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New Canadian Politics Thread

manny said:
If Trudeau is talking about it in the House, and they’ve expelled a senior Indian diplomat, they have some pretty strong evidence.

They’ll never catch the people who did it though. They’re long gone.
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if that's the case, why won't they share it?

beyond the obvious motive, all we have right now is... Trudeau's word. and Trudeaus is a politician, and politicians are liars.

like, I want to believe it! but you gotta give me something to work with here.
 
Wayward DP said:
if that's the case, why won't they share it?

beyond the obvious motive, all we have right now is... Trudeau's word. and Trudeaus is a politician, and politicians are liars.

like, I want to believe it! but you gotta give me something to work with here.
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Yeah, you’re not wrong to be skeptical IMO. But this kind of assumes that Trudeau has the balls/foolishness to start a major diplomatic crisis just to score political points.

I think he probably wouldn’t take the risk to just posture about this without pretty solid evidence. PP would excoriate him for it. The US won’t back us without some proof and it will be humiliating.

Plus the denials coming out of India seem a bit dubious. “We would never!” Lol. Ok.
 
Problem is that evidence gathering techniques can usually be reverse engineered by releasing the evidence gathered. If CSIS keeps an eye on foreign diplomats (a fair portion of the people working at any embassy are foreign intelligence), you don't want them to know specifically how we're gathering information on their intelligence actions in the country. Especially on something ongoing like the Indian efforts to interfere in protected speech in Canada.

So yeah, I feel you on that, politicians are liars and rarely deserve the benefit of the doubt but we also can't go giving away intel gathering methodology. Sometimes the government has to act on what it knows and can't/shouldn't make public.
 
Trudeau would much prefer to not have to address it at all, than do what he did…..there’s zero doubt imo about the validity of the intelligence.

That intel was seconded by other agencies around the globe Im sure, as well…..and he discussed it with other leaders, including Biden before going forward with it.


They also already had solid intel about the risk to his life beforehand, which had been passed on to him and other leaders in the community.
 
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manny said:
Yeah, you’re not wrong to be skeptical IMO. But this kind of assumes that Trudeau has the balls/foolishness to start a major diplomatic crisis just to score political points.

I think he probably wouldn’t take the risk to just posture about this without pretty solid evidence. PP would excoriate him for it. The US won’t back us without some proof and it will be humiliating.

Plus the denials coming out of India seem a bit dubious. “We would never!” Lol. Ok.
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the US... isn't really backing us though.

neither are our five eyes allies. they're all too busy sucking up to Modi cause of China to seem to care.

and I have less confidence that JT would abuse foreign diplomacy for personal political gain.

again, I do think the Indians did it. I just wish that was more convincing evidence on that front available in the court of public opinion. and like, what level of involvement are we talking here? is it a Khashoggi-esque, Indian sourced hit squad dispatched by Modi himself? is it a rogue element of an intelligence service? quite the spectrum exists...
 
MindzEye said:
Problem is that evidence gathering techniques can usually be reverse engineered by releasing the evidence gathered. If CSIS keeps an eye on foreign diplomats (a fair portion of the people working at any embassy are foreign intelligence), you don't want them to know specifically how we're gathering information on their intelligence actions in the country. Especially on something ongoing like the Indian efforts to interfere in protected speech in Canada.

So yeah, I feel you on that, politicians are liars and rarely deserve the benefit of the doubt but we also can't go giving away intel gathering methodology. Sometimes the government has to act on what it knows and can't/shouldn't make public.
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this is fair, but we haven't even heard that line of argument/defence yet have we?

with Chinese interference, they were quick to say, 'sorry, we cannot release this because it would threaten our ability to gather future intelligence'. has anyone said that here?
 
Montana said:
Trudeau would much prefer to not have to address it at all, than do what he did…..there’s zero doubt imo about the validity of the intelligence.

That intel was seconded by other agencies around the globe Im sure, as well…..and he discussed it with other leaders around the globe including Biden before going forward with it.


They also already had solid intel about the risk to his life beforehand, which had been passed on to him and other leaders in the community.
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I think this is a big political win for JT myself.

let's not forget there are nearly a million Sikhs in Canada, largest Sikh diaspora in the world. granted, there are even more voters of Indian descent, so fair enough.
 
Wayward DP said:
this is fair, but we haven't even heard that line of argument/defence yet have we?

with Chinese interference, they were quick to say, 'sorry, we cannot release this because it would threaten our ability to gather future intelligence'. has anyone said that here?
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Dunno, I haven't been paying close attention on this. It's usually the (reasonable) excuse given by most governments when shit goes all Spy Gamey.
 
Wayward DP said:
this is fair, but we haven't even heard that line of argument/defence yet have we?

with Chinese interference, they were quick to say, 'sorry, we cannot release this because it would threaten our ability to gather future intelligence'. has anyone said that here?
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It may be because it’s another countries intelligence who gave them the smoking gun.
 
both of your points are fair. I just wish Trudeau et al left less up to our collective imaginations on this one. in the absence of that certainty though, certainly great fodder for message boards :p
 
Wayward DP said:
the US... isn't really backing us though.

neither are our five eyes allies. they're all too busy sucking up to Modi cause of China to seem to care.

and I have less confidence that JT would abuse foreign diplomacy for personal political gain.

again, I do think the Indians did it. I just wish that was more convincing evidence on that front available in the court of public opinion. and like, what level of involvement are we talking here? is it a Khashoggi-esque, Indian sourced hit squad dispatched by Modi himself? is it a rogue element of an intelligence service? quite the spectrum exists...
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The US is waiting to see the evidence, basically. If it’s nothing, they’ll do nothing and carry on their relations with India (including amping up trade talks) which will look very bad for Trudeau. If there’s something there they will likely have our back, at least in public statements.

Point about it being a major diplomatic incident is not just the accusation and the expelling the Indian diplomat. It also puts the US in an awkward situation.
 
Anyway, I’m with you that we need to wait to see how credible this evidence is. They’re obviously not going to talk about it in a way that reveals sources, but they can say a lot more.
 
Went down to check out the anti-trans protests in Vancouver today (my new office overlooks the Vancouver Art Gallery). Lots of police, and probably twice as many counter-protestors as actual protestors. And of course, some of the dumbest looking hicks in the country holding up signs like “our kids will not be groomed”, “f*ck Trudeau”, “democracy not dictatorship”.

They are not sending their best. Or… maybe they are?
 
Wayward DP said:
both of your points are fair. I just wish Trudeau et al left less up to our collective imaginations on this one. in the absence of that certainty though, certainly great fodder for message boards :p
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Good discussion with Former Director of CSIS, Richard Fadden about all we were discussing.
 
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