8/8/2023 0 Comments Chinese english![]() People’s lives, livelihoods and reputations are being damaged by inept spies and their grateful conduits in the media and on Parliament Hill. While I agree that Chinese interference is troublesome, a witch-hunt-like fever has infected lawmakers and reporters intent on “unmasking” so-called “seditious” Canadians reminiscent of the shameful purge of public servants only a few generations ago as a result of their left-wing politics and homosexuality. I came away convinced that China poses less of a threat to Canada’s democratic institutions than the sad, pedestrian members of parliament – with one exception – I encountered, who purport to defend those ever-so-fragile institutions now allegedly under siege. Given my long history of reporting on Canada’s cavalier security services and Chinese influence efforts, I reluctantly agreed to attend via Zoom in the faint hope that my testimony might act as a brake on the prevailing panic and the rampant, McCarthyite guilt-by-association accusations poisoning Ottawa. Still, I had more than a disconcerting taste of it over the past few weeks while appearing three times as a witness before two House of Commons committees probing Chinese influence campaigns. So, happily, I have been able to avoid succumbing to the “yellow peril”-induced madness. I wouldn’t be surprised if more than a few of its jittery occupants who hold public office have checked under their desks to see if a Beijing-compromised, fifth columnist is lurking there. That, discerning international readers, is only a slightly exaggerated portrait of the hysteria that has paralysed a once-sedate city for months. These fulminating reporters and politicians have been reduced – figuratively speaking – to parading around newsrooms and parliament in a critical-thinking-sapping state, carrying signs that read: The end of democracy is nigh.īit by devious bit, Chinese agents and their proxies have eaten covertly away, they say, at the vulnerable foundations that gird Canada’s democratic institutions.Īll that stands between apocalypse and possible salvation are the patriots working inside Canada’s always law-abiding spy services who apparently belt out “O Canada” at breakfast and at bedtime with hands on maple-leaf-forever-tattooed hearts. A faux scandal, manufactured by the nexus of scoop-thirsty reporters and hyperbole-addicted politicians – is there any other kind? – has gripped the capital like a drug-resistant psychosis. ![]() To be precise, much of official Ottawa has abandoned the remnants of its already questionable faculties. ![]()
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