Dispatch from the Front Lines: Hitting 2% of GDP on pure wacko-ism should be easy
Are we really going to have to just endure this bullshit for another year? Maybe a year and a half? We are, aren't we?
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And now, on with the dispatch.
It has been quite the weekend, and really quite a week, for understanding Canada's readiness for a nastier, more competitive global environment. The news isn’t good.
The main story this week was undoubtedly the release of the interim Foreign Interference Commission report. The interim report summarizes the findings to date and will be joined later by a full report, to be released by the end of the year.
The Line has read Commissioner Hogue's report, and thought it was well done. It does not differ radically from the previous Johnston Report in its conclusions, though it absolutely makes a mockery of Johnston’s finding that a full inquiry was inadvisable on grounds of impracticality. Hogue’s work has served Canadians well, and Johnston urged against it ever being done. That is a problem for the eminent Canadian.
Hogue has found that election interference is real, and cited China and India as the primary culprits. Hogue said that the Liberals fairly won both the 2019 and 2021 campaigns, and could not conclude definitively that interference swung any individual riding in either election, but also did not rule it out. She found simply that it was impossible to say, though she agreed that Chinese interference in the nomination process, while not not changing which party won in a riding, may have changed which individual ended up sitting in Parliament, which is a real if often overlooked distinction.
Hogue also found that there is no evidence of deliberate wrongdoing or a coverup among Canadian security or political officials, and broadly mirrored the Johnston Report's findings that the problem is not bad actors, but broken processes and security institutions and oversight mechanisms. Put simply, key people are not getting the information that they ought to be, and expectations are not being clearly communicated among stakeholders, either.
While Hogue's finding largely mirrored Johnston's, her tone was notably sharper. Hogue's report still reads like exactly what it is, a Canadian government commission. But we've read enough of these to know that Hogue is unimpressed with what she has learned about how Canada defends itself. And we agree with her.
There is obviously more to the report, and we encourage everyone to read it. It's just under 200 pages, but most of that is, uh, "skimmable," and the conclusions are fairly easily digested.
The Line would like to add two points to the discussion.