David Johnston says he never reached out to MP Han Dong before clearing him in foreign interference report
David Johnston, Independent Special Rapporteur on Foreign Interference, appears as a witness at the Procedure and House Affairs Committee in Ottawa on Tuesday, June 6, 2023.
After reviewing classified intelligence reports, Johnston did conclude that there were "irregularities" observed with Dong's nomination for the federal Liberals in 2019 and cited a "well-grounded suspicion that the irregularities were tied to the PRC consulate in Toronto, with whom Mr. Dong maintains relationships."
Dong quit the Liberal caucus after the Global stories broke. Since Johnston's first report was released, Dong has been seeking to rejoin the Liberal caucus.On Tuesday, Johnston appeared for more than three hours before a hearing of the standing committee on procedure and House affairs, where he defended his integrity and his decision to hold public hearings instead of a public inquiry.
"I've identified significant shortcomings in the government's ability to detect, deter and combat this threat. This must be remedied urgently," he told MPs in his opening remarks.. Johnston argued that much of any public inquiry would have to be held in private due to the presence of top-secret information.
Conservative MP Michael Chong, who has been targeted by the Chinese government for his work to recognize the Uyghur genocide, argued that the recommendation against a public inquiry undermines public confidence. "I come back to Justice [Dennis] O'Connor, who said that public inquiries in the traditional sense are not particularly useful and can be horrendous in dealing with these things and there are appropriate ways of dealing with them," said Johnston, referring to the head of the inquiry into the detainment and torture of Maher Arar.
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