Thursday, June 24, 2010

Bribing Canadian Politicians

Richard Fadden, the head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), is in the news this week spilling some very important information: the Chinese government is paying Canadian politicians to spy for it.

It seems clear to me that this was no mistake: he went to the CBC interview to give this information. He must have known that he was risking his career to say this. I suspect he felt it was important for the public to know. Why would he do that? Because we vote in politicians, and once in office there's little that can be done to prevent this sort of thing. The head of CSIS probably weighed his options and decided that the only way to successfully address the issue was to make it public.

The news spin has been about everything but the main issue.

On The Current this morning, Anna Maria Tremonti focused on how this is a slur on the Chinese community in Canada.

Today's Globe has a column about how heads should roll at the CBC because they delayed broadcasting the interview until the eve of the arrival of the Chinese head of state.

Maclean's attacks the whistle blower, saying that his backpedaling is "awkward" and a "ragged retreat".

Is this willful denial, or are serious news outlets - as I hope - sending out investigative journalists to follow up on this story and get us some facts?

And kudos to the CBC for airing this interview just before the G20, when it will get picked up by international media. They may have realized that Canadians wouldn't be able to see the forest for the trees.

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

What news are you reading? He never said that Canadian politicians are spying for the Chinese government.

Yappa said...

He sure did. He didn't say it in a quotable way. He said something like previous news reports about the Chinese government are true.

Anonymous said...

Here's a Tyee article that addresses this issue of undue influence on politicians:
Foreign Control of Our Officials? Fix Political Funding

Eugene Forsey Liberal said...

I was just now idly checking out problogs and realised you'd written this Thurs morn. I wrote something similar later and didn't realise you had already spken to this point. I'm sure this happens all the time, but as I just noticed this, I wanted to let you know I agree with you, and give you credit for your quick, pithy analysis, as compared to my longer, later disquisition.

Yappa said...

Hi EFL,

I really enjoyed your posts on this (link and link). Thanks!