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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   24131 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 10, 2024

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*Treason in Canada

Background:

  • CSIS (intelligence agency) whistleblower leaks that hostile foreign governments have substantial influence in Canada, including influence over MPs, and no one is doing anything about it.
  • An inquiry was eventually triggered. The secret report was recently released to certain parties. The report states that multiple MPs willingly assisted hostile foreign governments in actions against the interest of Canadians. The full text of the report is not public and the names of those MPs are not publically known.
  • Trudeau is the PM, and his office controls security clearances and classification. CSIS doesn’t have prosecutorial or police power. RCMP (federal law enforcement) has investigative power, but reports directly to the PM. Moreover, much of the info in the report was gained from CSIS intelligence or five-eyes intelligence, which makes the conversion from intelligence to legally admissible evidence very difficult. Regardless, there appears to be no ongoing RCMP investigation.
  • The question of whether the facts in the report can become legally admissible evidence in a particular trial are largely irrelevant to the political problem of treasonous MPs.
  • It is widely assumed that MPs from multiple parties are involved, but that Liberal MPs likely make up a majority. Everyone expects China to have the most influence, followed by India.
  • The other major parties, CPC and NDP, have called for the names to be released.
  • Trudeau’s party, the Liberals, refuse to make any of the MPs names public. In one parliamentary exchange over making the issue, a liberal MP said “Boo Hoo! Get over it!”
  • Prior to this, Trudeau and the Liberals have been tanking in the polls, and a new election is expected in 2025; a landslide Conservative victory is expected. Now, Canadians are going into an election where they will have to vote for MPs without knowing which MPs are literal traitors.

--

This seems to be a legit constitutional crisis (for lack of a better term) for Canada. If nothing happens and the names don’t get released, I would expect substantial ramifications for Canadian society. I would expect foreign influence to sky rocket and for corruption in the Canadian parliament to become an open market. If the government is willing protect treasonous MPs, even when they are all but publically outed, why would hostile parties not just openly buy as many MPs as possible?

I would also expect this situation to cause faith in the government to plummet and for separatist sentiment in Quebec and the Prairies to increase. Trudeau has publically opposed the concept of Canadian nationhood/sovereignty. For example, he said that there is no such thing as a Canadian identity and that he views Canada is the world’s first “postnational state.” He has also presided over an aggressive immigration policy which has put incredible pressure on the social fabric, on the housing market, and on health care. Now, on top of all this, is an openly treasonous government.

Will this be the straw that breaks the camel’s back? I'm surprised there isn't more news and discussion about this. @KulakRevolt can we get a QRD from the inside?

*As is true of the US, I’m sure there is a technical definition of treason in Canadian law. Whether the actions of any particular MP rise to that level does not change the political implications.

The saddest thing, is if I took a poll, i would bet that more canadians know that Trump was convicted than know that literal sitting MPs willingly assisted foreign governments.

I sometimes think that in the vacuum of having any national identity (which is bad, patriotism is generally bad as many here would say), the national identity has just become some kind of "feel superior to the americans". It happens at political levels when Dobbs was passed and Trudeau made a big thing about abortion and contracepton. It happens with healthcare, we accept mediocrity because "at least we aren't the USA" and i think we do it with immigration too.

I have frequently quipped that "the [only significant] difference between American culture and Canadian culture is that Americans are very proud of being American, while Canadians are very proud of not being American."

I grant that, with the emergence of Trumpism, it seems increasingly clear that there are in fact aspects of US culture to which we have no good answer–but you are correct that I am much happier with mediocre but universal healthcare (in Canada or my adopted homeland of Britain) and would not trade it for the America alternative.

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