After avoiding the media for several days during the India leg of his 10-day international trade trip, Prime Minister Mark Carney finally addressed the media and spoke to the controversy caused by the unnamed Privy Council Office official who erroneously claimed India was no longer involved in foreign interference or transnational repression in Canada.

During the back and forth with the press, Carney invoked the classified nature of his briefings as to why he couldn’t fully speak to the issue of Indian foreign interference. In doing so, the prime minister effectively vindicated the longstanding argument from Conservatives as to why Pierre Poilievre refuses to get his security clearance.

As Carney stated to the press, “There are aspects of those briefings that I can not share in public and I’m not going to betray them. I will tell you that there is progress on these issues and that progress is a product of — in my judgment — the resources we are putting in and the clarity of our position that we will not tolerate foreign interference, transnational repression, by anyone.” 

While it’s certainly true that there is information not fit for public consumption that only the prime minister and the seniormost people around him would be privy to, in phrasing it this way and using the nature of his classified briefings as a reason for him being unable to speak more fully on the issue, the prime minister — likely without realizing it — used the same reasoning as Pierre Poilievre does when it comes to his continued refusal to obtain a security........

© National Observer