Do you think an acting government should be the one who sets the bar on what foreign interference is? That sounds like a huge conflict of interest. What’s wrong with leaving it to the courts to decide?
I think a responsible government would be having an open conversation about it, getting consensus from the other parties, and doing something, rather than nothing. That conversation should have started 7 years ago, when the PM was first briefed on election interference. A responsible government wouldn’t have tried to minimize or bury the issue.
We’ve had two federal elections since the PM was first briefed on interference, and are about to have another without a clear plan for how to deal with compromised parliamentarians. As a citizen, I don’t find that acceptable.
The line that gets trotted out is that interference “didn’t change the outcome of the election” in 2019 and 2021. That is absolutely not a satisfactory threshold for action to be taken. Nobody is talking about how the threshold should be much, much lower. If the current government isn’t making an attempt at defining that threshold in an ethical and non-partisan way, that’s their failure.
To your question, I think egregious examples of foreign compromise should absolutely be criminalized, and handled by the judicial branch. But the legislative branch needs to be empowered to act swiftly to prevent compromised parliamentarians from operating in Ottawa unhindered.
Do you think an acting government should be the one who sets the bar on what foreign interference is? That sounds like a huge conflict of interest. What’s wrong with leaving it to the courts to decide?
I think a responsible government would be having an open conversation about it, getting consensus from the other parties, and doing something, rather than nothing. That conversation should have started 7 years ago, when the PM was first briefed on election interference. A responsible government wouldn’t have tried to minimize or bury the issue.
We’ve had two federal elections since the PM was first briefed on interference, and are about to have another without a clear plan for how to deal with compromised parliamentarians. As a citizen, I don’t find that acceptable.
The line that gets trotted out is that interference “didn’t change the outcome of the election” in 2019 and 2021. That is absolutely not a satisfactory threshold for action to be taken. Nobody is talking about how the threshold should be much, much lower. If the current government isn’t making an attempt at defining that threshold in an ethical and non-partisan way, that’s their failure.
To your question, I think egregious examples of foreign compromise should absolutely be criminalized, and handled by the judicial branch. But the legislative branch needs to be empowered to act swiftly to prevent compromised parliamentarians from operating in Ottawa unhindered.