LILLEY: Trudeau needs to answer questions on foreign interference

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There has been no shortage of news at the Foreign Interference Commission in Ottawa this week. In fact, we’ve heard enough salacious bits that would normally drive the news agenda and questions to the prime minister for days at a time.

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We no longer live in normal times and the current government has enough issues on the front burner to push threats to our democracy to the backburner.

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Just this week we learned that foreign high school students can help select MPs and even a future prime minister and everyone seems fine with that. We learned that CSIS watered down a report on the extent of foreign interference in the 2019 election.

On Friday, we learned that senior bureaucrats in the Privy Council Office asked Facebook to take down a story that was damaging to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau but didn’t do the same for then-Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole.

All of this is deeply concerning, and the revelations show why we needed a public inquiry into foreign interference. David Johnstone should be hanging his head in shame over his lightweight report that said there was nothing to worry about and no need to investigate further.

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Global News, which has been diligent in covering the inquiry, sent reporters out to three different events this week to ask Trudeau questions about recent revelations only to find out that while he spoke for a long time, he never answered them.

“We learned that Canadian intelligence believed there was a $250,000 fund linked to the Chinese government, possibly to fund foreign interference activities. When were you made aware of that intelligence?” Global reporter Heather Yourex-West asked.

Trudeau spoke at length about the importance of protecting democracy, all the steps his government has taken, he once again said that the election was never compromised and then gave a short statement that actually responded to the question.

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“And I look forward to answering questions from the Commission next week,” he said.

Pressed on another issue related to former Liberal MP Han Dong, Trudeau once again said that he will answer questions next week. This is a man who loves to talk about his respect for the media but time and again won’t even touch on the subject of a direct question on an important public policy issue related to him and his government.

From the beginning, Trudeau has tried to deny or downplay any allegations of foreign interference, perhaps because any interference that did happen was primarily aimed at helping his party. This week O’Toole testified that he believes Chinese interference cost the Conservatives as many as nine seats in the 2021 election.

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Still, Trudeau pronounced again this week that the election was completely free and fair.

“Not a single riding or the result of the overall election was impacted or changed because of foreign interference,” Trudeau said Wednesday.

Having a prime minister proclaim such a thing while the inquiry is going on would be like having Trudeau state the man on trial for murder is innocent — it’s interference in the system by the executive branch and he should know better.

Trudeau is expected to testify late next week after a series of senior staff from his office, the Liberal Party and several cabinet ministers. One of the key questions that Trudeau has never answered is what he knew about foreign interference and when he found out the problem.

It’s clear that he and the government knew some of what was happening in relation to China trying to help the Liberals win and chose to look the other way.

Whether Trudeau will be forthcoming and actually answer the questions put to him next week is perhaps the biggest unknown.

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