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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appears as a witness at the Public Inquiry Into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions in Ottawa, on April 3.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press

We are partway through the mandate of the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions, a.k.a. the Foreign Interference Commission, which is to say we are all the way through the only part that matters.

The commission is supposed to report by May 3 two weeks from now on the first part of its mandate: to examine and assess interference by China, Russia and other foreign states in the 2019 and 2021 elections, and the flow of information to senior decision-makers, including elected officials and actions taken in response. In other words: what went wrong, who knew and what did they do about it?

The commissions final report, due by the end of the year, is supposed to assess more systemic issues surrounding how government agencies should best detect, deter and counter foreign interference. But these are not questions for which a public inquiry is the necessary, or even appropriate forum. They are the sorts of broad policy questions we elect governments, with the support of the civil service, to tackle.

The point of a public inquiry, and the formidable powers of investigation that go with it, is to delve into the sorts of things that governments would rather were not delved into: the critical failures, mistakes and omissions, including by current elected officials, that might have given rise to the situation being investigated.

That was never likely under the pseudo-inquiry conducted by special rapporteur and Trudeau family friend David Johnston, which was why it was established and why it failed. It remains to be seen how much further the current inquiry gets, given the limits placed on even its access to sensitive documents.

What can be said, however, after three weeks of hearings, is how much it has succeeded in establishing already. Recall the state of play before the inquiry.

In spite of a series of reports in The Globe and Mail and other media, drawing on scores of leaked intelligence documents and interviews with confidential intelligence sources, detailing how China, in particular, had attempted to interfere in the past two elections how it had run misinformation campaigns against certain candidates, particularly Conservatives, it considered unfriendly; how it had channelled funding to others, mostly Liberals, it considered friendly; how it had conspired to secure a nomination for at least one candidate in a safe Liberal riding, Han Dong, who went on to be elected; how it had attempted to intimidate a senior Conservative MP, Michael Chong; and how, despite the Canadian Security Intelligence Services repeated attempts to raise the alarm with senior government officials, up to and including the Prime Minister, nothing had been done about it, not even so much as informing the purported victims of the interference campaign it was still possible to pretend, if you tried very hard, that this was all a lot of fuss over nothing.

Who were these confidential sources, anyway? Were those documents accurately quoted, and in context? Besides, intelligence is not evidence: the documents could have been based, all of them, on hearsay and rumour. Maybe the leakers had political motives. Maybe there was other intelligence, not yet disclosed, that was exculpatory.

It is rather more difficult to play this sort of game now. We shall have to see, of course, what the commissioner, Justice Marie-Jose Hogue, says in her report. But nothing that has come out of the inquiry to date has materially challenged any of what was contained in the CSIS documents, or how it was reported.

Mr. Dongs appearance, in particular, did nothing to advance his case that he was an innocent victim of circumstance. There was his surprising admission, in testimony before the inquiry, that he had met with and solicited the votes of a group of Chinese foreign students who were later bused into the nomination meeting, a fact he had neglected to mention until then. He said a conversation with his wife had jogged his memory.

There was, too, his response to evidence that he had advised Chinese officials, in a conversation taped by CSIS, that an immediate release of the two Michaels would be seen as an affirmation of the effectiveness of a hardline Canadian approach as advocated by the Conservative opposition. It was not, as you might expect, I never said that, but I dont remember saying that.

Mr. Dongs memory failings perhaps explain why he has yet to be admitted back into the Liberal caucus, from which he exiled himself last year while he pursued his efforts to clear his name. But as efforts in self-incrimination they pale in comparison with the testimony of a parade of Liberal officials and cabinet ministers, including the Prime Minister.

It has always been a mystery how, in the face of this hail of memos from intelligence officials, some at the very highest levels, warning of Chinas attempts to interfere, senior Liberals, inside government and out, could have remained so oblivious or having been alerted, could have failed to act.

Their testimony before the inquiry only accentuates the implausibility of the story. At every turn, Liberal officials responses were either we didnt see the memo, or it was not reflected in oral briefings, or in the face of evidence they received both, well, what does CSIS know anyway?

The Prime Ministers chief of staff, Katie Telford, testified that on a previous occasion she had ordered that a particularly incriminating CSIS memo be rewritten, based on her own intuition that it must be mistaken. Much to her delight, the agency obliged the very next day.

Intelligence agencies can of course get things wrong. And governments are not automatically obliged to accept their assessment. But can it really be acceptable that a government official can not just disregard an intelligence memo, but order its findings adjusted to her liking, without any checks or safeguards?

More worrying still was the aftermath of CSISs briefing of party officials on the Han Dong matter. The briefing, carried out during the 2019 election campaign, was classified, restricted to a small number of officials with security clearance. Yet, as a senior national-security official told The Globe last week, a party member tipped off Mr. Dong days later that CSIS had their eye on him.

Then there was the testimony of the Prime Minister. Much attention has been paid to Justin Trudeaus peculiarly vehement insistence that he seldom reads the briefing materials put in front of him. While he reads them when he can, as a summary of Mr. Trudeaus prehearing interview put it, in other cases he trusts that someone else will tell him if there is something he needs to know. Or as he said in his public appearance, the only way to guarantee, to make sure, that I receive the necessary information is to give me an in-person briefing.

This appears to conflict with testimony offered by Ms. Telford before a parliamentary committee a year ago, that of course the Prime Minister reads any documents he receives. But it is far from the only contradiction or anomaly in his testimony.

Mr. Trudeau testified that, while he was briefed by the partys national campaign manager, Jeremy Broadhurst (now a senior adviser in the Prime Ministers Office) on the Han Dong affair, he did not feel there was sufficient or sufficiently credible information that would justify this very significant step as to remove a candidate in these circumstances. Mr. Broadhurst, for his part, testified that he recommended that no action should be taken, because I thought the bar for overturning that that bar should be extremely high.

Oh please. This very significant step? If only. Political parties drop candidates all the time, and with far less justification because they posted something untoward on their Facebook page when they were 12, let alone because they are suspected of being the protgs of a hostile foreign power. This sudden respect for the sanctity of the local nomination process would be a lot easier to credit if there were any if the races were not often rigged by party HQ to favour one candidate or another, when they are not pre-empted altogether.

Indeed, Mr. Trudeau at another point smirked at CSISs naivet about the Canadian political process: nomination meetings, he said in a prehearing interview, are stacked with busloads of supporters for one candidate or another all the time. That may be true, but they are not usually under the direction of a foreign power told, as the inquiry also heard, that their families back home would face consequences if they did not show up.

So the Liberals, and Mr. Trudeau in particular, are left with many more questions to answer after their testimony than before. Their insistence, in particular, that briefing notes prepared by CSIS for the Prime Ministers Office, stating that Beijing had clandestinely and deceptively interfered in both the 2019 and 2021 general elections, that state actors are able to conduct [foreign interference] successfully in Canada because there are no consequences, either legal or political, and that until [foreign interference] is viewed as an existential threat to Canadian democracy and governments forcefully and actively respond, these threats will persist, was not reflected in what CSIS director David Vigneault personally briefed them, hangs by the slenderest of threads.

Recalled to the witness stand, Mr. Vigneault testified he might not have used those exact words in his oral briefings, but only because he had been telling them much the same thing for years. I can say with confidence that this is something that has been conveyed to the government, to ministers, the Prime Minister, using these words and other types of words, he said.

The question is why no one was listening. Or why, if they were, they stopped up their ears.

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Opinion: The foreign interference inquiry features a parade of senior Liberals protesting too much - The Globe and Mail

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OPINION:

Earth Day used to be a celebration of our individual and collective responsibility to protect the planet and improve human health. It was about science and data. Unfortunately, today, Earth Day has little to do with the planet and more to do with far-left agendas meant to increase control over the population.

The paint-throwing, street-blocking activists will be out in force pushing their narrative of climate doom, more than happy to ignore science in the process. The media will reflexively add credibility to the nonsense.

President Biden will tout the importance of some patently unachievable electric vehicle or emissions goal. Social media Pied Pipers will play their silly tune about how more of our money in the hands of runaway bureaucracy can change the temperature of the Earth.

Todays socialist Democrats have used climate change to alter the national conversation from reasoned environmental protection to an irrational, emotionally damaging hysteria only loosely based on science.

The information management is working. Mr. Biden has spent hundreds of billions supposedly addressing the climate. The return on this alleged investment in protecting the planets ecosystem is not proven by scientific data and analysis, making it the perfect perennial excuse for more spending and more government.

As was laid bare at the height of the pandemic, far-left liberals in America are willing to be openly anti-science to drive their agenda of division and control. They routinely ignore or deny the substantial environmental progress that the United States has made in the last half a century, as well as the nations long-standing leadership role in environmental protection.

They ignore that even before the breathless push for electric vehicles and emissions caps, the U.S. was beating Europe in reducing carbon dioxide emissions. They ignore that while geologic history and environmental science make clear that the climate changes, there is little scientific data to support any effort by the U.S. government or Western governments collectively to affect the planets temperature.

They ignore that since the 1960s, predictions of overpopulation, running out of fossil fuels, palm trees growing in New Yorks Central Park, a new ice age that would turn most of the country into Fargo in January, and dozens of other theories about climate doom have been inaccurate.

In 1989, The Associated Press ran a story that proclaimed Rising Seas Could Obliterate Nations in just 11 years. A senior U.N. environmental official at the time, Noel Brown, said that entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.

The United Nations and Mr. Biden have repeatedly doubled down on the notion that the planet will be unlivable within a decade if we dont give far-left institutions more power, money and control.

In recent congressional hearings, however, Biden administration officials couldnt provide any projections for the impact of the proposed spending and regulations. They didnt even know how much carbon dioxide was in the atmosphere.

Most tellingly, climate activists routinely ignore the massive environmental destruction, including deforestation, which affects emissions and air quality, as well as human rights violations associated with mining for lithium and cobalt, two components necessary for electric vehicle battery production.

EVs put money in the pocket of the biggest global polluter and most prolific human rights violator, China. The leftists dont care. They ignore that EV adoption will require massive increases in power generation, which will, in fact, increase emissions to accomplish.

They often ignore that photosynthesis something most of us learned about in third grade is a scientifically proven way to clean our air. But planting more trees is so 1970s. It doesnt require massive new bureaucracies and controls.

How many people think the U.S. is the source of the vast majority of ocean plastic? Three-quarters of it actually comes from a few Asian countries, including China and India.

The far left ignores the medical data that climate chaos messaging is adding to the mental health crisis among young people.

Earth Day, climate change and eco-doomsdayism is not about earth science. Its about projection.

The far left uses climate chaos to deflect blame for just about everything, from immigration to asthma to obesity to crime. They use it to cover failed policies and the repeated failures of government programming to solve any crisis. It all is neatly pushed off on this murky, manufactured enemy.

As with so many other issues that are favorites of todays socialists, the pattern of deceit is clear. Abortion really isnt about womens health. Welfare isnt really about empowerment or social justice. Obamacare wasnt really about cheaper health care. The trans movement isnt really about helping anyone. Electric vehicle mandates and getting rid of gas stoves arent really about the environment.

Republicans cannot be afraid to use facts and science, including medical data, to end this great con. They need to recapture the spirit of Republicans before them, who thread the needle to grow the economy, preserve freedom, and reverse the damage of a century of unbridled industrialization on the planet.

You can be pro-environment, pro-science and pro-taxpayer while continuing to make technological progress.

Protecting the environment is a critical effort that should be an ongoing human mission, but only the rational American right can revive Earth Day and make it great again.

Tom Basile is the host of America Right Now on Newsmax TV and a Washington Times columnist.

Continue reading here:
How liberals killed Earth Day - Washington Times

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In The Weekly Wrap Sean Speer, our editor-at-large, analyses for Hub subscribersthe big stories shaping politics, policy, and the economy in the week that was.

Although the prime minister had already announced most of its signature measures over the previous week or so, this weeks budget still contained one notable surprise: an increase to the capital gains tax rate for capital gains above $250,000 for individuals and at any level for corporations and trusts.

We had anticipated the budget would set out tax increases for corporations and high-income earnersin fact, the March 9 edition of the Weekly Wrap warned that the budget might appeal to class warfarebut we didnt expect changes to the capital gains tax regime. The disincentives for entrepreneurship and investment seemed too high in the face of a stagnant economy, low business investment, and declining productivity.

The budget proposal, which is projected to raise nearly $20 billion in new revenues over the next five years, has generated significant criticism from entrepreneurs and investors who rightly warn that it will discourage business start-ups and capital investment. Calgary-based investor Derrick Hunter has written about these risks for The Hub.

At a time when the Canadian economy is in high demand of capital to expand the housing supply, increase business starts, and boost productivity, this is a counter-productive policy. Theres a considerable body of research that shows that capital taxes are among the most economically damaging forms of taxation. The economic costs of extracting this capital from investors and handing it over to the federal government are therefore likely to be significant. Especially since it wasnt offset by accompanying tax reductions as Hub contributor Trevor Tombe set out in his post-budget analysis.

It prompts the question: why is the Trudeau government doing this?

We know for instance from former Finance Minister Bill Morneau that its been something the government had considered and rejected in the past. It strikes me that there are three explanations for adopting it now.

Whatever the ultimate balance of factors behind the governments decision, the economic effects are still the same: hiking taxes on capital is bound to worsen Canadas investment climate and ultimately its economy as a whole.

The Trudeau government has sought to define this weeks budget in terms of generational fairness. It spoke for instance of the need to restore a fair chance for Millenials and Gen Z. Finance Minister Chrystia Freelands budget speech even claimed that we find ourselves at a pivotal moment for these cohorts.

This political positioning is understandable yet insufficient. Theres plenty of evidence that younger Canadians are feeling anxious and agitated about their circumstances. They cannot afford homes. Theyre delaying marriage and family formation. And, as we outlined this week in The Hubs first bi-weekly DeepDive, theyre increasingly unhappy.

The numbers are striking. Younger Canadians used to report higher levels of happiness than older Canadians. Not anymore. Canadians under age 30 are now on average less happy. Canadas overall level of satisfaction ranked number 15 in this years World Happiness Report. But if you limit it to younger Canadians, we actually fall to number 58 along with countries like Paraguay, Malaysia, and China.

Theres a tendency to observe these dynamics through the lens of politics. A key reason that the budget is so focused on this cohort is because it has abandoned the Liberal Party en masse. The Conservative Party of Canada is the only centre-right party in the Anglo-American world that currently has a political advantage among younger voters. These developments challenge long-standing political axioms about the interaction between demographics and political preferences.

But the biggest issue here isnt politics. Theres something far more concerning about the demographic, socio-economic and even psychological effects of large numbers of young Canadians experiencing failure to launch syndrome. It can have long-run costs and consequences for individuals and society as a whole.

Its not a coincidence for instance that the fertility rate is at an all-time low at the same time that Canadians under age 30 are reporting rising levels of unhappiness. Causality is doubtless working in both directions.

An unmarried, childless future in an ugly and overpriced, small downtown apartment is a rather grim proposition. Nothing in the totality of human experience tells us that these are the conditions for human flourishing or a successful society.

Some of the budget measures may help on the margins. But one does get the sense that theres something bigger going on here and technocratic solutions are a necessary yet insufficient response. Howard Anglins article for The Hub this weekend about building aesthetics, textured neighbourhoods, and what Tim Carney calls family-friendly communities starts to get closer to some of the underlying factors behind this generational malaise. One could also point to the void of spiritual questionsthough thats beyond the scope of public policy and certainly this essay.

I would however make the case for a lack of growth and progress as a key (and perhaps the key) explanatory factor. Here I may respectfully part company with Anglin. I dont think that people are telling us that things are moving too fast. I think in a lot of ways theyre telling us that theyre moving too slow. I subscribe to the Douthian argument that economic and technological stagnation (outside of narrow cones of progress), cultural conformity and replication, and the absence of a common project have contributed to a self-reinforcing mix of stagnancy, sterility, and drift.

Douthats solution to what he calls decadence is a combination of divine intervention and renewed technological progress (So down on our kneesand start working on that wrap drive.).

Maybe hes right. But either way, these are the precise questions that we ought to be asking before we consign a generation or two of young Canadians to an uninspiring and unfulfilling future.

Today marks something far more important than politics or public policy: its the start of the NHL playoffs and the Toronto Maple Leafs elusive search for their first Stanley Cup since 1967.

George Will likes to say that he writes about politics to support his baseball habit. I can relate. The only job that I can envision leaving The Hub for is really any role with the Maple Leafs, from team president to the guy who fills the water bottles.

Ive loved hockey ever since I can remember. I played a lot as a young personthough not particularly well. I recently wrote about my playing days, including the occasional fight, for Cardus Comment Magazine. You can find my essay here.

Will also often says that at an age too young to make life-shaping decisions, he had to choose between becoming a Chicago Cubs fan or a St. Louis Cardinals fan. Most of his friends became Cardinals fans and grew up cheerful and liberal. He chose the Cubs and grew up a gloomy conservative.

Again, I can relate. Being a Leafs fan is good training for a conservative. Its a steadfast lesson in low expectations and the inherent fallibility of man.

But Im a North American conservative so Im susceptible, however wrongheaded, to a unique continental optimism. I cant help but succumb against my better judgment to a quixotic hopefulness.

No matter how hard one tries, the Leafs invariably tempt you into believing that this year is different. Last years first-round win against the Tampa Bay Lightning set off those feelings for me. The swift second-round defeat to the Florida Panthers caused a precipitous fall back to reality.

This season Ive once again watched most of the games. I began the year determined to protect myself from inevitable disappointment. But somewhere along the way, perhaps due to Auston Matthews 69 goals or the group-think of my hockey chat groups (yes, there are two), Ive come, at an almost sub-conscious level, to believe that this might be the year.

If so, Ill need to bring my boys to Toronto for the parade because even though theyre only one and three years old, theres a good chance that it wont happen again in their lifetimes.

I suppose this is a long way of saying that if Im a bit distracted in the coming days (and hopefully weeks) its because Im focused on my real passion: hockey. Hopefully, politics and policy will cooperate and take a break for a while.

Until then, Maple Leafs forever!

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The Weekly Wrap: The Liberals lean all the way into class warfare - The Hub

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But theres reason to believe that voters have come to these conclusions on their ownor at least not at the mainstream medias behest. Although coverage of Bidens verbal miscues has been widespread both online and in conservative media, it has only recently begun to regularly appear in mainstream outlets like the Times and CNN. Voters think that its important, and these outlets have, belatedly, begun to treat it as newsworthy. One could quibble about the fairness of these concerns given the relatively insignificant age difference between Biden and Trump, but there is no doubting that the concerns are widespread. Even Democrats on Capitol Hill have voiced them.

Part of the delight in Trump falling asleep comes from the fact that its seen as a kind of market correction: Now the media will have to cover Trumps age the way it has covered Bidens. At the same time, it also feels like a gift in kind: It muddies the waters, allowing the presidents defenders to argue that the other guy is also really old. (Theyve already been doing that for a while, to be fair.)

Still, there are a number of reasons to believe that this is not a particularly wise course of action for Democrats. For one, voters overwhelmingly think that Biden is older than Trump (because he quite literally is), and raising the salience of the age issue would likely backfire even more than it already has. Experience was once a winning issue for Biden; in 2020, many voters looked to him as a steady hand who could help steer the country out of the Covid-19 pandemic. Today, its a clear loser: He is seen as lacking the fitness and stamina for the job. Telling voters that the other guy also doesnt have fitness and stamina may not be a winning issue. At the very least, it could push voters toward comparably chipper third-party candidates like Cornel West and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who are both 70.

Originally posted here:
Liberals Are Trying to Make Trump's Age an Issue. It Won't Work. - The New Republic

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Pete Kaliner joins Brett for The Friday Hangover. Political Analyst Jeffrey Lord drops in to discuss the Biden campaign tactics. Brett discusses how the judge in the Trump Hush Money trial is denying the former presidents rights. Israel attacks Iran but says nothing about it. Are the liberals turning us into a Shabby nation?

Originally posted here:
Israel Attacks, Trump Trial Rights, and Liberals Taking The Country Down - WBT

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