Canada's parliament rocked by allegations of treason and foreign interference | Hacker News Reader

Canada's parliament rocked by allegations of treason and foreign interference

politico.com

77 pointsalephnerd39 comments

I never understood why not all investments and income of politicians needs to be publicly available, and why all contact with lobbyists ought to be logged and recorded, at the very least for internal review purposes.

Or how it is possible that in countries which do have this to some degree (EU for example), every time we try to look at something the archives have mysteriously been lost..

Canada has an attempt at providing the lobbyist information: https://lobbycanada.gc.ca/app/secure/ocl/lrs/do/guest?lang=e...

Here are the monthly communication reports: https://lobbycanada.gc.ca/app/secure/ocl/lrs/do/rcntCmLgs

There is also a statistics section available.

Wat about immigration agents? They are the first point of contact for foreigners right?

It's almost as if politicians are less motivated to enact legislation that is inconvenient to politicians.

I mean, imagine having to live on a salary just like (most of) your voters do? The horror! What would even be the point of being elected then? To serve the public?

We've designed the system for corruption. It costs far more to get the job than the job pays. We have to expect that money to come from somewhere.

The EU has some strict policies, Why only politicians why not immigration or other government agents that are not voted in?

This should be the case. Politicians should be tasked as fiduciaries of their constituents, with penalties for actions that do not comport with their constituents’ best interests. Their finances and daily schedules should be open to everyone, and all income/gifts above $100 should be turned over to the state, as they are vessels for citizens, and not eligible for outside compensation while in office.

It’ll never happen, but it absolutely should.

In Canada, it is.

Canadian politicians are not really allowed to have investments (outside of some prescribed mutual funds), and all bank accounts, assets, loans etc. are disclosed on a public registry.

All communications between lobbyists and government officials are logged in a public registry every 30 days.

Also, there are no corporate donations, and no individual is allowed to donate more than 1500 (Canadian) dollars to any politician. If you donate to them, you cant lobby them.

because the people in charge of implementing it are the people that this will be used against.

Of course they will never do it out of the goodness of their hearts

It’s not easy to close down all the loopholes. Would you include spouses in this transparency drive?

yes and and what we've seen here in the states, also children and their partners.

sounds like an actually decent use case for a distributed ledger.

> The all-party NSICOP said Monday that it has reviewed intelligence that suggests “semi-witting or witting” parliamentarians have worked with foreign missions to mobilize voters during a political campaign; have taken cash “knowingly or through willful blindness” from foreign missions or their proxies; and have shared privileged information with foreign diplomatic officials.

If the evidence is solid, this definitely seems like a "name and shame" scenario. (At the least!)

> One of the most damaging lines in Monday’s report points out Canada’s failure to address long-standing challenges in how national security information can be used in criminal proceedings. The report says this is one reason why criminal charges for the potentially illegal activities are unlikely.

I think this section, of the unclarity of criminal proceedings is probably one of the factors preventing easy disclosure of names. Obviously, face saving/ass covering is also at play.

I do hope this information is disclosed one way or the other, and soon.

> If the evidence is solid, [...]

Article continues:

> LeBlanc remained resolute Thursday against calls to release any names based on preliminary information.

> “It’s important for Canadians to understand that these names are contained in intelligence reports, in some cases, it’s uncorroborated or unverified intelligence information,” he told a parliamentary committee studying foreign interference. “The idea that there’s a perfect list of names that is entirely reliable that should be released to the public is simply irresponsible.”

Methinks that if the names were for Liberals or NDP LeBlanc would be screaming for the report to be released.

It can be the case that the job of the opposition is to call for it to be released and the job of the government is to prevent it from happening.

Each side states their case and each side pays the price in popularity, such is the way of politics.

LeBlanc is in the Liberal Party. I think you meant if the names were Conservative Party.

And let's be real, there's probably mud all around, but probably somewhat concentrated in the Liberal Party. That's how you'd run such a campaign (as a foreign nation). Especially when you consider that both China and India are involved. There are redacted sections of the report that both talk about Chinese and Indian interference with Conservative Party leadership race.

Both countries tend to interfere in both parties, but India tends to favor the Tories because most Indo-Canadians who are opposed to Khalistan and the Chamar vote group tend lean Blue, while pro-Khalistan leaning and Jat Indo-Canadians tend to lean Liberal or NDP.

China does the same thing except for the Liberals because the HK voter block skews Tory.

This is just based on my memories living in the Lower Delta as a kid for a hot second.

Canadian local politics is fairly dirty (way dirtier than what I've ever seen or worked on in the US) and us ethnic minorities are treated as voting blocs to be managed by "community organizers".

Canada was also always very easy to immigrate to because they never actually ran in-deprh background checks so a lot of bad actors from China and India came, and that attracted Chinese and Indian law enforcement.

> Methinks that if the names were for Liberals

(As an american with no real knowledge/skin in the game)

AFAIK: At least one is, and was been shared previously by at least one reporter.

https://globalnews.ca/news/9570437/liberal-mp-han-dong-secre...

That's been the party line all along including when the Prime minister himself was asked why he ignored intelligence briefings during last election.

> The prime minister said Wednesday he hasn't always trusted the intelligence CSIS shares with him — including a report suggesting China may have interfered in a Liberal nomination contest.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/vigneault-foreign-interfere...

This comes from investigative journalists who leaked this story months ago.

This report confirms the truth of the journalism.

All political parties and journalists are demanding names.

The civil rights violating liberal party has said, "boo hoo, get over it."

> If the evidence is solid, this definitely seems like a "name and shame" scenario. (At the least!)

Not sure. If the enemy are unaware that they have been uncovered, then surely too useful for cracking networks, feeding misinformation etc.

The excuse I read in the news was that this was in the RCMP's hands now. Seems a like a valid reason -- we should get names when the RCMP lays charges.

A little context about Parliament for Americans:

- The Canadian House of Commons is similar to the U.S. House of Representatives. - Members of the ruling party are expected to vote with their party 100% of the time, no exceptions. - “Cabinet” members are the political heads of executive functions… Those are akin to U.S. “secretary” positions in the executive branch.

The U.S. House has its share of “characters” as well. (I’m not trying to downplay the seriousness of these allegations, just trying to provide some nuance.)

This is maybe a nit, but a unicameral parliamentary system has much more power concentrated in parliament than the US system has in any branch. Parliament combines the powers of the house, senate and executive branches, but with a composition of structure that mirrors the House of Representatives. This scandal is much worse than a representative taking bribes since MPs have substantially more power than US representatives.

To nit the nit, Canada is a bicameral legislative system, but the upper house (Senate) is appointed rather than elected and is generally deferential to the House of Commons (though not always). Senators tend to sit for a long time and take a lead role in things like long term reports and recommendations from the civil service.

The Prime Minster and Cabinet hold executive power. The PM and individual ministers have far more power than the US president in some cases, less in others, especially with a very different set of powers delegated to the provinces. The Prime Minister controls the legislature itself and its agenda far more directly than the US President.

The Speaker of House role is very different and while it's an MP from the government, they are expected to be highly neutral in all matters (something the current speaker is struggling with).

The PM is not the head of state the way the US President is. That role is held by the Governor General, who has quite extreme theoretical power. In practice they defer to the sitting government in nearly all cases.

True, but more on paper than in practice. The Senate, Governor General and the King all take a back seat and it is unclear what would happen if they actually exercised their formal rights. I suspect that the entire country would blink and go on as if nothing happened should King Charles ever attempt to withhold royal assent.

Canada is a small country that foreign powers have a variety of interests in. How do you fight foreign influence when those other governments have 10x or 100x the resources and budget to spend on meddling? When they are not shy to threaten the families of ex-pats here? Who brazenly operate "police stations" and monitor their students who come here to study? Or, who hire gangsters to assassinate dissidents who've escaped to here?

As a Canadian i can tell you if our legal system is one of the highest perform*ng in the world, the rest of you are totally screwed... it has gone fromow grade crisis to utter disaster over the last decade.

Or you have grown wiser. It’s not that Canada used to be better, you’re just more observant now.

No, I've been involved in legal issues in the late 2000's and intermittently to this day and I can definitely say what wasn't great in 2009 is an absolute disaster now. Whatever wiseness I have gained has been utterly drowned out by the tsunami of mediocrity and incompetence that forms the theme of Canada's legal system evolution over that time.

From reading the report mentioned in the article, it seems (page 63) that once counterespionage intelligence is shared with police no special provisions exist in the law to protect sources and methods of collection from being exposed in court. Obviously no self respecting domestic security service would take that risk, and the Canadian parliament is rightfully criticized in the report for not doing enough to change the relevant laws

I suspect a thread like this on HN will harbour lots of downvotes.

Two points of mention:

1) Whatever this is, it’s small potatoes. The politicians jump on the little things like JT spending an extra $10k here or there. Absolute peanuts, so they make mountains out of mole hills. I have no idea why. Maybe you do.

2) there absolutely is high level play of corruption and political games. To writ, the tidal wave of RE pumping was not accidental, and people claiming so are among themselves passing the profits playing dumb. The pandemic has revealed a tiny part of the corruption-through-nepotism. I say tiny, but the contracts were to the tune of billions.

Unfortunately there isn’t a silver lining here. Again, I suspect it’ll be another thread of people arguing past each other. If you want more of that, you’re more than welcome to visit r/canada or something.

> Whatever this is, it’s small potatoes.

If there's anything you learn from reading about corruption, it's that politicians are cheap. They generally sell themselves to many interests cheaply, rather than to a single interest in a big way.

A country with weak security

Aah yes. Ministers in Canada can be bought and sold for pennies. It's because everyone is fighting for scraps. True wealth creation has not happened in the country for about 2 decades now.

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