How the world sees Canada now

May 31, 2023

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Thanks for reading. I’m your host, Kyle Duggan with Zi-Ann Lum. Today, foreign policy implications of Canada’s hottest political dispute, the House votes on calling for David Johnston to step down, and what Canada’s NATO Parliamentary Association was up to in Luxembourg.

DRIVING THE DAY

BRACE FOR BLOWBACK? — Canadian politics can be quaint and predictable. Even when the issues can’t get any bigger.

It’s not the content, just the form. Our controversies always find a way to become increasingly more complex and convoluted.

The scandals, these days at least, always circle back to who the prime minister has been rubbing elbows with. And the PM waits for the thing to disappear. This one will not.

But while MPs spar over whether to hold a public inquiry into foreign interference in the political arena, Canada’s big intelligence failures (and the shocking revelations that come along with) being broadcast to the world also raises less quaint, longer-term points worth pondering.

Here’s a quick zoom out on the foreign policy implications.

WHAT’S AT STAKE — One of the questions swirling around the foreign interference revelations, including those mentioned in DAVID JOHNSTON’s report, is what this means for Canada’s reputation on the world stage.

JANICE STEIN, founding director of the Munk School at University of Toronto, tells Playbook the breakdown in communications the Johnston report highlighted between the highest levels of the country’s intelligence community and government ministers could distort the picture to friendly countries and make Canada a target for others.

— Cuts both ways: Other governments who read the report may miss nuances about the investigative process — for instance, Johnston’s inability to subpoena and cross-examine people — and could walk away with a picture of Canada’s national security apparatus that is either “concerning for them, if they are sharing information with us, or the other end of the spectrum, potentially opportunist.”

That, on top of the pattern of systematic leaks, creates “grounds for concern.”

As former CSIS director RICHARD FADDEN told CPAC's MICHAEL SERAPIO the other week: “I don’t think we’ve been covering ourselves with glory here.”

— Maybe not: But DAN STANTON, a former executive manager at CSIS who appeared before the procedure and House affairs committee Tuesday, is not worried because Canada’s intelligence-sharing allies deal with much more damaging leaks.

“I don’t even think it even comes up on their radar,” he tells Playbook.

He pointed to the 21-year-old arrested in relation to the big Pentagon document leak revealing intel on the war in Ukraine.

WESLEY WARK of the Centre for International Governance Innovation said Canada’s Five Eyes partners are all in the “same boat” on foreign interference threats and they “don’t cast stones in glass houses.”

“What our allies will be looking for is concrete action.”

— That’s not all: Stein pointed to two other major foreign policy concerns to keep in mind as the issue burns on. It introduces “tension and friction” into an already very troubled relationship, and as the political process of dealing with the revelations drags out, “the more difficult the relationship between Canada and China will become.”

The other thread is how it affects the Canadian-Chinese diaspora, something currently “inadequately appreciated.”

University of Ottawa professor MARGARET MCCUAIG-JOHNSTON told PROC that for this reason, a public inquiry is a better tool than Johnston’s proposed public hearings.

“I’m very concerned that in talking about public hearings, Mr. Johnston announced that he would be hearing from the Chinese diasporas. Uyghurs, Tibetans, Falun Gong, pro-democracy Hong Kongers and human rights activists would be more targeted if they spoke in public hearings,” she told MPs, adding later that shows a lack of understanding on his part about the issues the community faces.

A message from Google:

THE DAY AHEAD — It’s day three of the last stretch of Parliament before school’s out for summer, with another 18, give or take, to go, according to the House calendar.

MPs vote today after Question Period on the NDP motion that’s captured everyone’s attention, calling on Johnston to step aside and keep the foreign-interference issue going at committee.

PROC may even never run out of things it can investigate on the hot-button file. Aside from figuring out who should lead a commission of inquiry and what its terms of reference should be, as per the NDP motion mentioning the committee, there’s the litany of election-interference issues ERIN O’TOOLE raised in the Commons Tuesday that could land on its lap.

For instance, he said “threats, disruption and interference of this scale actually violated the privilege of hundreds of members of this House,” which is “worthy of its own separate finding of a prima facie contempt and committee investigation.”

At any rate, NDP Leader JAGMEET SINGH made it clear Tuesday he’s not ready to trigger an election until confidence in the electoral system is restored … So not soon. Nor did he seem interested in calling for a minister to resign when prompted in debate by Conservative MP TAKO VAN POPTA.

Like Ottawa Playbook? Maybe you know others who’d like to start the day with a free rush of intel. Point them to this link where sign up is free .

TODAY'S HIGHLIGHTS

— At 10 a.m., Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU will chair the Liberal caucus meeting; at 2 p.m., he’ll attend QP.

— Deputy Prime Minister CHRYSTIA FREELAND is in Montreal. At 9:30 a.m., she’ll deliver a keynote at the 2023 Labourers' International Union of North America Canadian Conference. At noon, she’ll hold a roundtable with Quebec business leaders. Both events are closed to media.

— NDP Leader JAGMEET SINGH is in Ottawa with plans to attend his party’s caucus meeting at 10 a.m., followed by a pre-QP media scrum in West Block and a 3:45 p.m. meeting with New Economy Canada.

— Foreign Affairs Minister MÉLANIE JOLY will be in Oslo, Norway, to join an informal NATO foreign affairs ministers’ meeting.

8:30 a.m. National Defense Minister ANITA ANAND delivers a keynote speech at CANSEC 2023 at the EY Centre in Ottawa.

4:30 p.m. Treasury Board President MONA FORTIER will be at the House government and operations committee with five department officials to take questions about main estimates.

6:30 p.m. Six Toronto mayoral candidates will face off in a debate co-hosted by Toronto Metropolitan University, the United Way and the Toronto Star.

HALLWAY CONVERSATION

NATO HOMEWORK — MÉLANIE JOLY is in Oslo, Norway, today for an informal meeting of NATO foreign affairs ministers. The gathering, a pre-show of sorts, will set the stage for July’s main event: the NATO Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Liberal MP JULIE DZEROWICZ, chair of the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association, was in Luxembourg last week with an all-party delegation of MPs and senators. She tells Playbook they came back with a renewed will to “educate our population” and colleagues about defense realities and the state of the world.

— Long-game approach: That job includes explaining to Canadians “why we are spending so much money on Ukraine,” she said, as well as increases in national defense budgets.

The Wales pledge, NATO’s 2 percent spending target, will mark its 10th anniversary next year and some allies are keen to firm up its language to get laggards to boost military spending. Dzerowicz said she hasn't been getting any nudges from partners about it.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

The scene at the 2022 edition of the NATO defense ministers' meeting in Brussels, Belgium. | Getty Images

On the Wales pledge, what was the tenor of conversations in Luxembourg? Is there flexibility from Canada to make the language in the pledge stronger?

I don't think there’s any discussion about the 2 percent.

If you go to the Wales summit declaration, it says allies whose current proportion of GDP spent on defense is below 2 percent will do three things:

“Halt any decline in defense expenditure; aim to increase defense expenditure in real terms as GDP grows; aim to move towards the 2 percent guideline within a decade with a view to meeting their NATO Capability Targets and filling NATO's capability shortfalls.”

If you look at Canada, we have only massively accelerated our spending. To Ukraine alone, we have committed over C$1 billion in military aid with C$8 billion in total. We have invested almost C$40 billion to modernize NORAD. We have increased our overall budget. Between 2017 and 2026, our defense spending will increase by 70 percent.

And we announced C$8 billion in additional defense spending in budget 2022.

We are undertaking a review of our defense policy … because we want to make sure our Canadian Armed Forces fully reflect our changing world. We're all ready to have that discussion in Vilnius in July.

Are you being nudged by European NATO counterparts, on a parliamentarian level, to increase Canada military spending?

I'm not, actually. Many parliamentarians are in the same boat. And everybody's accelerating as quickly as possible.

I had two NATO Parliamentary assembly committees visit in April, and at that same time there was a Washington Post article about Canada … Basically, the first thing my parliamentary colleagues said to me is, “Well, you should see what they say about us in our newspapers.” That's what they said. Joking aside, I would say we're taking this seriously.

We are more than holding our own. We are playing an outsized role. We do recognize we have to more than step up. Because where we were at, and where a lot of NATO countries were at, was after the Berlin Wall fell, a lot of us stopped spending on our defense budgets.

Now, we're all rapidly accelerating our spending. We're rapidly accelerating our interoperability. And I think we're all working on the game plan.

We are determined to make sure our defense policy reflects the challenges that face Canada today. Because as much as I can talk about Ukraine, and as much as I can talk about NATO, our number one priority is to protect Canadians. And remember, the Arctic ice is melting very quickly. And so we've got three coasts that we have to protect.

You mentioned the Arctic and the melting waters. Could you expand more on that point?

When you have the melting of the Arctic, you have a new route for trade — for anything to happen, really. Now that we have Finland, and hopefully soon Sweden [will] join.

I think we're going to have a high north sort of grouping within NATO. That's going to be a key focus for us — protecting the high north and working together on that.

MEDIA ROOM

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre during a daily news conference at the White House back in March. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

— POLITICO’s ELI STOKOLS and LAUREN EGAN have a story on how the White House press shop’s learning curve is dealing with an increasing onslaught of AI deep fakes.

— In case you missed it, here’s wildfire dashcam footage from Hammonds Plains, Nova Scotia.

— Meanwhile in Alberta: Fort Chipewyan evacuated due to wildfire.

— Top of POLITICO this hour: Senate braces for last-minute conservative demands on debt deal.

— CBC News’ ASHLEY BURKE reports on the new strings Sport Minister PASCALE ST-ONGE is attaching to Soccer Canada’s funding.

— DONG GUANGPING’s family in Canada is urging Beijing to release the human rights activist after confirming he’s being held in “incommunicado detention,” CTV News’ MITCHELL CONSKY reports.

— Business reporter CLARRIE FEINSTEIN promises a surprising answer in a Toronto Star story probing the correlation between Canadian newcomers and rising housing prices.

— The Decibel features KELLY CRYDERMAN on the Alberta results.

— For The Hub, L. GRAEME SMITH, TREVOR TOMBE, RAHIM MOHAMED, KARAMVEER LALH, HOWARD ANGLIN, DERRICK HUNTER and STUART THOMSON spill ink explaining the election.

— And here’s MERAL JAMAL of the Nunatsiaq News on Auditor General Karen Hogan’s new report, which suggests Nunavut’s health department may have wasted one-third of its Covid-19 vaccines.

PROZONE

Our latest policy newsletter for Pro subscribers from SUE ALLAN and ZI-ANN LUM: Alberta vs. Ottawa: Smith’s next battle.

In other news for Pros:

— Debt limit deal heads to House floor with just days until default.

— Ottawa to modernize offshore energy regime in Atlantic Canada.

— POLITICO Q&A: Norwegian environment minister on state of global plastic treaty talks.

— Document: EU-US Trade and Tech Council conclusions.

— WTO boss wades into global carbon pricing morass.

— Dombrovskis: Steel deal with U.S. still on track for October.

PLAYBOOKERS

Birthdays: HBD to the CBC’s ROSEMARY BARTON, CAMERON HOLMSTROM of Niipaawi Strategies and ROY MCMURTRY, former Ontario Chief Justice and Attorney General and Canadian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, is 91!

Also celebrating today: Liberal MP GREG FERGUS, businessman LEONARD ASPER, former NDP MP PIERRE-LUC DUSSEAULT, former broadcaster VICKI GABEREAU, former B.C. Attorney General SUZANNE ANTON and Terrebonne Mayor MATHIEU TRAVERSY.

Spotted: Former Liberal cabmin DEB SCHULTE, sounding a gong after her last session of radiation. “So glad to be finished another phase of my treatment for breast cancer,” she shared on Twitter … former mayor JIM WATSON at retirement sendoff for “NAC girl” and sister, JAYNE WATSON.

MP SHAUN CHEN with a shout out in the House to Scarborough Town Centre: Happy 50th anniversary!

RibFest booths on Sparks Street.

At the Hong Kong Watch Canada launch reception at the Sir John A Macdonald building: Hong Kong Watch co-founders AILEEN CALVERLEY, BENEDICT ROGERS and policy director SAM GOODMAN, Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to Canada HARRY TSENG, Conservative senators DON PLETT and LEO HOUSAKOS, Conservative MPs MICHAEL CHONG, JAMES BEZAN, GARNETT GENUIS, Liberal MP JEAN YIP and NDP MP JENNY KWAN, and retired senator JIM MUNSON.

Taiwan’s de factor Ambassador to Canada Harry Tseng and parliamentarians at the Hong Kong Watch Canada launch reception at the Sir John A. Macdonald building Tuesday evening in Ottawa.

Taiwan’s de factor Ambassador to Canada Harry Tseng and parliamentarians at the Hong Kong Watch Canada launch reception at the Sir John A. Macdonald building Tuesday evening in Ottawa. | Zi-Ann Lum, POLITICO Canada

Movers and shakers: JOHN HANNAFORD, stepping into new digs as the head of PCO next month. He replaces the outgoing JANICE CHARETTE, who retires June 24.

The CBSA’s “repeated institutional sloppiness” has earned it one of The Canadian Association of Journalists’ most coveted awards: 2022 Code of Silence Award for Outstanding Achievement in Government Secrecy … Runners up for “dishonorable mentions” go to the Trans Mountain Corporation and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Send Playbookers tips to ottawaplaybook@politico.com.

On the Hill

→ Find upcoming House committees here

→ Keep track of Senate committees here

— It’s caucus day on the Hill.

8 a.m. The Canadian Intellectual Property Office and the Centre for International Governance Innovation hosts its annual IP Data & Research Conference in Gatineau, a hybrid gathering.

8:30 a.m. Statistics Canada releases gross domestic product data for the first quarter of 2023 and product by industry for March.

8:30 a.m. National Defense Minister ANITA ANAND delivers a keynote bright and early on the first day at CANSEC 2023.

9 a.m. NDP MP CHARLIE ANGUS and Alberta Federation of Labour’s GIL MCGOWAN hold a press conference in West Block to list their demands for the government’s upcoming sustainable jobs bill.

4 p.m. The Senate science and social affairs committee meets to study Bill C-47 with help from 13 department officials.

4:15 p.m. The Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee also has Bill C-47 on its agenda.

4:30 p.m. Treasury Board President MONA FORTIER will be at the House government and operations committee with five department officials to take questions about main estimates.

4:30 p.m. The House Indigenous and northern affairs committee meets to continue its study of restitution of land to First Nations, Inuit and Metis communities.

4:30 p.m. The House agriculture committee will study the environmental contribution of agriculture.

4:30 p.m. The House citizenship committee meets to take Bill S-245 through clause-by-clause consideration.

6:45 p.m. The transitional committee members for the National Council for Reconciliation are witnesses at the Senate Indigenous peoples committee’s study of Bill C-29.

6:45 p.m. The Senate national finance committee meets to study Bill C-47.

6:45 p.m. Witnesses range from the Minderoo Foundation to Unifor and OpenMedia at the Senate transportation and communication committee’s study of Bill C-18.

Behind closed doors: The House liaison committee’s subcommittee on budgets meets; the House industry committee has a review of its report on blockchain technology on its agenda; the House justice committee is studying its report on Canada’s bail system; the Senate subcommittee on veterans affairs meets; the Senate ethics and conflict of interest meets; the Senate foreign affairs committee meets to discuss Bill C-47; the Senate banking committee meets.

TRIVIA

Tuesday’s answer: With a tip of the hat to DAVE COURNOYER, six parties have formed government in Alberta: the Liberals (1905-1921), the United Farmers of Alberta (1921-1935), the Social Credit Party (1935-1971), the Progressive Conservatives (1971-2015), the Alberta NDP (2015-2019), and the United Conservative Party (2019-?).

Props to CHIP SMITH, DARREN MAJOR, MARC LEBLANC, ROBERT MCDOUGALL, MATT CONLEY, GEORGE SCHOENHOFER and BRANDON RABIDEAU.

Wednesday’s question: How many points were on the original design of the Canadian flag?

Think you have a harder trivia question? Send us your best.

Want to grab the attention of movers and shakers on Parliament Hill? Want your brand in front of a key audience of Canadian influencers? Playbook can help. Contact Jesse Shapiro to find out how: jshapiro@politico.com.

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