Mitch Heimpel: Michael Chong was failed, and that failure needs fixing
Mitch Heimpel: Michael Chong was failed, and that failure needs fixing
A better country would have done something about CSIS after Maher Arar or the Afghan detainees scandal.
By: Mitch Heimpel
I suppose it's worth getting my biases out of the way off the top.
I've worked with Michael Chong. I can state unequivocally that he's one of the most thoughtful and committed Canadians I have ever worked with in politics. It was also my honour to have worked with him on the original motion to declare China's treatment of its Uyghur ethnic minority to be a genocide. That motion is apparently what made Chong and his extended family a target.
For those who haven't read it, Chong's speech that led debate on that motion remains one of the finest that I have ever seen delivered in the House.
That motion made international headlines. Canada led the world. Similar declarations followed from the Dutch parliament, the U.K. House of Commons, the Lithuanian Seimas and the French Parliament. In the best tradition of a Canadian staring down an injustice, Michael Chong decided to do something about it. It wasn't much. There isn't much you can do from the opposition benches. But the fact that so many nations followed suit shows it had an impact.
The threats against Chong's extended family have to be seen in this light. They have to be understood not just as an attack against one man and his family — which they undoubtedly are — but as an attack on the institution that stood behind him. Remember, that motion passed unanimously.
It ought to be unfathomable to parliamentarians that threats could be made against one of their colleagues, that an agency of the government could be aware of those threats, and then proceed not to make that MP aware. Especially when those threats are perceived to be a direct result of a parliamentarian doing their bloody job. Every MP on Parliament Hill should be at full boil over this. The swiftest accountability ought to be delivered on anyone who knew this information and refused, at the very least, to bring it to Chong's attention.
In a democratic country, an action that so potently blends a lack of accountability, a disregard for the personal safety of a parliamentarian's family, and a reckless intransigence in service of turf protection with regard to possession of security information has absolutely no place. The fact that the Minister of Public Safety, as the minister responsible for CSIS, can stand in his place in the House of Commons and effectively deny knowledge of these threats prior to the Globe and Mail making them public this week is as ill an omen as any for the kind of institutional failure at the heart of this issue.
If the prime minister is to be believed, that CSIS is solely responsible for the decision not to inform Chong, then Director David Vigneault simply cannot hold on to his job. His agency failed in a catastrophic way and did so on his watch. Sheer honour ought to force him to resign. Or at least it would, if honour hadn't left town with the Rough Riders.
But the other, significant and ongoing failure of this scandal is the fact that Zhao Wei, the PRC diplomat implicated in this mess, still remains able to work in Canada under a diplomatic passport. In the last three years, the diplomatic envoys from Beijing have threatened the safety of Canadians in Hong Kong, interfered in Canadian elections (and bragged about it) and have now been implicated in efforts to threaten the safety of a parliamentarian's family. It's difficult to imagine any other nation tolerating this kind of naked hostility from a foreign power without parking a few folks on the first flight out of Pearson.
But so entrenched is Canada in its own middle-power-honest-broker foreign policy self-gaslighting nonsense that we have grinned and born these slights, lest more well-educated fingers than ours patronizingly wave a tut-tut at us for our lack of understanding of just how complex it all is
Our cultures of declassification, information sharing and intelligence gathering have come under scrutiny as the scandal involving foreign interference continues to unfold. I'm not going to make the case for a public inquiry again (already did that). When we inevitably get around to that — because the decision now seems like a formality — we absolutely have to talk about improving declassification and better parliamentary accountability for CSIS. Partisans from both sides of the House have grumbled about the quality — or lack thereof — in their CSIS briefings for years.
A better country would have done something about this after Maher Arar or the Afghan detainees scandal.
This country did not.
And that's a big reason why it failed Michael Chong this week. Who will answer for that failure? And who, if anyone, will prevent the next one?
Mitch Heimpel has served Conservative cabinet ministers and party leaders at the provincial and federal levels, and is currently the director of campaigns and government relations at Enterprise Canada.
The Line is Canada’s last, best hope for irreverent commentary. We reject bullshit. We love lively writing. Please consider supporting us by subscribing. Follow us on Twitter @the_lineca. Fight with us on Facebook. Pitch us something: lineeditor@protonmail.com