Globe’s India story smears Poilievre with Carney talking points

Article content

Well, there goes the Globe and Mail. One of the few news outlets in the country that hadn’t been entirely captured by the Liberals gifted them with a smear of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre on Tuesday morning.

The story — headlined, CSIS Alleges India Organized Support for Poilievre’s 2022 Conservative Leadership Bid — contains almost no new information, at best 100 new words out of 1,100. Delivered on the third day of the election campaign, and laced with Liberal talking points about Poilievre’s “security clearance,” nothing about it smells right.

Article content

The Globe sourced its story, not to someone within the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, but merely to “a source with top-secret clearance.” That means it could have been someone from CSIS, but it could have also been a member of the cross-party national security and intelligence committee of parliamentarians, or it could have been a member of the Prime Minister’s Office, or it could have been a cabinet minister with the requisite clearance, or even the prime minister. It reads like a planted story, released for maximum political benefit for Mark Carney’s Liberals.

According to the Globe, citing its source, “Indian agents were involved in raising money and organizing within the South Asian community for Mr. Poilievre during the leadership race.” This is the extent of the new information the newspaper provided.

There are no further details about who these “Indian agents” were or what sort of “organizing” activities they took part in. The Globe noted that “the CSIS assessment did not indicate that this effort was done in a sweeping and highly organized way,” according to their source. “Mr. Poilievre won on the first ballot with 68 per cent of the vote.”

Article content

Article content

If this was the first time we’d heard of Indian attempts to sway the Conservative leadership race, or if the Globe had substantive new information, or if it didn’t appear to have a political agenda, then the timing of the story would be questionable, but ultimately defensible as a piece of news reporting.

As it stands, however, India’s alleged interference in the Conservative leadership race is well known and was addressed by last year’s public inquiry into foreign interference. There is also no evidence that Poilievre had any knowledge of the interference, or that it impacted the outcome of the race.

“The commission heard testimony about allegations of Government of India interference into a Conservative party leadership race,” an inquiry report released in January reads. “CSIS witnesses noted that they had no reason to believe the impacted candidates would have been aware of the alleged support.” A classified briefing on the allegations was given, by CSIS, to Poilievre’s chief of staff, and presumably others with the required security clearance.

But even before the release of this report, details about India’s involvement in the Conservative leadership race to disrupt the campaign of one of Poilievre’s rivals were published by the CBC. In a story posted online on Dec. 2, 2024, CBC reported that, “Agents of the Indian government allegedly attempted to derail Patrick Brown’s campaign for the leadership of the Conservative party in 2022,” according to sources in Brown’s campaign.

Article content

CBC further reported that, “Sources said campaign workers were told by representatives of the Government of India to stop supporting Brown, not to sell membership cards for him and not to invite him to certain events.”

It was also alleged that Brown’s campaign co-chair, MP Michelle Rempel Garner, was herself approached. CBC cited a “highly-placed source in Brown’s campaign” saying that, “Indian consulate representatives had approached Michelle, strongly suggesting that it was not in her best interest to continue working alongside Patrick.”

So here is what was known before the Globe’s story published Tuesday morning: CSIS alleges that the Indian government interfered in the Conservative leadership race; multiple sources told CBC that the Indian government attempted to “derail” Patrick Brown’s campaign, which would have presumably been to Poilievre’s benefit; there is no evidence that Poilievre was aware of the interference, and there is zero evidence that it had any impact on the eventual outcome.

If India was indeed interfering in the Conservative race for Poilievre’s benefit, was there any support provided beyond the attempts to crash Brown’s campaign? If there are more details, why did the Globe’s source not provide them? The Globe story was published nearly three years after Poilievre won the leadership, more than three months after the CBC story was published and two months after the January foreign interference report was made public.

Article content

What’s more, the Globe makes multiple references to the fact that that Poilievre does “not have the necessary security clearance” to review classified material. While true, the reason why he has declined the offer of a security briefing is because it would limit his ability to question the government on its handling of electoral interference, which has been explained numerous times and even supported by former NDP leader Thomas Mulcair.

Chinese interference has always been identified as the greater threat to election security, and China interfered directly in the 2019 and 2021 campaigns. Those are facts the Liberals dismissed until they tried to start making it about Poilievre’s “security clearance,” which has become a favoured talking point that Liberal Leader Mark Carney keeps returning to. Liberals want to imply that Poilievre has something to hide, even though they have no evidence that he does.

And the Globe story worked in the Liberals’ favour. A few hours after it was published, the CBC posted a story with this headline: Poilievre Takes Questions As His Lack of Security Clearance in Campaign Spotlight.

While the Globe has indeed done respectable reporting on foreign election interference, its choice on Tuesday to publish a thinly sourced story with almost no new information, in the middle of an election campaign and smearing one of the party leaders, is an embarrassment.

National Post

Article content