Blacklock's Reporter

Federal election monitors attached little significance to suspected Communist Party meddling via Chinese language media posts because they were “written in Mandarin,” a cabinet aide told the China inquiry. None of five cabinet appointees assigned to keep a lookout for foreign agents spoke Chinese: "The fact it is written in Mandarin meant the content would likely only reach Chinese diaspora readers."

Cabinet-appointed election monitors found it “really difficult” to track Chinese interference in the 2021 campaign, says one director. Spotting the difference between misconduct and ordinary election activities was “a very fuzzy area,” the China inquiry was told: "Had we been more certain we could have maybe applied more certainty to it."

Auditors hunting waste at Canadian missions abroad found “piles of furniture” discarded at taxpayers’ expense in Sao Paulo, Brazil, says a Department of Foreign Affairs report. Round-the-world audits followed the discovery of a fraud ring at the Canadian Embassy in Haiti: 'Stronger practices are needed.'

Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “In my cubicle, two men are working…”

Parliamentary democracies have an extraordinary capacity to produce third parties: NDP, CCF, WCC, Greens, Progressives, Reformers, Libertarians, Social Creditors, Confederation of Regions, the Reconstruction Party and others. If their historical impact is uneven, each protest movement bettered the nation by rattling the establishment and giving voice to grievance.

Canadians take for granted they may choose from four or five parties on a ballot. Pity the American who has the pick of two – red team or blue team – knowing neither has to be very good to maintain a 50 percent chance of winning.

Historian Ian Bullock examines such a protest movement forgotten years after its collapse, the U.K. Independent Labour Party. Bullock’s affectionate account Under Siege explains why so many protest movements flame and then fade. Years after the ILP disbanded, its members became Liberals or Conservatives “or simply became alienated from politics altogether,” writes Bullock.

Communist Party agents worked to elect “pro-China” candidates to the current Parliament, CSIS director David Vigneault yesterday testified at the Commission on Foreign Interference. “I support those conclusions,” said Vigneault as documents pointed to large cash payments for unnamed public office holders: "As you can imagine, we are not at liberty to discuss the specifics."

Police have opened a criminal investigation into 2021 election interference by foreign agents, RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme said yesterday. Testifying at the China inquiry, Duheme would not discuss details: "We received information that prompted us to open an investigation."

Suspicions a Chinese agent was planted at a 2021 election meeting to heckle Conservative MP Michael Chong (Wellington-Halton Hills, Ont.) are “compelling” but unprovable, say police. “I slowly came to the realization many months afterwards that event may have been a foreign interference threat activity,” MP Chong testified at the China inquiry.

Executives with KPMG Canada yesterday were urged to get “lawyered up” over their dealings with an ArriveCan contractor now under investigation. KPMG managers testified at the Commons public accounts committee they were specifically told to work with GC Strategies Inc.: 'I find it incredible that KPMG, this massive accounting firm, winds up as a subcontractor for two dudes working out of a basement.'

Federal employees did their bit to save electricity under a January 13 Alberta Emergency alert, records show. Guards dimmed the lights at an Edmonton penitentiary while constables unplugged RCMP block heaters at Elk Point as temperatures fell to -40°.

A former Conservative MP named as a target of Chinese Communist Party agents in the 2021 campaign yesterday said he felt like Canadian election monitors left him to drown. “The government doesn’t seem to care,” Kenny Chiu testified at the China inquiry.

Senior Liberal Party managers attended MP Han Dong’s 2019 nomination meeting deemed a target of Chinese agents, according to documents released yesterday by the Commission on Foreign Interference. “Party brass from Ottawa were at the nomination vote,” one eyewitness said in sworn statement: "They wanted to know whether there was anything the media could pick up on to tarnish the campaign."

Foreign interference cost the Conservative Party “a certain number of seats” in the 2021 election, former leader Erin O’Toole yesterday testified at the China inquiry. Internal federal memos confirmed Conservatives were targeted by a Chinese language slander campaign claiming O’Toole planned to cut diplomatic relations with Beijing: "The government knew there was a level of foreign interference occurring."

Federal agents have lost track of more than 28,000 foreign fugitives in Canada including several hundred with criminal records, documents show. The latest figures follow an admission by the Canada Border Services Agency that it found it difficult to keep track of people ordered deported: "Should we not look to remove close to 100 percent of these individuals?"

The Canada Border Services Agency yesterday said fears of transmitting Covid by paper Customs forms prompted it to spend $59.5 million on the ArriveCan app. Federal health authorities at the time said there was little chance of getting sick by handling paperwork: "The risk is not really out there."