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Democracy Watch Calls Hogue Foreign Interference Report “Mostly a Coverup”

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A Hogue Commission document shows a 2021 election digital ad attacking then-Conservative leader Erin O’Toole in a Toronto-area grocery store that is linked to a pro-Beijing businessman.

Sam Cooper

Hogue Report Fuels Diaspora Fears Over Ottawa’s Foreign Interference Weakness

Friends of Hong Kong, a non-partisan diaspora group that withdrew from Ottawa’s Foreign Interference Commission a year ago over concerns it would whitewash Chinese interference and endanger diaspora groups, has issued a blistering rebuke of Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue’s final report.

The group argues the 16-month inquiry fails to show the federal government can counter foreign interference.

In a statement detailing their misgivings, the human rights group says the final report “only serves to deepen our serious reservations regarding our government’s willingness and ability to tackle foreign interference.”

The group criticizes Commissioner Hogue for what they deem to be a pattern of “wilful blindness” in assessing the significance of alleged meddling in Canada’s democratic processes. They also take issue with Hogue’s characterization of foreign interference as “isolated cases,” emphasizing that “even one such case is too many for a democracy like ours.”

In February 2024, group leader Ivy Li explained its public statement and decision not to participate, citing concerns about the Commission’s “objectivity and security integrity.” She said these worries partly stemmed from the perception of Commissioner Hogue’s prior professional links to legal networks affiliated with various former Liberal prime ministers, and from a fear that the inquiry would not deeply probe China’s sophisticated, decades-long influence networks in Canada.

“Judge Hogue and her counsel are lacking expertise in how the Chinese Communist Party thinks and operates,” Li said, “[so] they will easily be manipulated in the whole process by Chinese Communist Party proxies.”

Li also pointed to Hogue’s past work at a Quebec law firm with ties to Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chrétien—two prime ministers known for deep political and business connections to the Chinese Communist regime and Liberal-linked industrialists—as a source of concern for Canadian Friends of Hong Kong.

Among the group’s critiques in a statement issued yesterday is a charge that Hogue “downplayed” the threats posed by transnational repression.

“Justice Hogue adds another blow to the confidence of the diaspora communities,” the group’s statement reads, noting many community members live “under constant fear and threats.”

The organization also disputes the commissioner’s assessment that parliamentarians with “problematic relationships” or “questionable ethics” merely acted naively. “It demonstrates a lack of understanding of the extent and threat that such parliamentarians pose to Canadian democracy,” the group warns, expressing fear that Hogue’s approach “will only condone more of such conduct.”

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In addition, Canadian Friends of Hong Kong calls for immediate legislation to implement a Foreign Influence Transparency Registry. They urge that the registry’s scope extend beyond the Lobbying Act to include all political parties, all levels of government, and any appointed public office holders. They also call for granting the commissioner and registry full independence from the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

A second diaspora group, representing Uyghur Canadians, similarly withdrew from the Commission in January 2024. Both organizations cited concerns that senior officials with potential ties to the Chinese government were given high-level access during the proceedings. In a post to X yesterday, Uyghur Canadian group leader Mehmet Tohti wrote: “Downplaying the impact of hostile interference, infiltration, and influence in Canada by the [Commission] not only undermines the gravity of the threat but also sends a dangerous message—whether intentionally or not—that such activities can continue unchecked. … The Commissioner and the commission must recognize that this is not just a policy issue; for many of us, it is a matter of life and death.”

Meanwhile, Duff Conacher, a longtime transparency advocate with Democracy Watch, also took aim at Hogue’s final report, calling it “mostly a cover-up of foreign interference, because it ignores a dozen loopholes in federal laws that allow for secret, undemocratic and unethical spending, fundraising, donations, loans, lobbying and disinformation campaigns by foreign proxies.”

Democracy Watch stated the report “fails to recommend crucial reforms to Canada’s enforcement bodies, which remain politically dependent, slow to act, ineffective, secretive, and unaccountable.” The group added, “Any party that triggers an election before these changes are enacted should be shunned by voters for enabling foreign interference.”

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Business

The NSA’s Secret Sex Chats

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Intelligence officials maintained a chatroom to discuss polyamory and transgender surgeries, internal documents reveal.

The “intelligence community” is one of the most powerful parts of the American national security apparatus. In theory, it works tirelessly to keep the nation safe. But according to internal documents that we obtained, some intelligence agency employees have another on-the-job priority: sex chats.

We have cultivated sources within the National Security Agency—one current employee and one former employee—who have provided chat logs from the NSA’s Intelink messaging program. According to an NSA press official, “All NSA employees sign agreements stating that publishing non-mission related material on Intelink is a usage violation and will result in disciplinary action.” Nonetheless, these logs, dating back two years, are lurid, featuring wide-ranging discussions of sex, kink, polyamory, and castration.

One popular chat topic was male-to-female transgender surgery, which involves surgically removing the penis and turning it into an artificial vagina. “[M]ine is everything,” said one male who claimed to have had gender reconstruction surgery. “[I]’ve found that i like being penetrated (never liked it before GRS), but all the rest is just as important as well.” Another intelligence official boasted that genital surgery allowed him “to wear leggings or bikinis without having to wear a gaff under it.”

These employees discussed hair removal, estrogen injections, and the experience of sexual pleasure post-castration. “[G]etting my butthole zapped by a laser was . . . shocking,” said one transgender-identifying intel employee who spent thousands on hair removal. “Look, I just enjoy helping other people experience boobs,” said another about estrogen treatments. “[O]ne of the weirdest things that gives me euphoria is when i pee, i don’t have to push anything down to make sure it aims right,” a Defense Intelligence Agency employee added.

These revelations come at a moment of heightened scrutiny for the intelligence community. President Donald Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard have each made the case that the intelligence agencies have gone “woke,” prioritizing left-wing activism over national security. These chat logs confirm their suspicions and raise fundamental questions about competence and professionalism.

According to our sources, the sex chats were legitimized as part of the NSA’s commitment to “diversity, equity and inclusion.” Activists within the agency used LGBTQ+ “employee resource groups” to turn their kinks and pathologies into official work duties. According to the current NSA employee, these groups “spent all day” recruiting activists and holding meetings with titles such as “Privilege,” “Ally Awareness,” “Pride,” and “Transgender Community Inclusion.” And they did so with the full support of NSA leadership, which declared that DEI was “not only mission critical, but mission imperative.”

In this case, “diversity” was not a byword for racialism, but rather a euphemism for sex talk. Last January, chatroom members discussed their practice of polyamory, or “ethical non-monogamy.” “[A] polycule is a polyamorous group,” one employee explained. “A is my [girlfriend], and B-G are her partners. . . . then B&C are dating but not C&D, nor E, F, or G with any of the others, though there are several MWB (metas-with-benefits) connections.” Another employee claimed to be part of a nine-member “polycule,” adding that “some of our friends are practically poly-mers, with all the connected compounds.”

At other times, the conversations became explicit. The active source at the NSA claimed to have witnessed hundreds of sexually provocative discussions, which, he added, occurred mostly on taxpayer time. The former NSA source who was familiar with the chats recalled being “disgusted” by a particularly shocking thread discussing weekend “gangbangs.”

The NSA sources also raised the question of some staffers’ mental fitness for the job. In one chat, an NSA employee insists on using “it” pronouns in lieu of the human “he” or “she” pronouns. “[I]t/its user here. While I understand we can make some people uncomfortable, keep in mind that the dehumanizing aspect either a) doesn’t apply or b) is a positive effect when we’re requesting it.” A commenter who disagreed was quickly dismissed by employees of the NSA and CIA, who claimed that refusing to use “it/its” pronouns amounted to “erasing” a transgender identity.

“These are folks with top secret clearances believing they are an IT!” said the NSA source.

With the Trump administration taking over, we may see changes. The NSA source said that staffers involved in employee resource groups fear the end of DEI. “[T]here are legal restrictions in place, but this admin has shown they don’t give a f**k about legality,” a staffer in space intelligence remarked about DEI staffers being placed on leave. Others have expressed opposition to Trump’s cabinet nominees.

A conflict is coming. These NSA chat logs suggest the presence of at least hundreds of gender activists within the intelligence services who cannot distinguish between male and female, and who believe that discussing castration, polyamory, and “gangbangs” is an appropriate use of public resources. For psychological and ideological reasons, these kinds of people will not be easily sidelined. The Trump administration should not only dismantle the structure of DEI but also terminate the employees who use it to advance gender activism at the expense of national security.

A guest post by
Hannah Grossman

Hannah is a Member of the World Jewish Congress Diplomatic Corps where she focuses on Holocaust research and education.

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Business

Trump and fentanyl—what Canada should do next

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From the Fraser Institute

By Ross McKitrick

During the Superbowl, Doug Ford ran a campaign ad about fearlessly protecting Ontario workers against Trump. I suppose it’s effective as election theatre; it’s intended to make Ontarians feel lucky we’ve got a tough leader like Ford standing up to the Bad Orange Man. But my reaction was that Ford is lucky to have the Bad Orange Man creating a distraction so he doesn’t have to talk about Ontario’s high taxes, declining investment, stagnant real wages, lengthening health-care wait times and all the other problems that have gotten worse on his watch.

President Trump’s obnoxious and erratic rhetoric also seems to have put his own advisors on the defensive. Peter Navarro, Kevin Hassett and Howard Lutnick have taken pains to clarify that what we are dealing with is a “drug war not a trade war.” This is confusing since many sources say that Canada is responsible for less than one per cent of fentanyl entering the United States. But if we are going to de-escalate matters and resolve the dispute, we should start by trying to understand why they think we’re the problem.

Suppose in 2024 Trump and his team had asked for a Homeland Security briefing on fentanyl. What would they have learned? They already knew about Mexico. But they would also have learned that while Canada doesn’t rival Mexico for the volume of pills being sent into the U.S., we have become a transnational money laundering hub that keeps the Chinese and Mexican drug cartels in business. And we have ignored previous U.S. demands to deal with the problem.

Over a decade ago, Vancouver-based investigative journalist Sam Cooper unearthed shocking details of how Asian drug cartels backed by the Chinese Communist Party turned British Columbia’s casinos into billion-dollar money laundering operations, then scaled up from there through illicit real estate schemes in Vancouver and Toronto. This eventually triggered the 2022 Cullen Commission, which concluded, bluntly, that a massive amount of drug money was being laundered in B.C., that “the federal anti–money laundering [AML] regime is not effective,” that the RCMP had shut down what little AML capacity it had in 2012 just as the problem was exploding in scale, and that government officials have long known about the problem but ignored it.

In 2023 the Biden State Department under Anthony Blinken told Canada our fentanyl and money laundering control efforts were inadequate. Since then Canada’s border security forces have been shown to be so compromised and corrupt that U.S. intelligence agencies sidelined us and stopped sharing information. The corruption went to the top. A year ago Cameron Ortis, the former head of domestic intelligence at the RCMP, was sentenced to 14 years in prison after being convicted of selling top secret U.S. intelligence to money launderers tied to drugs and terrorism to help them avoid capture.

In September 2024 the Biden Justice Department hit the Toronto-Dominion Bank with a $3 billion fine for facilitating $670 million in money laundering for groups tied to transnational drug trafficking and terrorism. Then-attorney general Merrick Garland said “TD Bank created an environment that allowed financial crime to flourish. By making its services convenient for criminals, it became one.”

Imagine the outcry if Trump had called one of our chartered banks a criminal organization.

We are making some progress in cleaning up the mess, but in the process learning that we are now a major fentanyl manufacturer. In October the RCMP raided massive fentanyl factories in B.C. and Alberta. Unfortunately there remain many gaps in our enforcement capabilities. For instance, the RCMP, which is responsible for border patrols between ports of entry, has admitted it has no airborne surveillance operations after 4 p.m. on weekdays or on weekends.

The fact that the prime minister’s promise of a new $1.3-billion border security and anti-drug plan convinced Trump to suspend the tariff threat indicates that the fentanyl angle wasn’t entirely a pretext. And we should have done these things sooner, even if Trump hadn’t made it an issue. We can only hope Ottawa now follows through on its promises. I fear, though, that if Ford’s Captain Canada act proves a hit with voters, the Liberals may distract voters with a flag-waving campaign against the Bad Orange Man rather than confront the deep economic problems we have imposed on ourselves.

A trade dispute appears inevitable now that Trump has signaled the 25 percent tariffs are back on. The problem is knowing whom to listen to since Trump is openly contradicting his own economic team. Trump’s top trade advisor, Peter Navarro, has written that the U.S. needs to pursue “reciprocity,” which he defines as other countries not charging tariffs on U.S. imports any higher than the U.S. charges. In the Americans’ view, U.S. trade barriers are very low and everyone else’s should be, too—a stance completely at odds with Trump’s most recent moves.

Whichever way this plays out Canada has no choice but to go all-in on lowering the cost of doing business here, especially in trade-exposed sectors such as steel, autos, manufacturing and technology. That starts with cutting taxes including carbon-pricing and rolling back our costly net-zero anti-energy regulatory regime. In the coming election campaign, that’s the agenda we need to see spelled out.

How much easier it will be instead for Canadian politicians to play the populist hero with vague anti-Trump posturing. But that would be poor substitute for a long overdue pro-Canadian economic growth agenda.

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