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Justin Trudeau wants you to know that it’s “horrific” to question his decision to pick a family friend to investigate election interference involving him and his Liberal Party.
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Trudeau went out of his way on Friday to blast questions about China’s election meddling as nothing but partisan games while telling Canadians repeatedly that he takes this issue seriously.
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“We need to be able to deal with serious issues responsibly and seriously, because that’s what Canadians deserve,” Trudeau said.
Trudeau takes the issue so seriously that he appointed David Johnston — a family friend, according to the PM — to look into the matter.
Johnston has described how he has known the prime minister since Trudeau was six years old, how the Trudeau and Johnston families would go on ski trips together, spent time together at the cottage.
“They are engaging in horrific partisan attacks against a man of extraordinary integrity,” Trudeau said of the opposition Conservatives.
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The Liberals have been successful in blocking a vote on that same matter at committee but won’t be able to block this vote. Trudeau blasted this move as partisan games by the Conservatives when asked about the vote.
“They are interested in causing as much chaos and partisan toxicity as they possibly can around an issue that Canadians are rightly concerned about,” Trudeau said.
Or maybe they, and the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois are interested in finding out what Telford knew about election interference. It’s widely believed that Telford was the official CSIS briefed in 2019 about concern regarding then candidate and now Liberal MP Han Dong.
While Dong has denied getting any aid from China, Trudeau has never denied a briefing by CSIS took place over concerns the intelligence agency had that Dong was part of an election interference network run by the Chinese consulate in Toronto
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Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre defended calling on Telford to testify at committee, as she has at least twice before, by saying Telford has been intimately involved in all of Trudeau’s campaigns going back to his leadership bid in 2013.
“She would have been involved in all of the inner workings of those campaigns, and she would have been aware of all the briefings that CSIS and other intelligence bodies would have provided. She knows all the secrets. It’s time for her to come forward and honestly testify about what happened,” Poilievre said.
As for Trudeau’s claim that Poilievre’s actions are hurting democracy, the Conservative Leader said it’s the opposite that is true.
“It’s Justin Trudeau that is hurting Canadians faith in our democracy by covering up the interference by the Communist Chinese government in our elections,” Poilievre said. “We really have to wonder what is it that he has to hide.”
What he has to hide indeed.
Trudeau could have avoided what he now calls a partisan circus by answering simple questions honestly, by allowing his chief of staff to testify.
Instead, he has obfuscated, delayed, told half-truths at best, and asked Canadians to trust him that nothing untoward happened.
That won’t cut it anymore — it’s time for a full inquiry, fully independent of Trudeau.