Who in the Canadian Forces has it out for Harjit Sajjan? (Dept. of Defense photo)
By Newell Durnbrooke
The knives are out for Harjit Sajjan and the blades are coming courtesy of the Canadian Armed Forces.
In late June, the Globe and Mail broke a story, citing sources, that claimed then Defence Minister Sajjan had ordered Canadian special forces to rescue Sikhs in Kabul as the city was falling to the Taliban in August, 2021. The claim was that by focusing on the Sikhs, Sajjan, put Canadian troops at risk and compromised saving Canadians who were scrambling to get out of Afghanistan. Sajjan, who is Sikh, denied the claim, pointing out he simply relayed information to the military about the Sikh group that was trapped in Kabul. He said Sikhs in Afghanistan were not given priority over Canadians or any other group.
Then on July 31 the Globe got another story on Sajjan, again courtesy of Canadian Forces sources. That article reported that Sajjan, currently the emergency preparedness minister, made a request to use 100 Canadian soldiers as a backdrop at a Vancouver concert by a Punjabi pop star. The request was denied.
Both articles raised questions about Sajjan’s judgement as a minister and unleashed a blast of on-line racism against him.
But the timing on the two stories is interesting. Sajjan’s August 2021 request for JTF2 to see if they could help the Sikhs in Kabul was well known in Canadian special forces as well as various commands or organizations, including the Strategic Joint Staff. But why did the news just surface almost three years later? Could it be that some inside the Canadian military view Justin Trudeau’s government as particularly vulnerable at this point and wanted to give the Conservative opposition more ammo to undercut the Liberals?
It is equally interesting that although the information leaked to the Globe and Mail involves a special forces mission, as well as internal ministerial requests, there has been no military police investigation launched into who is behind providing such details to journalists.
Canada’s spy agency found itself the brunt of social media jokes with an August 8 post on X (formerly Twitter) that warned the public they might be the target of foreign agents.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service tweeted a photo of young people partying: “Has a stranger ever tried to inflate your ego? It could be elicitation. Elicitation is a set of techniques used by foreign agents to extract information from you.”
That CSIS tweet sparked a lot of ridicule on X, with users pointing out the stupidity of the claim and noting the average Canadian young person has absolutely no access to any secrets or information that could be used by foreign spies.
“For every person that doesn't call me "a cutie patootie" I'm gonna leak one national secret,” tweeted one individual mocking CSIS.
“I knew he was a Commie because he told me I'm a pleasure to be around,” added another.
Other X users pointed out the hypocrisy of the CSIS posting, noting that an Islamic State operative who was also working for CSIS had smuggled young girls such as 15-year-old Shamima Begun into Syria so they could join ISIL.
“Kind of like when a CSIS operative talked a British schoolgirl into travelling into Syria?,” Ottawa human right lawyer Paul Champ tweeted in response to the CSIS post. “Too bad Shamima didn't get your warning about foreign agents before CSIS ruined her life in the name of national security.”
Then the online debate got real weird. Adam Zivo, a columnist for the National Post, tried to defend the CSIS posting and in doing so revealed that in early 2023 while in Ukraine he worked with Ukrainian intelligence officers on a sting operation dealing with a “guy who seemed to be a Chinese spy.” How did Zivo know the man was a Chinese spy? Well the National Post columnist pointed out that the man “showered” him with compliments and “then brought out some sketchy brownies that he insisted I try.”
Zivo went so far as to wear a wire for Ukraine’s spy agency who conducted a surveillance operation on the man. Zivo also wrote up a report for Ukrainian intelligence. But nothing ever came of it. There were no arrests. Ukrainian intelligence just shrugged. Zivo admits his claim his brownie -offering friend was a spy was never confirmed.
But Zivo’s revelation on X unleashed a blast as users questioned his ethics and truthfulness. Some suggested Zivo was full of BS (Zivo has claimed previously that he provided advice to the Chief of the Defence Staff although he doesn’t go into details about which CDS that was. Military sources say they don’t know what Zivo is talking about). Others questioned whether it was ethical for a Canadian journalist to be working for a foreign spy agency.
Journalist Luke LeBrun pointed out on X that while Zivo was working for Ukrainian intelligence he was also writing a series of pro-Ukrainian government stories in the National Post. “Some of the columns he filed as a foreign correspondent for the National Post overlap with his time as a foreign intelligence asset,” LeBrun pointed out. “Some columns even overlap with the interests of said intelligence agency but (unsurprisingly) don't disclose his clandestine side gig.”
Tony Abbott, the former Australian prime minister, had a Aug. 9, 2024 column in the National Post claiming Canada is being left behind by its allies and is no longer being asked to become involved in “freedom-defining wars.”
All of this is happening- or so Abbott claims - because Canada isn’t reaching its two per cent of GDP goal on defence spending as required by NATO.
In making his argument about Canada being a laggard on defence spending, Abbott points out that for decades, “Canada has punched below its weight; in more recent times, it has largely opted out of any serious military commitments — in Vietnam and Iraq, for instance.”
Thank God that was the case. As everyone knows, Vietnam was a total disaster; 58,000 U.S. personnel were killed along with 523 Australians. Up to three million Vietnamese died in the bloody conflict that the U.S. lost.
The estimated cost of the war in Vietnam for the U.S. was $176 billion, the equivalent of around $1 trillion in today’s dollars.
The Iraq war cost the U.S. more than $1 trillion and more than 4,400 killed and 32,000 wounded. The debacle created by that war is still being felt in the Middle East.
In his column Abbott also craps on the Canadian Forces’ commitment to the Afghan war, calling it an “early quitter” in that conflict. It should be noted that more than 40,000 Canadians served during the 12-year Afghanistan campaign. In total 165 Canadians were killed – 158 soldiers and 7 civilians. In contrast 26,000 Australians served in Afghanistan and 47 were killed.
Abbott only lasted two years as prime minister as he was unpopular with voters and increasingly out of step with what Australians wanted. He is a climate change denier who later lost his seat because voters wanted someone who took seriously the climate crisis that Australia now finds itself in.
It's not surprising that Abbott is now a visiting fellow with the right-wing Macdonald-Laurier Institute, which has pushed the narrative about how Canada is failing.
(Opinion/Analysis)
