David Johnston was given a mission to tackle the problem of foreign interference. Instead, he’s become a problem

David Johnston certainly got one thing right during an appearance at a Parliamentary committee that stretched beyond three hours this week.

When it came to foreign interference in Canada’s electoral process, Justin Trudeau’s special rapporteur said, our enemies would be rubbing their hands with glee as they witnessed the paroxysms Ottawa is putting itself through on this issue.

Those enemies couldn’t have sown more chaos and confrontation had they meticulously laid out their most elaborate scheme over a period of years. Some of those contortions come from the overheated partisan arena in which federal politics is being played these days. But recently, a large part of must be laid at the feet of Johnston himself.

During his appearance, questions about the extent and nature of Chinese interference in our system were scarce, broadsides on his credibility were common. The result was that the credibility crater in which Johnston finds himself is quickly becoming a sinkhole.

Already facing charges of bias for his ties to the Trudeau family over the years, it was revealed before his testimony that his lead counsel, Sheila Block, had donated to the Liberal party for years and attended a virtual fundraiser as recently as 2021.

Johnston extolled her standing in the legal community — something not in dispute — and said she has financially backed former law students of hers who have entered politics. But he did not vet his lead counsel for any perception of bias.

He is billing taxpayers for communications help from Navigator Ltd., a crisis management firm that tells clients it “spends its days thinking about issues that keep you from sleeping at night” and has accepted help from Don Guy and Brian Topp, top dogs, respectively, in Liberal and NDP ranks, again feeding that perception of bias. (In fairness, Navigator founder Jaime Watt is a Conservative strategist).

And gaps in his work were exposed. In his first report released last month, he said there was no evidence of state-sanctioned Chinese interference against the Conservative party in the 2021 federal election. Yet, the Conservative leader at the time, Erin O’Toole says he was told in a briefing with CSIS that he and his party were targeted in a state-run Chinese campaign of misinformation and voter suppression.

Johnston did not talk to Han Dong, a Liberal MP who left caucus to restore his reputation over allegations of his involvement with Chinese representatives and is suing Global News. Johnston said he did not tap this obvious source of human intelligence because of Dong’s lawsuit, but he exonerated him in his report anyway. He did not properly explain why he had not talked to anyone at Elections Canada and later, in an interview, with CBC’s David Cochrane he conceded “the amount of information available was an ocean and we saw a very large lake.”

Johnston wasn’t going to change any minds at his committee appearance, but the impasse we find ourselves at is greater than ever.

The House of Commons has voted for a public inquiry and to have him removed from his post, with opposition parties in support of the vote and Liberals opposed. Johnston has pointed out that he was appointed by the government, not the Commons, and the vote to remove him was based on false allegations. “To step aside based on these allegations would have been the wrong thing to do,” he said.

He will do his work until it is no longer required, he vowed, even as he has lost the confidence of opposition MPs from all parties as well as a large portion of the electorate. Worse, Canadians are tuning out as Johnston prepares for a summer of public hearings.

Johnston is being buried by the perception of bias and his future work, no matter how stellar, will be dismissed by the opposition. Trudeau has led us down a path of futility on a matter of fundamental importance to our democracy. Canadians are losing and our adversaries are quietly applauding.