declare that his rights as an MP and Opposition leader were violated by interference.

He has long maintained he and his party were victims of interference during the 2021 election, with the Conservatives having identified as many as 13 ridings where meddling by Beijing may have cost them seats.

O’Toole declined to provide the specific details he was given by CSIS during his briefing last week, citing the need to protect its methods and sources. But he sketched out four broad categories.

One, that Beijing funded operatives in Canada to build propaganda campaigns against him, and then two, that networks of people were set up to amplify those. A third prong was the use of the state-supported social network WeChat for that purpose.

And fourth, O’Toole said, “intelligence indicated” there was a direct voter suppression campaign run against his party and one MP — who he did not name — in particular in the 2021 election.

“The briefing from CSIS confirmed to me what I suspected for quite some time, that my parliamentary caucus and myself were the target of a sophisticated misinformation and voter suppression campaign orchestrated by the People’s Republic of China before and during the 2021 general election,” he said.

Numerous security officials and even the party’s campaign director in 2021 have told House of Commons’ committees that while they were suspicious that some of what they saw during that campaign was the product of Beijing’s interference, there was never any concrete evidence to prove it.

The task force set up to monitor for interference during the election period has also concluded it never saw anything that rose to the level of threatening a free or fair election in Canada.

In his interim report, Johnston also concluded there was no evidence there were organized campaigns at work to discredit O’Toole and the Conservatives, and when it came to misinformation circulating on WeChat, also no evidence to prove that China drove it.

O’Toole declined a request for an interview.

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2023-05-31T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-05-31T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://torontostar.pressreader.com/article/282376928961437

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