Last week, the mayor of Ottawa, Mark Sutcliffe, issued an impassioned plea for greater civility in Canadian politics in The Globe and Mail.
 
The problem was not just social media, he wrote, which could be managed by avoiding it, but rather the physical threats that Canadian holders of elected office, their families, and their staff were facing all-too-regularly.
 
“We’ve worked hard to ensure that bullying, threats and abusive behaviour are not tolerated in workplaces or classrooms,” he noted. Why do so many Canadians believe that the political space was different?
 
The abuse is causing some politicians to resign mid-mandate, and potential leaders to refuse to seek public office in the first place.
 
I empathize with Sutcliffe’s plea – I recently encouraged an extraordinary leader to apply for a position Senate and they refused because of the increasing toxicity within it. (And the Senate is not nearly as bad as the House of Commons.)
 
Still, I am afraid that in his efforts to fight back against charges that elected officials should just ‘suck it up,’ – which he rightly dismisses as victim-blaming – Sutcliffe minimizes the role that the political class has played in creating this atmosphere.
 
Whether they like it or not, elected officials in liberal democracies are role models. Their behaviour shapes national norms.
 
When Canadians see the shameless mudslinging, crass behaviour, and deliberate dishonesty that characterizes not just Question Period, but now also discussion in certain Parliamentary committees, not to mention provincial legislatures and even municipal council meetings, some inevitably conclude that such behaviour is reasonable.
 
Add social media, which only increases the intensity of everyone’s emotions, and it’s not hard to see how we end up with vandalism, threats, and even violence towards politicians.
 
There is no easy solution here, but there is an obvious first step that every elected official can take.
 
Behave in public settings in a manner that would make Canadian children proud. Stop heckling, and call out those who don’t – even if they come from your political tribe. Keep in mind that you are elected to represent Canadians writ large, not just the ones who voted for you.
 
(Indeed, based on what they say about one another, one might think that the prime minister and the leader of the opposition don’t see one another as Canadians at all.)
 
In sum, Sutcliffe is right that politicians, their families, and their staff don’t deserve the abuse that they now face regularly in their public and private lives.
 
But that does not absolve elected leaders of the responsibility to stop perpetuating an environment in which such toxic behaviour thrives.
 
***
One institution doing consistently good work on trying to bring decency back to politics is the Samara Centre for Democracy. We need more of that.
 
***
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k here to edit.

For the first time since the 1990s, Canadians appear to be approaching a consensus on the need to boost spending on national defence.
 
Whether it’s because of the increasingly dangerous world we seem to be living in, the sad state of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), or the growing unwillingness of our NATO allies to countenance our failure to live up to an alliance-wide pledge to spend 2% of the value of gross domestic product (GDP) on military preparedness, the general public’s traditional reticence to take Canada’s national security seriously is waning.
 
The most recent evidence of this change is Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s pledge earlier this month to cut “wasteful foreign aid that goes to dictators, terrorists and multinational bureaucracies” and reallocate that money to the CAF to enable Canada to “work towards” meeting NATO’s 2% of GDP spending target.
 
Since I don’t believe in basing defence (or international assistance) spending on an arbitrary percentage of GDP, I’m ambivalent about Mr. Poilievre’s hedge on meeting the NATO commitment.
 
It’s not as if the current government has been any better, and while being a good ally certainly matters, NATO's feelings (positive or negative) are ultimately less important than allocating what it takes to defend our country and its interests, be that 2% of GDP, more, or less.
 
Still, I have serious concerns with the specifics of Mr. Poilievre’s proposal and, more important, the defence community’s (lack of) response to it.
 
As I have suggested in this blog before, militaries do not fight 21st century wars alone.
 
We need diplomats at relevant international fora; intelligence gatherers in the field; humanitarian aid workers on the ground; immigration officials administering the increasing numbers of refugees and displaced persons that conflict creates; settlement workers supporting those refugees once they arrive here; mental health professionals dealing with their trauma.
 
The Canadian Armed Forces are one element – albeit a critical one – of a larger national security apparatus, all of which has been neglected by successive governments in Ottawa and all of which requires re-investment.
 
Members of the defence community learned this lesson all too often in Afghanistan (first during struggles to implement a comprehensive approach to provincial reconstruction in the field over a decade ago and then again during more recent efforts to evacuate endangered Afghans after the return of the Taliban).
 
Depleting the capacity of Global Affairs Canada in order to rebuild the CAF risks re-balkanizing a national security community that is at its best when all of its members work together.
 
In sum, when a leading politician who looks likely to be our next prime minister pledges to pit one element of the national security community against another, defence advocates should be up in arms.
 
Kudos to The Globe and Mail’s editorial board and to John Ibbitson for expressing their objections, but I have yet to find similar thoughts being expressed from within the defence community.
 
For the sake of our national interests, that must change.
 
***
One of Canada’s premier defence analysts, Philippe Lagassé, has a new Substack, Debating Canadian Defence. If you’re interested in such issues, it’s a must-read.
 
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Twice over the last few weeks, major Canadian newspapers have offered critical takes on the Trudeau government’s approach to national security.

Last month, the National Post’s John Ivison wrote a piece titled “Trudeau’s foreign interference adviser is now a part-time job, no experience required.”

His article is about the appointment of a new national security and intelligence advisor to the prime minister (NSIA), Nathalie Drouin.

Ivison is critical of the choice of Drouin, the deputy Clerk of the Privy Council, on two grounds.

For one, she is a lawyer without any “obvious security experience in her background.”

Second, since she will remain deputy clerk, her job as NSIA “seems to have been downgraded to a part-time position.”

To Ivison, the Trudeau government “does not appear to consider national security to be a priority.”

Ivison’s argument is plausible, but it’s not the only way to look at the appointment.

Drouin’s legal background could be helpful to a government that seeks to develop legislation to combat foreign interference, disinformation, and money laundering, three issues on which this country desperately needs to do better.

As for the double-hatting, Kathryn May’s newsletter, The Functionary, notes that although Drouin will indeed remain deputy clerk, one of Canada’s top public servants, Christiane Fox, has been named a second, more junior, deputy.

It is therefore possible that Fox will do much of Drouin’s old job, while Drouin herself – as the senior deputy clerk – will become the most powerful NSIA we’ve ever had.

Looked at through a national security lens, for the first time in as long as I can recall, not only does our Clerk of the Privy Council have extensive national security experience (John Hannaford is a not only a former diplomat and deputy minister of international trade, but also the former foreign and defence policy advisor to our last two prime ministers), so will his immediate replacement.

The second article is related to the first one.

Last week, The Globe and Mail’s Robert Fife and Steven Chase revealed that the new Cabinet Committee on National Security, or National Security Council (NSC), has only met four times since it was announced last July.

Once more, critics suggest that the lack of meetings indicates that Ottawa is failing to take national security seriously.

Again, the criticism could be valid, but there is another plausible explanation.

Setting up a new Cabinet committee is a heavily bureaucratic process, especially if the relevant players are on holiday when the announcement is made.

While the committee was being established, the NSIA at the time, Jody Thomas, revealed her plan to retire. 

In that context, since the NSIA is the secretary to the NSC, it's no surprise that the committee hasn’t been meeting much. Surely, a new NSIA needs time to transition into the job.

What’s more, the NSC has been designed to improve Cabinet literacy on strategic security issues, and is only supposed to meet about once per month. 

Crises are still being dealt with through ad hoc Incident Response Groups.

In sum, it is possible that the Trudeau government has appointed a new national security advisor who is both under-qualified and over-tasked. That appointment could be symptomatic of a government that can’t seem to find the time for serious discussions of national security.

Or, for the first time since 2013, Canada has a cabinet committee focused exclusively on national security, and for possibly the first time ever, the top two officials in the Privy Council Office are well tied into Canada’s national security establishment.

Although the truth is likely somewhere in between, I don’t feel any sympathy for the Trudeau government in this case.

Their failure to explain to Canadians why they chose Drouin and what they intend to do with the National Security Council invites folks to speculate, and to assume the worst.

And to think that this government promised explicitly to conduct itself more transparently…

***
For an introduction to some of the many national security issues facing Canada today, see Stephanie Carvin’s Stand on Guard: Reassessing Threats to Canada’s National Security.

​To get a sense of how relevant Drouin’s skillset might or might not be to her new job, see Carvin, Thomas Juneau, and Craig Forcese’s Top Secret Canada: Understanding the Canadian Intelligence and National Security Community.

***
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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what qualities make it more likely that a Canadian defence minister will succeed in their position.

In the classroom, we often discuss whether prior experience in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) matters.

Generally speaking, it does, and it’s not usually helpful.

Given the hierarchical nature of military culture, ministers who were professionally subordinate to the chief of the defence staff as CAF members tend to find the new power dynamic awkward, at best.

Depending on the minister’s reputation in the CAF, gaining the respect of the higher command can also be difficult.

Ministers who have served can be tempted to get drawn into the minutiae of military planning and operations, leading to overworked and resentful staff across the department.

Finally, there is the risk of other ministers around the Cabinet table questioning your loyalty. (Are you representing the government to the military or the military to the government?)

I have typically suggested to my students that the defence minister’s closeness to the prime minister, and by extension their relationships with the Prime Minister’s Office and the Privy Council Office, are what really matters.

Lately, however, I have begun to question this view.

Certainly, a defence minister without the ear of the prime minister is at a tremendous disadvantage, but I’m no longer sure that a good relationship with the Centre is sufficient.

National defence is the Government of Canada's largest category of discretionary spending.

The Department of National Defence (DND) had a budget of about $26.5 billion in 2023. Compare that to the Department of Canadian Heritage, home to five separate ministers. Together, they had a budget of about $2 billion.

That means that if the minister of national defence requests a 10% increase to the DND budget, they are asking for more than the budgets of at least five other ministers, combined.

It seems to me, then, that any contemporary Canadian minister of national defence who can’t build collegial relationships around the Cabinet table doesn’t stand a chance of success.

Fellow Cabinet ministers must be convinced to put DND’s overwhelming requests for funding ahead of their much more limited ones.

The model for a successful minister is the late Bill Graham. When Paul Martin appointed him to Defence, Graham had no prime ministerial aspirations, he understood his file without being too close to it, and he was well-liked and well-respected across the Liberal Party.

As a result, he was able to convince his Cabinet peers to increase defence spending substantially at the expense of all sorts of other departments that were also seeking larger budgets.

Graham’s inclusion as one of the four members of the Ministerial Advisory Panel on Canada's Defence Policy Review in 2016 was no accident.

He was there in part to help Minister Sajjan make the same case that Graham had made over a decade earlier. Again, he was successful.

In this context, even though I thought that Minister Anand did a good job of bringing a level of seriousness and rigour back to DND, I’m not sure that such an ambitious minister would ever have been able to convince the Trudeau Cabinet to provide National Defence with the financial support that it so desperately needs.

Let’s see what Minister Blair can do…

***
Bill Graham’s memoir, The Call of the World, does a good job of explaining his success at National Defence.

If you teach Canadian foreign and/or defence policy, I hope you'll consider using this little debate about Canada's place in the world that Jeremy Wildeman and I just had in Canadian Foreign Policy Journal. I have some free e-copies for those without access to CFPJ. Please let me know if you'd like one.

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On November 29th, I testified before the House of Commons' Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development as part of a panel of witnesses who had been asked to comment on Canada's diplomatic capacity. A video of the proceedings can be found here (beginning at 17:27.30).

The following is the rough text of my opening remarks:

Thank you for the invitation to be here and thank you also for your service to Canadians.

​Standing for election is a noble act, and I salute your courage, your resilience, and your commitment to our country.

You’ve asked me to speak about Canada’s diplomatic capacity. Do we, as a country, have the personnel and supports in place to promote and defend our national interests at home and around the world?

The objective answer to part of this question can be found in statistics that I will leave to folks at Global Affairs Canada to provide.

I will instead reflect on two more subjective capacity issues that I hope you will take into consideration during your deliberations: national ambition on the world stage and the value of diplomatic agility.

The very question of whether Global Affairs Canada has the capacity to “demonstrate leadership within key multilateral organizations” suggests a level of foreign policy ambition that is not necessarily derived from the national interest.

Canada makes up just under 0.5% of the world’s population, and we rely on international trade to grow our economy.

We do not have the capacity – be that in terms of population, independent economic power, or military might – to impose our will on others, and efforts to do so often risk undermining the relationships we must cultivate to maximize our security and prosperity.

We must defend and seek to preserve as much of the current international order as we can while keeping in mind that foreign policy is not an exercise in making Canadians feel good about themselves.

Rather than leading internationally, it is often in our interest to allow others the spotlight instead.
Such a pragmatic approach to defending the national interest requires seasoned, well-educated, multilingual diplomats willing to do the grunt work that keeps the global order functioning.

We must take on the positions in international organizations that no one else wants, participate actively in the meetings that no one enjoys, pay our dues on time and in full no matter who else does, and ensure that states friendly to us remain committed to multilateral solutions to global challenges.

For this, I am confident that the capacity exists. I worry more that it is sometimes diverted to unnecessary efforts to lead.

Similarly, I am less concerned with Canada’s capacity to “plan ahead for future geopolitical shifts, crises, and opportunities” than I am with the ability of our foreign service officials to pivot in response to global disruptions outside of our control.

No amount of planning will prevent more powerful external forces from shaping and reshaping the international environment in which we must operate.

Better then, that we privilege adaptability, flexibility, and relationship-building and that we do so modestly, and with humility.

In sum, let’s focus on the capacity to do the little things right rather than trying too hard to be great.

***
If you are interested in what I think is just about the best piece of communication made available by any member of the Canadian Armed Forces in as long as I can remember, take a look at this video by the Commander of the Navy, Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee.
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Last week, Neil Moss wrote an excellent piece in the Hill Times about a private member’s bill introduced by Bloc Québécois MP Luc Thériault, Bill C-282.

The legislation seeks to prevent our trade officials from making concessions on Canada’s supply management regime in any future international negotiation.

To oversimplify, supply management protects our dairy, eggs, and poultry producers from foreign competition. For a more detailed explanation, see here.

In June, C-282 passed third reading in the House Commons by a vote of 262-51. Among the 51 who voted No were just two Liberals (Chandra Arya and Nathaniel Erskine Smith) and 49 courageous Conservatives. (Pierre Poilievre supported the bill).

It is a shame that much of the limited debate over C-282 focused on whether supply management was worth sustaining.

Both Prime Minister Trudeau and Mr. Poilievre have stated publicly on countless occasions that its future is not at risk under a government led by either of them.

Members of the House of Commons should have debated whether it was in the national interest to handcuff Canadian trade officials in their future dealings.

Legislating even the smallest concession on supply management off-the-table in perpetuity is a gift to our trading partners.

If the bill passes, future negotiations will inevitably begin with opposing negotiators claiming that their willingness to come to the table at all in light of C-282 constitutes a concession. They will then demand a similar concession from Ottawa before formal discussions even start.

In this context, Trade Minister Mary Ng’s support for the bill is, to be generous, baffling.

Surely, even if pressure to support C-282 from the Prime Minister’s Office was intense (supply management is overwhelmingly popular in Quebec), she could have at least absented herself from the House to avoid publicly undercutting members of her own department.

I can’t be sure whether Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly’s decision to pair her vote was a creative attempt to avoid the wrath of the PMO while sending a subtle message of support to Global Affairs Canada employees, but I hope it was.

Fortunately, the bill must pass through the Senate to become law, and some senators, like former diplomat Peter Boehm, have already expressed significant concerns.

Senators who genuinely believe that their chamber exists to offer sober second thought have an incredible and timely opportunity.

They can refuse to pass this flawed private member’s bill and demonstrate to Conservative partisans that, even though 62 of the 91 sitting senators were appointed by the current prime minister, the Upper House is capable of rejecting legislation that has the Liberal caucus’ near-unanimous support for the sake of the national interest.

If senators do not stand up this time, when the case to do so could not be clearer, they will make it that much easier for any future Conservative prime minister to transform the Upper House back into the partisan echo chamber that it used to be.

***
In The Globe and Mail, trade policy expert Lawrence Herman also argues against C-282. His focus is on the economics of supply management.

If you’re interested in Canadian political news, check out The Hill Times. Its small group of young and hungry journalists covers important stories that few others pay attention to.

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Last week, Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly spoke to CTV’s Vassy Kapelos about the state of Canadian foreign policy. You can see the interview here.

The minister told Kapelos that she sought to increase Canada’s influence on the world stage:

​“What we’re seeing is that the world’s power structures are moving, and therefore we need to be there to defend our interests without compromising our values, and we need to increase our influence.” 

The minister’s focus on influence is puzzling.

If Canada had more influence in the world today, we wouldn’t have a lot of use for it. With our feminist foreign policy seemingly relegated to the international assistance realm, there is little to distinguish our worldview from that of our more powerful allies.

We aren’t disputing the way that NATO is supporting Ukraine. We don’t disagree with Western efforts to reduce our collective reliance on Chinese imports, especially at the strategic level. We are onside with President Biden’s support for multilateral solutions to global problems. We support and are working towards the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

When Prime Minister (and minister of external affairs) Robert Borden demanded greater influence into the Empire’s war strategy in 1917, an arrogant British general officer corps was sending tens of thousands of Canadian soldiers to their deaths because of shoddy war-planning.

Borden argued that Canada’s military contribution gave it the right to a say in how the battles were fought.

When Ottawa demanded greater influence on the some of the Second World War’s US-UK Combined Boards in the early 1940s, it was reacting to the tendency of the United States and Great Britain to take Canada’s extensive economic contributions to the Second World War for granted.

Today, our contributions to world affairs are meaningful, but they are not so great as to merit extraordinary influence, regardless of whether there are changes in direction we seek to advocate.

Joly is right to be concerned about the state of Canadian foreign policy, but the problem facing Canada today is not a lack of influence – it’s a lack of relevance.

Experts inside and outside of government have noted the increasing tendency of some of our most significant partners to exclude Ottawa from strategic conversations.

These exclusions are manageable when the West is united, but they might not be under a different American administration.

Fortunately, achieving relevance among our allies is straightforward – you pay for it.

​In 1917, the cost was measured in the lost lives of Canadian soldiers. In the 1940s, Canada’s economic contributions to the war and postwar reconstruction were what counted most. Today, the price seems to be an increase in defence spending.

In this context, it would be prudent for the leadership at Global Affairs Canada and the Department of National Defence to speak with a single voice at the Cabinet table.

​Fellow ministers need to understand that now is not the time to give up our ability to advocate.
 
***
 
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ere to edit.

Last week, the House of Commons voted to make Parliament’s hybrid workplace rules permanent.
 
Liberals and New Democrats voted in favour, while most Conservatives and Bloc Québécois members opposed.
 
Proponents claimed that the hybrid format would help MPs maintain a healthier work-life balance.
 
The Bloc’s opposition focused on the strain that the hybrid format placed on Parliamentary interpreters.
 
Conservatives argued that the Liberals had rushed what should have been non-partisan reforms without ensuring the opposition’s support.
 
The Globe and Mail’s Andrew Coyne made the strongest case I’ve read against the plan based on his concerns about government accountability in a liberal democracy:
 
“No one who has sat in the gallery of the House of Commons, however jaded about politics they may have become, can fail to be moved by the sight of those 338 MPs arrayed below them, from every corner of this absurdly distended country, of all heritages, a civics-class cliché come gloriously to life.
 
That presence has huge symbolic power, not only for the onlookers but the participants. Not only does it project, it solemnifies. It signals something of importance is going on.”
 
No one considered the effect of the reforms on foreign policy.
 
One the most significant takeaways from my book on the differences between the Harper government’s approach to world affairs between 2006-11 and 2011-15 was the impact of minority parliaments on high-level diplomacy.
 
Between 2006 and 2011, Conservative ministers were all but forbidden to travel extensively to ensure that they never missed a vote in the House. 

These restrictions hindered their effectiveness and compromised our national interests.
 
In that context, the Trudeau government might have separated its effort to enshrine hybridity into two bills.
 
The first, which would have likely received all-party support, would have made the Covid-era voting app permanent, allowing MPs to vote on legislation from anywhere in the world.
 
A second bill could have dealt with the rules around participation in Parliamentary debates and committee business.
 
In the latter case, while I don’t disagree with Coyne’s point on symbolism and solemnity, I also sympathize with MPs from Northern British Columbia or the Yukon whose commute to Ottawa can take up to 20 hours.
 
And the pandemic should have taught us all the importance of staying (and/or working from) home when you’re sick.
 
As for Coyne’s argument that hybridity makes it easier for Cabinet ministers to avoid public accountability, recall then-Conservative MP Paul Callandra’s wretched performance during Question Period in 2014.
 
Following direct orders from the Prime Minister’s Office, Callandra – not even a member of Cabinet himself – “responded” to every question posed by the Leader of the Opposition Tom Mulcair about the Harper government’s Iraq policy with the exact same irrelevant criticism of the NDP’s position on Israel.
 
Governments can avoid accountability with or without a hybrid Parliament.
 
So, what can be done?
 
It would be nice to see select Parliamentary sessions held outside of Ottawa. (If the Supreme Court can do it…)
 
I suspect that local MPs would develop greater empathy on issues like work-life balance if they themselves commuted, and making Parliament accessible to Canadians across the country would increase the relevance of the federal government to their lives.
 
Good-faith protocols to govern Cabinet Ministers’ absences from the House while it is sitting would also be helpful.
 
Surely, our foreign minister should be able to attend the occasional Question Period via Zoom if there is a crisis in another part of the world.
 
Nor should our trade minister have to return to Ottawa in the middle of a negotiation when they could appear before a House committee online.
 
In sum, maintaining the voting app was a no-brainer, but the rushed broader decision to make hybrid Parliaments permanent was a missed opportunity for serious reform.
 
***
On anything Parliament-related, it’s always a good idea to check out what Alex Marland and Philippe Lagassé are thinking.
 
***
 
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Last week, the Conference of Defence Associations (CDA) Institute released an open letter, titled “Canada’s National Security and Defence in Peril.”
 
In it, the Institute called on: “Prime Minister Trudeau, his Cabinet and the Government to lead and act with a sense of urgency to heed the recent call of the NATO Secretary General to treat 2% of GDP as a floor rather than a ceiling for defence spending.”
 
(Disclosure: I have been teaching with the president of the Institute for the last two years and signatories to the letter include current and former colleagues, students, and friends.)
 
The letter received plenty of media coverage, and if publicity was the signatories’ intent, then they might declare their effort a success.
 
But if the goal was to effect change in government policy, it seems to me that they could have done much better.
 
I see two inter-related problems.
 
First, while the signatories call for what amounts to an ongoing $15 billion+ increase in defence spending, they don’t explain where they think that huge sum of money should come from.
 
Do they advocate a 2% increase in the GST? The cancellation of Ottawa’s promise to enable all Canadians access to $10-a-day childcare? An increase to the age of eligibility for seniors benefits? More deficit spending?
 
It’s easy to call on governments to spend. But political leadership requires hard choices, and the letter offers no direction to help decision-makers make them.
 
The lack of clear policy direction does, however, enable a diverse list of current and retired senior officials with otherwise divergent views on public policy to line up alongside one another.
 
In doing so, it suggests a degree of consensus among the signatories that is, at best, skin-deep.
 
Would the former Conservative minister of national defence Jason Kenney have signed a letter calling for a GST increase or further deficit spending? Would the former NDP premier of Nova Scotia Darrell Dexter have signed a letter advocating cutbacks to a system of universal childcare?
 
In as much as I agree with the premise of the letter - that increasing spending on defence and security is consistent with the national interest - I would have much preferred to see these experts offer up practical options that Ottawa might consider to promote and preserve national security and Canada’s international reputation.
 
First on my list would be a call to lobby NATO to consider money allocated to refugee resettlement to be part of a member-state’s financial contribution.

Canada’s support for the over 200,000 Ukrainians who have arrived here since the Russian invasion represents a significant benefit to international security. 
 
It certainly does more than the defence dollars that Greece spends on its border dispute with fellow NATO member Turkey.

Next would be some sort of consensus on where future defence and security dollars should come from.

A dedicated revenue stream seems to me to be a simple, stable, and transparent approach, but I suspect that a serious conversation would produce a variety of plausible options. 
 
Given the incredible pedigrees of the signatories to the open letter, the CDA Institute could have at the very least initiated that conversation.
 
But since it hasn’t, I suspect that the letter will be ignored in decision-making circles in Ottawa –  without political consequence.
 
***
If you read one article about Canadian defence policy this week, take a look at Amanda Coletta’s Washington Post piece on what the Discord Leaks reveal about Canada’s declining international reputation among certain allies. In it, she notes that Prime Minister Trudeau has told NATO officials privately that his government has no plans to meet NATO’s 2% of GDP target.
 
***
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I suspect that many readers are following the story that the Globe and Mail’s Robert Fife and Steven Chase broke last week about how China attempted to shape the outcome of the 2021 federal election.
 
I agree with critics who suggest that the government’s response thus far has been disappointing.
 
More concerning to me, however, is a complementary piece published a few days later by Global News’ Sam Cooper.
 
Cooper’s article begins:
 
“Three weeks before Canada’s 2019 federal election, national security officials allegedly gave an urgent, classified briefing to senior aides from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office, warning them that one of their candidates was part of a Chinese foreign interference network.”
 
Based on my understanding of how the Canadian government works, there is something here that does not quite add up.
 
For the last fifteen years, Canadian governments – Conservative and Liberal – have generally aimed for what is known as a ‘four corners’ approach to managing the politics of our liberal democratic system.
 
(To the best of my understanding, the term ‘four corners’ was coined by a former chief of staff to Prime Minister Harper.)
 
Think of the four corners like this:

​The two corners on the left side work for the prime minister. The upper left is made up of non-partisan public servants. They represent, for all intents and purposes, the prime minister’s “department.”
 
The lower left are partisan political staff, in this case from the Liberal Party. They work directly for the prime minister on political issues.
 
On the upper right are government departments and agencies. They are also made up of non-partisan public servants, like the people who work at the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) referred to by Cooper.
 
The lower right are, again, Liberal political staff, but these folks work for a minister; in Cooper’s story, Public Safety. (CSIS is one of five partner agencies within the Public Safety portfolio.)
 
The arrows in the diagram indicate who is supposed to speak to whom. Public servants who work in the Privy Council Office (PCO) are meant to speak with their fellow public servants in the various departments, as well as with political officials in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
 
In addition to speaking to the PCO, political staff in the PMO are supposed to speak to political staff in ministers’ offices.
 
Finally, in addition to speaking to the PMO, political staff in a minister’s office are supposed to speak to public servants in the same minister’s department.
 
Public servants in the PCO are not supposed to reach out to political staff in individual departments – they go through the PMO.
 
And, more important, the PMO is not supposed to be in direct contact with departmental officials – they go through the PCO for that.
 
Cooper’s report suggests a meeting between CSIS (i.e., departmental) officials and the PMO. That, in itself, is not unheard of, but still not ideal.
 
What’s more, the report suggests that this meeting was about a Liberal Party issue. And that really confuses me.
 
As public servants, CSIS officials should absolutely be tracking whether our democracy is being compromised, and should report to the government (i.e., through the minister of Public Safety and the PCO) if they have concerns.
 
Whether such interference relates to a specific party shouldn’t matter.
 
Cooper seems to be suggesting that CSIS gave the PMO a private briefing about a Liberal Party issue.
 
If that’s the case, the minister of Public Safety has a lot of explaining to do.
 
For now, however, it seems to me that it is too soon to jump to conclusions. My best guess (hope?) is that CSIS briefed the PCO, not the PMO, and that the focus of the briefing was broader than just the Liberal Party.
 
(It is worth noting that, based on a 2019 Toronto Star report, at around the same time, CSIS was also briefing all of Canada’s major political parties separately about the threat of election interference.)
 
The idea that CSIS briefed the PCO is consistent with former Public Safety Minister Bill Blair’s suggestion that the government has been open about its concerns about China’s efforts to compromise our democracy.
 
If my hunch is correct, we’re back to the still very serious issues that Fife and Chase have raised. But if CSIS really briefed the PMO – rather than the PCO, and/or all of Canada’s major political parties – then the problem could be much bigger.
 
Hopefully, we’ll learn more in the coming days.
 
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When I have questions about how CSIS works, I ask Carleton University’s Stephanie Carvin.
 
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