Opinion
Ostriches on the runway

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Dominic LeBlanc says it’s time to rise above partisanship. Watch the skies
“The protection of our democracy demands that we rise above partisanship,” Dominic LeBlanc told reporters Saturday morning in the lobby of the West Block’s backup House of Commons. “Canada isn’t the only country facing the threat of foreign interference. Many of our allies are, even now, having discussions on ways to protect their democracies against this scourge. If they can have reasoned and constructive discussions on this subject, Canada should be able to do the same. That’s why the prime minister tasked me [on Friday] with consulting, over the coming days, experts, legal scholars and opposition parties on what the next steps should look like — and determine who best may be suited to lead this public work.”
You can tell the Trudeau government is really badly rattled when it starts doing what it should have done in the first place. “Consulting experts, legal scholars and opposition parties” was an option in March, when Trudeau decided instead to lay the foundation for Friday’s debacle. Talking to people — in the old-fashioned sense of (a) showing the slightest interest in what they have to say and (b) allowing it to inflect your actions in any perceptible way — is always an option. Nor is it in any danger of getting worn out through overuse, where this government is concerned.
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“It’s our government’s hope that the opposition parties will treat this issue with the seriousness it deserves,” said LeBlanc, whose boss ignored a string of reports from the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians and whose early-warning system for news of Beijing’s intimidation against a sitting MP was named Fife and Chase.
LeBlanc opened the floor to questions. The first: Shouldn’t there be a public inquiry? “A public inquiry has never been off the table,” he said. “All options remain on the table.” This was change masquerading as continuity. Johnston took a public inquiry off the table three weeks ago. Trudeau accepted the un-tabling. By putting it back on the table, LeBlanc was bowing to what may be the inevitable conclusion of the last few days: that the opposition parties, by adapting a common line in favour of a full inquiry, may have made one inevitable.
Another characteristic of this government is that it views its tribulations as tests of other people. The short odyssey of David Johnston, in other words, is a learning opportunity for us all. “My job,” LeBlanc said, “is to, in the very next few days, in short order, ask opposition leaders to take this matter seriously. Not just to simply say, ‘Oh, there has to be a public inquiry.’ OK: Make suggestions about who could lead this public inquiry. What would the terms of reference be? What do they see as the timelines? How do they deal with the obvious challenge of respecting Canadian law that protects some of the most sensitive intelligence information?”
I should say I take LeBlanc at his word when he claims to be seeking input in good faith. As a general rule, his arrival tends to mark an improvement in this government’s handling of a difficult file. But just to be on the safe side, it’s worth saying some obvious things clearly.
The opposition parties should give input when asked. It’s useful for each of them to go through the exercise of conceiving in detail the proper handling of the election-interference file. And it’s good of the government to ask, albeit way later than it should have.
But everything LeBlanc plans to ask them — whether to have an inquiry, who should lead it, its mandate and deadlines and legal justification — remains the responsibility of the government. If the opposition parties chicken out, or play dumb games, or deadlock, or suggest people who decline to participate, the responsibility for designing a workable policy remains the government’s. I’m pretty sure Trudeau volunteered for the job of prime minister. In fact I’m sure there was something in the papers about it. He is in this fix now because he wanted Johnston to make his decisions for him. As I wrote nearly three months ago.
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LeBlanc kept saying an inquiry should be run by someone “eminent.” I mean…sure? Whatever? I suppose eminence shouldn’t be actively disqualifying, at least. But to me the craving for eminence is a strange instinct. Eminence is distinctly relative: I suspect more than half of Canadians could never, at any point, have told you who David Johnston is, or Julie Payette, or Craig Kielburger. I’ve come to suspect that “eminent” translates as “impressive to Katie Telford,” which is fine but, again, an odd criterion. Instead may I propose “competent”?
When I wrote about Johnston’s appointment in March, I a suggested a few alternative candidates for the job of deciding how to respond to the mandate for which I already thought Johnston was ill-suited. My list was concocted at random on a few minutes’ notice, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, purely for illustrative purposes. I could come up with a dozen other names, and I don’t even know what I’m talking about. If I were burdened in LeBlanc’s place with such a task, I’d begin by asking for a list of associate deputy ministers at the departments of Global Affairs and Justice, as well as a list of currently serving and recently retired ambassadors. Probably the guy who used to be the national director of the Liberal Party of Canada would be a bad idea, I guess I need to add.
I also might do some reading. I’d recall that when the lawyer Kenneth Feinberg was brought in to decide compensation for families of the 9/11 victims in the U.S., he couldn’t have been further from a household name. When James B. Donovan got Francis Gary Powers released by the Soviets, or Jean Monnet invented the European Union, or Elissa Golberg became Canada’s first civilian representative in Kandahar, they weren’t household names. They still aren’t. They were just good at their work. You know that uncomfortable suspicion that Canada is just six pals from the McGill alumni club who gather every Friday to carve up the spoils of elite consensus over pitchers of iced tea on the verandah of the Royal Ottawa Golf Club? The first step toward perpetuating that suspicion is the urge to find “eminent” people for technical work.
The title of today’s post is cryptic. When LeBlanc said our democracy depends on rising above partisanship, I thought, Uh-oh, and I started thinking about objects or creatures that don’t normally rise above much. Which led to a mental image of ostriches trying to fly. I actually have seen non-partisanship, many times, including from some of the most partisan operators in Canadian politics. But I still wouldn’t bet on it happening in any particular case. The incentives run all the other way. To insulate against it, politicians might want to read the latest from Alliance Canada Hong Kong, the diaspora group that has been chronicling foreign interference for years, for whom the issue is not a fun partisan football and the prospect of testifying yet again, to educate some eminent commissioner, is not appealing.
I keep saying the under-served constituency in this country is the people who would like to see serious problems treated seriously. Not in the sense of cheap theatrics — furrowed brows, jabby index fingers, “my time is limited” — but in the sense of, you know, seriousness. It feels cheap to lodge such a complaint. It’s too easy, too timeless. OK, smartass, what are you proposing? I dunno, more, uh…. seriousness, I guess. But I think everyone senses it.
Last September, the CBC’s Aaron Wherry reported, Justin Trudeau told his caucus “to focus on four Cs: competence, confidence, contrast and campaign-readiness (in that order).” I’m left wondering how the prime minister defines competence and how he thinks he’s doing. This is a guy who, when he made those remarks, was less than a year past deciding that the biggest problem with his cabinet was that Marc Garneau was in it.
Meanwhile, I checked with Pierre Poilievre’s Twitter account to see whether he had responded to LeBlanc’s overture. Here’s how the Conservative leader spent his Friday afternoon:
I sometimes wonder whether these people know we can see them. It’s time to rise above partisanship. Flap, you big gorgeous birds! Flap!
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Opinion
Canadians Must Turn Out in Historic Numbers—Following Taiwan’s Example to Defeat PRC Election Interference

Beijing deploys organized crime to sway Taiwan’s elections — and likely uses similar tactics in Canada, Taiwanese official warns
As Canadians head to the polls on Monday, The Bureau is reposting this report, originally filed from Taiwan, in the public interest.
The 2025 federal election has already been confirmed—through official Canadian intelligence disclosures and our reporting—to have been injured by aggressive foreign interference operations emanating from Beijing. These operations include highly coordinated cyberattacks against Conservative candidate Joe Tay, as well as the potential of in-person intimidation during canvassing efforts in Greater Toronto, according to The Bureau’s source awareness.
The scale and impact of Beijing’s interference in Canada’s 2025 election remains under investigation and is not yet fully understood. However, The Bureau believes it is critical to underscore that as voters face disinformation, manipulation, and suppression attempts, and certain candidates evidently receive support from Xi Jinping’s United Front, the best response is robust democratic participation.
Our groundbreaking 2023 report from Taiwan demonstrates that even under greater and more sustained foreign assault—including sophisticated polling manipulation, corrupt media influence, and the use of organized crime to distort public opinion—Taiwanese citizens have consistently defended their democracy by turning out to vote in record numbers.
Buttressing The Bureau’s findings, the Brookings Institution confirmed: “Taiwanese saw the results of this in 2024: China’s interference became more dangerous as it evolved to be more subtle and untraceable. The Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda campaign in Taiwan may have undergone a paradigm shift, as it evolved from a centralized and top-down approach to a more decentralized one.” This United Front work included tactics in which “individuals or groups in Taiwan may receive Chinese funding for election campaigns or to produce fake election polls.”
The Bureau encourages all Canadians, regardless of political preference or predictions from polls and odds-makers, to exercise their democratic right to vote. As Taiwan’s example shows, a free society depends not only on recognizing threats, but on the collective will of its citizens to confront them—at the ballot box.
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Beijing has interfered in Taiwan’s elections by using organized crime networks to influence votes for certain candidates and is likely using the same methods in Canada, a senior Taiwanese official said Tuesday.
Responding to questions from journalists in Taiwan, Jyh-horng Jan, deputy minister of the Mainland Affairs Council, said that Beijing uses “collaborators” including illegal gambling bosses and Taiwanese businessmen to interfere in Taiwan’s elections.
The Bureau asked Jan if he could describe Taiwanese knowledge of Beijing’s election interference methods, in comparison to examples of China’s recent interference in Canadian federal elections through the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front, which has allegedly clandestinely funded Beijing’s favoured candidates, according to Canadian intelligence investigations.
“We’ve been facing China’s United Front for over half a century in Taiwan and I think China’s tactics have been changing all the time,” Jan said. “Since we are in the lead up to a presidential election next January, we know that they have already started the United Front campaign against us.”
The Council is the Taiwanese government arm mandated to deal with all matters related to Beijing, and works with intelligence and police agencies in order to assess and counteract the Chinese Communist Party’s subversion campaigns.
Jan said the Council has already gathered intelligence indicating China is running influence campaigns against certain candidates in Taiwan’s upcoming January 2024 presidential election.
The front-runner in that contest, Taiwanese vice-president William Lai, is viewed by Beijing as a “separatist” and strong opponent of the Chinese Communist Party’s plans to pressure Taiwan into subordination.
Without naming Lai or any other candidates as Beijing’s alleged targets, Jan said the Council has learned wealthy businessmen will be used as fronts for Beijing to criticize candidates the Chinese Communist Party disfavours.
“We recently found out that China don’t like some of our current presidential candidates. So they’re going to use our business associations who are investing in China to make public statements against certain candidates,” Jan said. “By doing this, they want to shape this image that Taiwanese people are expressing opposition to a certain candidate. Whereas it is actually their voice.”
Jan also told a gathering of international journalists of an alleged method of Chinese election interference that focuses on underground gambling networks.
He described a complex scheme in which Beijing funded and used organized crime gambling rings to influence votes for certain candidates in Taiwan.
“I will share an example that has been happening in Taiwan and probably elsewhere, including Canada,” Jan said. “This is a very classic tactic of China’s election interference.”
According to Jan, the scheme involves underground betting on election candidates, and how the gambling odds can influence actual results at the ballot boxes.
“In the lead up to elections there will always be illegal election operations in Taiwan, so China tends to take advantage of such operations and they will work with the operators from these election gambling rings,” Jan said.
“Beijing will work with such election gambling operators telling them if you can get more people to wager on this specific candidate they will get a very high cash pay off,” Jan said. “And when the operators spread the word [in the betting community] the voters will flock to support this specific candidate.”
Chinese agents also inject funds into these underground betting operations that influence voting results, Jan said.
The Bureau asked Jan to clarify, whether he was alleging that Beijing is systematically using organized crime to influence votes for certain candidates.
“Because this is illegal activity, of course our law enforcement will crack down on such activity and the police were also [able to] issue a fine in this regard,” Jan said. “So this information, regarding illegal election; this is something that is out there, so I can afford confirm that.”
In response to a follow-up question from The Bureau, regarding a ProPublica investigative report that alleged Beijing used Fujian transnational crime suspects in its secret police stations, in Italy, Jan confirmed that his Council recognizes Beijing’s use of transnational crime networks for various objectives.
“So the criminal organization that you were talking about; this criminal organization exists wherever there are overseas Chinese, and one of their responsibilities is to control the activity of overseas Chinese,” Jan said.
(The Bureau reported from Taiwan with international media at the invitation of and with support from Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which has no input on The Bureau’s coverage.)
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C2C Journal
“Freedom of Expression Should Win Every Time”: In Conversation with Freedom Convoy Trial Lawyer Lawrence Greenspon

Lawrence Greenspon Defends the Fundamental Freedoms of All Canadians
By Lynne Cohen
“Law is an imperfect profession,” famed American lawyer Alan Dershowitz – defender of such notorious clients as Claus Von Bülow, Jeffrey Epstein, Harvey Weinstein and O.J. Simpson – once wrote. “There is no perfect justice…But there is perfect injustice, and we know it when we see it.”
Like Dershowitz, Lawrence Greenspon has spent a career fighting injustice in all its forms. Over the past 45 years Greenspon has become one of Canada’s best-known criminal lawyers through his defence of a long list of clients at risk of being crushed by Canada’s legal system – from terrorists to political pariahs to, most recently, Tamara Lich, the petite grandmother who became the public face of the 2022 Freedom Convoy protest.
In taking on these cases, Greenspon is not only giving his clients the best defence possible, he’s also defending the very legitimacy of Canada’s legal system.
Lich faced six charges and up to 10 years in jail for her role organizing the peaceful Ottawa protest. Earlier this month she was found guilty on a single charge of mischief. The Crown says it intends to seek a two-year sentence for that one charge.
In an interview, Greenspon said he decides on cases based on whether he believes in the cause central to the case: “What’s at stake. And can I make a difference?” What attracted him to Lich’s case were key aspects of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that Greenspon felt needed defending. “Canadians have a constitutionally protected right to freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful assembly,” he said. “These are fundamental freedoms, and they’re supposed to be protected for all of us.”
At issue was the impact the protest had on some downtown Ottawa residents and whether that conflicted with Lich’s right to free speech and peaceful protest. “We were prepared to admit right off the bat that there were individuals who lived in downtown Ottawa who experienced some interference with their enjoyment of their property,” Greenspon noted.
“But when you put freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful assembly on a scale against interference with somebody’s enjoyment of property, there’s no contest. Freedom of association and peaceful assembly, and freedom of expression – these should win every time.”
Such a spirited defence of Canadians’ Charter rights is characteristic of the entire body of Greenspon’s legal work. Although his clients aren’t always as endearing as Lich.
Prior to being in the spotlight for the Lich trial, most Canadians probably remember Greenspon from the 2008 trial of Mohamed Momin Khawaja, the first person charged under Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Act. The evidence against Khawaja was substantial and convincing. He was even planning a suicide mission against Israel. Greenspon is a Jew. It was not an issue.
“The fundamental point is that everybody’s entitled to a defence,” Greenspon said. What really mattered was the constitutionality of the new terror law, which Greenspon argued impinged on the free speech rights of Canadians.
In 2018 Greenspon represented Joshua Boyle, who faced over a dozen criminal charges stemming from accusations made by his wife Caitlin Coleman after they returned from being held captive in Afghanistan. Greenspon’s meticulous cross-examination of Coleman led Judge Peter Doody of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to conclude, “I do not believe her, just as I do not believe Mr. Boyle.” All charges against Boyle were dismissed.
He also defended Senator Mike Duffy, who in 2014 found himself charged in connection with an expense account scandal. “Duffy’s presumption of innocence had been completely annihilated. I had no problem representing Mike. In fact, I feel proud to have represented Mike,” he said.
Throughout his legal career, Greenspon has fought tirelessly for the constitutional rights of all his clients, regardless of public sympathy or apparent guilt. While such a stance can make him unpopular, such work offers a crucial bulwark against the state’s misuse of its authority in pursuing particular individuals, as well as the gradual erosion of the liberties promised to all Canadians by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Every Canadian has a stake in ensuring the court system is held to account at all times, regardless of the apparent evidence, current political mood or public support.
Without the work of lawyers such as Greenspon, Charter rights can soon deteriorate into empty platitudes – as the federal government’s shocking treatment of the peaceful Freedom Convoy protesters revealed. That included the unjustified imposition of the Emergencies Act, the freezing of donors’ bank accounts, the mass arrest of supporters and the marked reluctance to grant bail to those charged.
As Greenspon pointed out numerous times during the trial, the conciliatory and always respectful Lich represents the very ideals of peaceful protest in Canada. And for the sole charge on which she was convicted, she still faces two years in a federal penitentiary.
In the case of Khawaja, Greenspon was asked by an Ottawa synagogue to explain why he, as a Jew, was defending an Islamist terrorist. “I told the synagogue members, somebody has to stand up for the person who finds themselves set against the entire machinery of the state. In this case it happens to be Khawaja. But what if the next guy is named Dreyfus?”
Lynne Cohen is a writer at C2C Journal, where the longer original version of this story first appeared.
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