Canada

Archive is currently down so paywall bypass link unavailable.

Around 10:45 on the morning of Feb. 25, Lee Goguen asked her father if he had any last requests.

The death that was coming to 70-year-old Gerald Goguen was the death he had chosen weeks in advance and his wife of 41 years had chosen to go with him.

Diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2008, Gerald's health had started to deteriorate sharply in the months leading up to Christmas. Coby Goguen, 62, also had cancer that had spread and eaten into her bones. Both were racked with pain and wanted out.

Lee said she wanted to see her parents relieved of their suffering and was grateful they had the option to end their lives on their own terms.

Three heli-skiers were killed Monday after an avalanche in southeastern B.C. swept them away, according to RCMP.

The RCMP said the avalanche occurred around the village of Kaslo, on the east side of Kootenay Lake, at about 1 p.m. PT.

Two groups of skiers had just finished skiing the bowl and were waiting in a staging area below the tree line of the Clute Creek watershed. A transport helicopter was nearing the group when the pilot observed an avalanche and sounded the siren," the RCMP said in a news release.

One group of skiers was able to get out of the way, but the other group of four was swept away into the tree line, RCMP said.

On Monday, Avalanche Canada rated the danger in the area around Kootenay Lake as high, from the alpine to below the treeline.

Original reporting by the Globe & Mail is behind a paywall. In any case, it's not a good look for Poilievre that India boosted his candidacy and then he wouldn't get security clearance to be informed of this fact.

Agents of India and their proxies allegedly meddled in the 2022 election of Pierre Poilievre as Conservative Party Leader as part of a larger effort to cozy up to politicians of all parties, according to a source with top-secret clearance.

Source: https://www.mainstreetresearch.ca/dashboard/canada#voter-intention

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/31586935

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Agents of India and their proxies allegedly meddled in the 2022 election of Pierre Poilievre as Conservative Party Leader as part of a larger effort to cozy up to politicians of all parties, according to a source with top-secret clearance.

The source said the Canadian Security Intelligence Service learned that Indian agents were involved in raising money and organizing within the South Asian community for Mr. Poilievre during the leadership race, which he won handily. But the CSIS assessment did not indicate that this effort was done in a sweeping and highly organized way, the source said. Mr. Poilievre won on the first ballot with 68 per cent of the vote.

CSIS also did not have evidence that Mr. Poilievre or members of his inner circle were aware of the alleged actions of India’s agents and their proxies, said the source, who has national security clearance to see top secret reports.

The Globe and Mail is not identifying the source because they were not authorized to disclose classified information publicly.

CSIS did not share this information with Mr. Poilievre, the source said, because he does not have the necessary security clearance to access secret documents and receive classified briefings on foreign-interference activities in Canada. Mr. Poilievre is the only federal party leader who has declined an offer to obtain a security clearance.

Sam Lilly, a spokesman for the Conservative Leader, said Mr. Poilievre’s leadership race followed all relevant rules and laws.

The public inquiry into foreign interference, which held hearings in 2024 and was headed by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, cited China and India as the main foreign-interference actors in Canada, saying they use diplomats and proxies to meddle in Canadian domestic affairs. In regard to India, Justice Hogue said in her final report in January that proxy agents clandestinely provide “illicit financial support to various Canadian politicians in an attempt to secure the election of pro-India candidates or gain influence over candidates who take office.”

Justice Hogue added, however, that “the intelligence does not necessarily indicate that the elected officials or candidates involved were aware of the interference attempts, nor were the attempts necessarily successful.”

In a statement Monday, CSIS spokesperson Lindsay Sloane said that the agency testified during the Hogue inquiry that there was no reason to believe “impacted candidates would have been aware of the alleged support” from India during the 2022 Conservative leadership race.

Ms. Sloan said the spy service had provided a classified briefing to Ian Todd, chief of staff to Mr. Poilievre, “about foreign interference threat activities and tactics, including allegations of interference in the leadership race.”

She said CSIS takes any allegations of foreign interference seriously and actively investigates

In a report last June, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) alleged Beijing and New Delhi interfered in Conservative leadership races. NSICOP cited “India’s alleged interference in a Conservative Party of Canada leadership race,” but the report did not identify whether this meddling involved Mr. Poilievre or other candidates.

When he launched his campaign in the federal election that was called on Sunday, Mr. Poilievre told reporters that he doesn’t trust the Liberals with a security clearance and noted the obligations of a clearance would restrict his ability to discuss and hold the government to account.

“What I am not going to do is go into a politically directed process by the Liberals that they use to decide what I can see and say and comment on,” he said. He said CSIS is free to brief him directly if the agency feels it’s warranted.

In testimony before the Hogue inquiry in October, then-prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed to the NSICOP report on the 2022 Conservative leadership contest, criticizing Mr. Poilievre for showing “no curiosity or openness in trying to figure out what happened or whether someone was compromised or whether a foreign country impacted those leadership races.”

Justice Hogue has urged all federal party leaders to obtain national-security clearances so they can view top-secret intelligence that may affect members of their parties. Security clearances involve a rigorous process that includes background checks on family members, credit and criminal checks, and intrusive personal questions such as whether they ever used drugs.

In a preinterview transcript tabled at the inquiry, Mr. Trudeau told commission counsel that his national security and intelligence adviser Nathalie Drouin showed him “explosive” intelligence about a political party. Although he did not name the party in the preinterview, Mr. Trudeau told the inquiry on Oct. 16 that he had received highly classified intelligence that Conservative Party politicians and members were involved in or were susceptible to foreign interference.

Mr. Trudeau later acknowledged, under questioning from the Conservative Party’s lawyer, that he had received secret intelligence about Liberals and members of other political parties who were also allegedly compromised by or engaged in foreign interference.

In her final report, Justice Hogue played down the NSICOP report’s allegations that some parliamentarians had either wittingly or unwittingly collaborated with foreign powers. “Although a few cases involving things like attempts to curry favour with parliamentarians have come to light, the phenomenon remains marginal and largely ineffective,” she said. “While the states’ attempts are troubling and there is some concerning conduct by parliamentarians, there is no cause for widespread alarm.”

On Monday, members of the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force, set up to monitor foreign interference during elections and leadership contests, promised weekly briefings on foreign meddling during the 37-day federal election campaign.

Vanessa Lloyd, deputy director of operations at CSIS and chair of the SITE Task Force, said security agencies are keeping a close eye on interference activities, particularly by China and India but also by Pakistan and Iran.

“We have also seen that the government of India has the intent and capability to interfere in Canadian communities and democratic processes, to assert its geopolitical influence,” she said. “Canadian and Canada-based proxies, as well as contacts in their networks, are increasingly relied on to conduct government of India foreign interference activities.”

Indo-Canadian relations went into a deep freeze in September, 2023, when Mr. Trudeau accused agents of India and their proxies of being behind the slaying of Canadian Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

On Thanksgiving last fall, RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme linked Indian government officials to homicides, extortions and coercion committed on Canadian soil. That day, Ottawa expelled six Indian diplomats including High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma. India staunchly denied the allegations and expelled six Canadian diplomats, sending bilateral relations into an even deeper freeze.

If you don't want accusations "going there" (despite constantly doing it to the other parties yourselves with groundless, disingenuous FUD), don't lead the way with your own actions. You, Danielle Smith, have thoroughly disgraced yourself, as does Lisa Raitt and any other double-speaking conservative apologist trying to gaslight away a bald-faced plea for foreign interference.

You asked a foreign -- and currently hostile -- government to act in a manner benefitting your preferred party's electoral outcome. By extension, you implicitly acknowledged that doing otherwise is demonstrating to voters why your guy shouldn't win, and that you want breathing room so voter attention can be redirected. You even sold it in a manner that implied stronger influence over Canada at best, and outright quid pro quo at worst -- literal collusion from our highest office with a hostile foreign entity against Canada.

Neither option so much as entertains the possibility Poilievre could actually be fit to defend Canada's national interests. That's why you like him, isn't it? What is Canada to you but an obstacle to your Oil & Gas masters? Every word of that interview carried layers damning all that Poilievre's CPC and your UCP represent, from values to character to political objectives to even basic loyalty to your own nation and for that matter the ecological future of the planet itself.

I didn't think there could be a Canadian politician worse than Poilievre, yet here you are and this incident is all about you, Smith.

You put yourself on tape directly confessing and doing far worse than everything you and the entire Conservative movement have managed to conjure as insinuations against everyone else combined. You literally betrayed our entire nation for a chance at personal gain. If there's any coming back from that at all, then my faith in the basic cognitive capacity of our average Canadian voter is seriously shaken.

If no laws were broken, there will be new ones named after you.

Resign.
Emigrate.
Shred your passport.
You have no business standing on Canadian soil.

According to a study by the Angus Reid Institute, the final approval rating of now former prime minister Justin Trudeau is 47%, 12 points higher than that of Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, whose favourability sits at 35%