Nine Times the Conservatives made Canada and/or the World Less Safe
Just some of the many Security fiascos that took place under the last Conservative Government in Canada. Eat your heart out, Pete Hegseth!
Canada’s Spy Agency, CSIS has said they they tried to tell Conservative Party of Canada Leader Pierre Poilievre that the Government of India had interfered in the leadership contest that he won, but he couldn’t because he has refused to get his national security clearance.
While many people around the world are still struggling to pick their jaws up off the floor at the news that pretty much all of the Trump administration were on a group chat sharing war plans with a journalist someone added apparently by accident. It was all on an insecure app that is hackable by countries like Russia and Iran, and that was set to automatically delete the messages, when such discussions are, by law, supposed to be preserved.
Canadians should recall that under the Harper Conservatives, there were times when our national security blunders make Pete Hegseth look like James Bond.
The Harper Government had a reputation for being “strong on security” for the same reason it has a reputation for being “strong” on anything else: PR disconnected from reality.
Harper’s opponents have been able to point out that his economic management was been a joke - he had the worst economic performance of any Prime Minister since the 1930s.
However, by complaining about Harper being draconian, it tended to reinforce his image as “strong” or “tough” with his own supporters, when the truth is that a number of major blunders in security speak to incompetence, naiveté or negligence.
Here are nine examples when the Harper Conservatives made Canada and the world less safe.
Appointed Arthur Porter - later arrested for a $25-million+ fraud, the head of the oversight committee for CSIS, after being warned not to by Gilles Duceppe
Porter is now in Panama’s La Joya prison awaiting extradition to Canada, where he is accused of defrauding the McGill University Health Centre by taking bribes from former executives at engineering firm SNC Lavalin as part of a $22.5-million kickback scheme. Porter, who has lung cancer, says he is innocent, and the charges have not been tested in court. Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed Porter head of the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) on Sept. 3, 2008, giving him access to Canada’s most carefully guarded secrets, including information shared with Canadian spies by American and British intelligence agencies. In June 2010, Harper made him chairman of the five-member committee. SIRC’s job is to review operations of Canada’s spy agency, CSIS, by providing civilian oversight of operations and handling appeals from citizens who feel they have been mistreated by the agency. He stepped down amid controversy in 2011.
The PMO won’t comment on the reasons he was initially appointed, but at the time Porter was popular with the Liberal government in Quebec, which was impressed by his work getting the McGill hospital built; and with Conservatives such as Sen. David Angus, who sat on the hospital’s board. The Liberals and NDP raised no objections, saying they lacked information, but on Feb. 1, 2008, then-Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe wrote to Harper to oppose the appointment on the basis of Porter’s record during a period when he worked in Detroit. Duceppe pointed to “numerous problems: conflicts of interest, bad management and threatened guardianship.”
“Unless the checks carried out by the government have led to the convincing rejection of these allegations, I am obliged to reject the proposed nomination,” he wrote.
Duceppe’s letter was based on revelations from 2004 investigative stories in L’Actualite medicale, a Quebec medical publication, and Le Devoir, a Montreal daily. The stories quoted medical officials in Detroit who had raised concerns about Porter’s management of the Detroit Medical Center from 1999 to 2004, including allegations that he had an interest in a company that had received a $1 billion contract from the hospital. Porter was never sanctioned in relation to the controversy.
In fact, Porter’s history was even worse, as I wrote here:
A Navy spy was selling Secrets to the Russians for years even though there were red flags about him being a security risk
Jeffrey Delisle had been selling secrets to the Russians for years.
During his prosecution, Delisle told the court he gave away “a lot” to his Russian handlers, a comment confirmed by one memo titled, “possible compromise of allied documents.”
It says that classified documents “proprietary” to an unnamed agency or nation were accessed by Delisle and “therefore suspected of having been compromised.”
Delisle was picked up by the RCMP in early 2012 after authorities were tipped that the junior naval officer was spying for the Russians. Within two weeks of his arrest, a top general established a high-level committee that touched on many branches of the military to deal with the fallout.
But as officers struggled to understand what may have leaked, they dealt with another worry too — that Delisle and his Russian handlers may have sabotaged Defence Department computers.
Sold weapons to Putin-backed regime in Ukraine
While the Harper government is making a lot of noise about standing up to Putin in Ukraine, Canada was exporting weapons to the corrupt regime of Viktor Yanukovych.
Published: February 28, 2014
OTTAWA – As Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird visited Kyiv on Friday, the federal New Democrats wanted to know why Canada exported more than $80,000 worth of weapons to the former Ukraine regime of Viktor Yanukovych.
A Foreign Affairs Department report on the lawful export of Canadian military goods shows that shipments to Ukraine jumped to $82,000 in 2011 from $50,000 in 2010.
In 2011 — the year after Yanukovych was elected — Canada approved the shipment of $56,700 worth of “Smooth-bore weapons with a calibre of less than 20 mm, other arms and automatic weapons with a calibre of 12.7 mm or less and accessories” to Ukraine.
The same year, Canada also exported more than $25,000 worth of “Smooth-bore weapons with a calibre of 20 mm or more, other weapons or armament with a calibre greater than 12.7 mm, projectors and accessories.”
Yanukovych is wanted on suspicion of mass murder after more than 80 people were killed last week in clashes between protesters and police, including sniper attacks.
“the deal with Beijing has raised concerns in Ottawa, because it includes less stringent accounting for how the uranium is used than Canada typically demands, sources said. When Australia made a similar deal with China in 2008 that included less accountability, it faced criticism from other uranium suppliers, including Canada.
China insisted on getting the same sort of accounting requirements for Canadian exports that it got from Australia. As well as using uranium for other purposes, it also has military nuclear programs, which are not subject to accounting or inspection.
While the Canadian uranium deal raised questions, there are differences over whether it presents a real risk. China already has nuclear weapons, is believed to have halted stockpiling, and has shown restraint in limiting its arsenal.
Of greater concern is its long support for the civilian nuclear industry in Pakistan, which developed atomic bombs in the 1990s, and whose scientists have sold nuclear-weapons technology to Iran and North Korea. China is supposed to stop nuclear trade with Pakistan, but has argued it should be allowed to continue to supply nuclear material and equipment.
The new Canadian deal with China will rely on general assurances that all Canadian uranium is used for appropriate civilian purposes, although Canada usually requires a more detailed accounting from customers other than the United States.
Pakistan, by the way sold nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea
This was only addressed after a gunman shot and killed an unarmed soldier and stormed inside the Houses of Parliament.
“Canada’s embassy in Jordan, which is run by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s handpicked ambassador and former top bodyguard, is being linked in news reports to an unfolding international terrorism and spy scandal.”
Canada’s ambassador to Jordan is Bruno Saccomani, the former RCMP officer who was in charge of Harper’s security detail until the prime minister appointed him almost two years ago as the envoy to Amman, with dual responsibility for Iraq.
The suspect in custody is a Syrian intelligence operative named Mohammed Mehmet Rashid – dubbed Doctor Mehmet Rashid – who helped the three London schoolgirls travel to Syria upon their arrival in Turkey, according to Yeni Safak, a conservative and Islamist Turkish newspaper known for its strong support of the government.
7. Then-Conservative, now PPC Leader Maxime Bernier leaving top secret documents at his girlfriends’ house - and she had previously been linked romantically to a criminal biker gang
8. Conservative MP, Bob Dechert who was being courted by reporter from the Chinese State News Agency in what many saw as an effort to extract secrets from him
Li Fengzhi, a former agent with China’s Ministry of State Security, says politicians like Foreign Affairs parliamentary secretary Bob Dechert are a top target of Chinese spies keen on learning about Canadian secrets, or grooming advocates for Beijing in Canada’s corridors of power.
Dechert’s relationship with Toronto-based Xinhua reporter Shi Rong was revealed when someone hijacked her email account and forwarded a series of intimate messages she received from the Mississauga politician in the spring and summer of 2010. The leak was traced back to an apparent domestic dispute with Shi’s husband.
Li, who defected to the United States in 2003 and is now believed to be working for the Central Intelligence Agency, was speaking to a high-level conference here on espionage through video link. For security reasons, his location was not disclosed.
He said it is not possible to say with certainty that a Xinhua reporter is providing intelligence back to Beijing, but the act of striking up a relationship with an elected official fits the modus operandi of Chinese spies.
“That’s the normal way to get the job done,” he said.
Shi was called back to China when the relationship hit the news, which is another reason to be suspicious, Li said.
9. Rahim Jaffer seeking secret military satellite technology from his former colleagues
When a scandal involves “busty hookers” and allegations of cocaine use, people tend to focus on lurid details - while missing other ones completely, like the fact that former MP Rahim Jaffer - husband of Minister Helena Guerguis - allegedly pumped his former colleagues for information about Canada’s military satellite technology.
… Jaffer wrote to David Pierce, then the director of parliamentary affairs to then industry minister Tony Clement, with detailed questions about the Canadian government’s “long-term space policy” regarding Radarsat Constellation, a high-technology earth-observation satellite being developed by MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates with more than $500 million in federal funding.
On March 16, 2010, Jaffer, using an email address belonging to Guergis’s MP account, wrote that he had “a few questions on behalf of some constituents who are friends of Helena and I.”
He then asks, in the email, about the government’s plans for the satellite program, including its sensitive “automatic identification system,” a military system used to identify vessels in Canadian waters.
“I know these are very technical questions and I have pretty much copied and pasted their request directly to you,” Jaffer wrote in the email to Pierce.
In a letter to ethics commissioner Mary Dawson on April 16, 2010, after Guergis left the government, Pierce wrote that he also spoke to Jaffer on March 17 but did not pass on any information about Canada’s space program.
In June, 2010, CSIS director Richard Fadden warned that China was attempting to influence Canadian politicians, and former CSIS agents have publicly warned that the communist government’s agents are engaged in an ongoing, multifaceted intelligence operations in Canada, driven by interest in Canadian technology and resources.
It all tends to leave one feeling shaken, not stirred.
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Thank you, Douglas. I learned a lot more about Harper's ineptness from your excellent article. It certainly must be noted that Poillievre was around for every single day of the Con government’s “tough” on everything agenda. Harper still has a huge influence on Wee Pierre, although the former PM may be somewhat occupied now with his hands in the Alberta treasury!
I canNOT understand how or why CONs get a great reputation on security and economy when they are chronically, permanently AWFUL on both files! In addition, they damage the well-being of ordinary and esp vulnerable people ...yet, enjoy a high trust rating.
Thanks for telling the truth and laying out the facts here!