Cabinet Shuffle- (Wednesday 26 July).

[daftandbarmy]

From @daftandbarmy 's National Security Council link



That feels like a good start.
After the next election?

"I don't want to use the word reorganization.​

Reorganization to me is shuffling boxes, moving boxes around. Transformation means that you're really fundamentally changing the way the organization thinks, the way it responds, the way it leads. It's a lot more than just playing with boxes."

— Lou Gerstner

 

[GR66]

According to the Ottawa Citizen, Minister Anand was bounced because her defence policy update kept getting rejected as “unrealistic and too costly” "meeting our 2% of GDP NATO commitment".

FTFY

 

[Rifleman62]

Extract from THE LINE today:

Fifth: In what is probably the greatest insult a Canadian government has given the Canadian Armed Forces since the Ross Rifle, Bill Blair is now the Minister of National Defence. It's hard to underscore exactly how bad an idea this is. Blair's term at Public Safety — there’s that damned ministry again, eh? — ranged from dragging his heels on calling a public inquiry into the Portapique massacre in Nova Scotia, to overseeing a largely failed attempt to shift RCMP culture, to being the minister who first received intelligence that China was targeting MPs with foreign interference operations and didn’t do anything about it.

And now he's in charge of the federal government's single largest, and most complex, bureaucracy.

Blair has served a useful political role for the Liberals before. In the last election, he was the guy right next to the prime minister as he stood behind a podium with the silhouette of an AR-15 on it. He's a cop straight out of central casting, used to playing defence on some of the government's thorniest files. But, like, maybe there's a reason the government is always doing heavy issues management on Bill Blair's files?

If only there had been some indication from some other previous high-profile event he had a leadership role in that this is what Blair would be like as a minister.

One thing that his appointment does confirm, though, is that this government has gone back to the Ottawa baseline level of interest in national defence: zero. Anyone who thought that the war in Ukraine would herald a new shift in Canadian thinking on defence and national security, and that maybe we would act in a way that would cause our allies to take us more seriously, is going to find Canada once again at the back of the NATO classroom hoping the teacher doesn't call on them.

 

[Rifleman62]

In a statement to media, PMO press secretary Alison Murphy described this council as "a new forum for ministers to deliberate on and address issues of pressing concern to Canada's domestic and international security."

The council is just Ministers of the government?
With the Liberal record of lying, obfuscating, blather, etc, not much trust to me.

Public Enquiry is going to be continued to be kicked down the road until the NDP drop their agreement. Trudeau has too much to hide.

 

[Rifleman62]

IMHO, appointing Blair was Trudeau's ego indicating his contempt of the CF, while telling the US/NATO you can't push me around.

 

[Haggis]

Public Enquiry is going to be continued to be kicked down the road until the NDP drop their agreement. Trudeau has too much to hide.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Welcome to the 'Blair Paradox'.

Nothing he says in his tweet (culture change etc) seems to appear in his 'message to the troops' attached.

Stand by for incoming

https://twitter.com/x/status/1684625448938938369

Message from the new Minister of National Defence

Dear colleagues, I am honoured to be appointed as your new Minister of National Defence. I have dedicated my career to keeping Canadians safe, and I welcome the opportunity to work with all of you in this new role.

www.canada.ca

 

[Quirky]

Nothing says culture change and inclusiveness like an old white man in charge. I'd probably stick with the modernization part.

 

[brihard]

Public Enquiry is going to be continued to be kicked down the road until the NDP drop their agreement. Trudeau has too much to hide.

It’s still not clear to me what people think a public inquiry would achieve. Necessarily, much compelling evidence would be classified and unreleasable.

Just spitballing, but what we could expect of a public inquiry:

• Testimony from advocates and dissidents from diaspora communities about pressure tactics by home countries on Canadian soil.
• Testimony from academic researchers about same.
• Heavily redacted unclassified summaries of classified intelligence.

What we wouldn’t get:

• Any classified intelligence. CSIS wiretaps, CSIS HUMINT reporting, SIGINT. Or foreign material of this nature shared within Five Eyes.
• Ongoing or concluded sensitive police investigations.

I suspect that the latter category of information is likely to be by far the most informative, and absolutely the government should have a classified inquiry into all that. NSIRA and NSICOP may already have embarked on that but I haven’t paid close attention. This would inform law enforcement and intelligence collection efforts and priorities (and maybe CSIS’s use of its relatively new power to take actions to disrupt?). But I don’t expect the rest of us to get to peel behind that curtain. Going public with much of that could potentially burn sources and methods, and tip the government’s hand to both what it does but also what it doesn’t know.

This is a major problem, and I’m with all of you in wanting to see it worked- hard. I just don’t think much of that can gainfully be done publicly.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Welcome to the 'Blair Paradox'.

Nothing he says in his tweet (culture change etc) seems to appear in his 'message to the troops' attached.

Stand by for incoming

https://twitter.com/x/status/1684625448938938369

Message from the new Minister of National Defence

Dear colleagues, I am honoured to be appointed as your new Minister of National Defence. I have dedicated my career to keeping Canadians safe, and I welcome the opportunity to work with all of you in this new role.

www.canada.ca

So, just the trudeau agenda of no irons and purple hair. Nothing about equipment, recruiting or all those other things a modern military,depends on to,do their job.

 

[Good2Golf]

It’s still not clear to me what people think a public inquiry would achieve. Necessarily, much compelling evidence would be classified and unreleasable.

Just spitballing, but what we could expect of a public inquiry:

• Testimony from advocates and dissidents from diaspora communities about pressure tactics by home countries on Canadian soil.
• Testimony from academic researchers about same.
• Heavily redacted unclassified summaries of classified intelligence.

What we wouldn’t get:

• Any classified intelligence. CSIS wiretaps, CSIS HUMINT reporting, SIGINT. Or foreign material of this nature shared within Five Eyes.
• Ongoing or concluded sensitive police investigations.

I suspect that the latter category of information is likely to be by far the most informative, and absolutely the government should have a classified inquiry into all that. NSIRA and NSICOP may already have embarked on that but I haven’t paid close attention. This would inform law enforcement and intelligence collection efforts and priorities (and maybe CSIS’s use of its relatively new power to take actions to disrupt?). But I don’t expect the rest of us to get to peel behind that curtain. Going public with much of that could potentially burn sources and methods, and tip the government’s hand to both what it does but also what it doesn’t know.

This is a major problem, and I’m with all of you in wanting to see it worked- hard. I just don’t think much of that can gainfully be done publicly.

The public inquiry at its root value means that everything must be considered, and where special information safeguards need be applied for highly classified material, so be it…but it is done because nothing must be fundamentally withheld from the citizens whom government is entrusted to represent.

That is different than a ‘trust us, we’ll select what you’ll get to see…’ without the mandate to access everything and restrict access to the most sensitive material, but still addressed by appropriately cleared unpartisan representatives of government.

 

[Brad Sallows]

It’s still not clear to me what people think a public inquiry would achieve.

Perception: of fairness, accountability, transparency, etc. Shoring up "output legitimacy".

 

[Rifleman62]

Blair: This is my top priority - I pledge to continue the work undertaken by Minister Anand to transform military culture, and to ensure that all of our people in uniform feel protected, respected, and empowered to serve. We will continue to implement the recommendations made by former Supreme Court Justice, Louise Arbour, and to support the work of External Monitor, Jocelyne Therrien.

Not to: ... deliver new equipment for the Canadian Army, Royal Canadian Navy, and Royal Canadian Air Force...

 

[Remius]

Perception: of fairness, accountability, transparency, etc. Shoring up "output legitimacy".

And how was that perceived by the pro convoy crowd when the inquiry for the emergencies act was done? There is a segment that won’t be able to perceive any of those wonderful things unless they get what they want regardless of the evidence.

 

[brihard]

The public inquiry at its root value means that everything must be considered, and where special information safeguards need be applied for highly classified material, so be it…but it is done because nothing must be fundamentally withheld from the citizens whom government is entrusted to represent.

That is different than a ‘trust us, we’ll select what you’ll get to see…’ without the mandate to access everything and restrict access to the most sensitive material, but still addressed by appropriately cleared unpartisan representatives of government.

Perception: of fairness, accountability, transparency, etc. Shoring up "output legitimacy".

Sure, both valid points… but the result would likely be profoundly disappointing to any on the public who would hope to come out of it with a good sense of what the government knows and is doing about the situation.

In contrast with in camera classified hearings where heavily redacted classified summaries could be released (see, for instance, NSIRA reports), a public inquiry would simply never be able to receive lots of different testimony or documents in the first place.

I don’t at all object to a public inquiry being done if the government thinks it would be worth spinning those particular gears… I just don’t think it would accomplish much more than to collect and summarize for public consumption what’s already open source, plus some very basic UNCLASS input from intelligence and police that wouldn’t go much past “we know this is a thing and are working on it”.

I could of course be completely wrong, maybe they’d find a way to meaningfully take it further.

 

[brihard]

And how was that perceived by the pro convoy crowd when the inquiry for the emergencies act was done? There is a segment that won’t be able to perceive any of those wonderful things unless they get what they want regardless of the evidence.

Difference with that is the overwhelming majority of material and testimony related to convoy could be aired publicly. Not the case for security intelligence.

 

[Brad Sallows]

And how was that perceived by the pro convoy crowd when the inquiry for the emergencies act was done? There is a segment that won’t be able to perceive any of those wonderful things unless they get what they want regardless of the evidence.

Sure, but they're not the entire set of Canadians. It's OK to do something useful even if it doesn't fix everything.

 

[Brad Sallows]

In contrast with in camera classified hearings where heavily redacted classified summaries could be released (see, for instance, NSIRA reports), a public inquiry would simply never be able to receive lots of different testimony or documents in the first place.

There's a law that says we can only do one?

 

[brihard]

There's a law that says we can only do one?

No, and I already noted NSIRA and NSICOP in an earlier reply above. I’m not speaking about legality, but simply utility.

 

[Good2Golf]

Sure, both valid points… but the result would likely be profoundly disappointing to any on the public who would hope to come out of it with a good sense of what the government knows and is doing about the situation.

I don’t think reasonable citizens would actually expect to see TS SCI TK/SI/HCS/G material (which I hear tell can be pretty unremarkable ), but the fact that all material must be made available for consideration by vetted parties of an investigative body as representative of those citizens is not an unimportant principle of our society.