The Decibel - The whistleblower on Chinese interference in Canada, in their words

Episode Date: March 21, 2023

The Globe and Mail has been reporting extensively on China’s interference in Canadian elections. This information came to light, in part, because of a whistleblower who wrote an Opinion piece in The Globe this weekend.The Globe rarely publishes Opinion pieces by confidential sources. Today, David Walmsley, The Globe’s Editor in Chief, explains why he decided to publish this piece, and how he feels it contributes to the broader conversation of China’s interference in Canada. And, you’ll hear the entire piece from the whistleblower, in their own words.Questions? Comments? Ideas? E-mail us at [e-mail]

If and when the time comes, I will take my lumps for my part in this. I will do so without resentment or regret, knowing that while what I have done may be unlawful, I cannot say that it was wrong. Those are the words of a national security official, a whistleblower, read by our senior producer, Adrian Chung. The Globe and Mail has been reporting extensively on top-secret CSIS documents that detail China's interference in Canadian elections. It's been the focus of Canadian and international politics, with criticism against the Trudeau government for its handling of the intel on foreign interference, ongoing investigations, and now a special rapatour to look into what's happened. This came to light in part because of this whistleblower, who wrote an opinion piece that was published in The Globe this past weekend, explaining why they made the decision to share the

information. Today, we're going to hear that entire piece, but first, we want to talk about why this is being published at all. David Walmsley is the editor-in-chief of The Globe and Mail, and he made the decision to publish this piece. I'm Maina Karaman-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. David, thank you so much for joining me today. It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me. So this is only the second time in the last 15 years that The Globe has published an opinion piece without a name tied to it. Why did you decide to publish this piece? Yeah, it's extraordinary.

The idea of producing opinion is always to say this is my opinion. And you want to know who it's coming from. That's critical for context. It's critical for background. And it's critical if you either agree or disagree with that opinion. It's key that we're offering up that intellectual exchange on a daily basis. The first time was in relation to a threat to life of a teenage boy from the Taliban. And so you can see that it's a fairly high standard. And I decided to grant confidentiality to the individual because of the risks to their liberty, because they would face possible prosecution and possible imprisonment.

So just to be clear, if their identity is revealed, they could be charged. Yeah, there is a criminal investigation underway into who is the source or the sources of the leaking that is going on involving both the Globe and Mail and Global News. And you used a very specific word there. You said confidentiality. So what does that word mean? What does it entail? So we've discovered as an industry over the years that we have overused the word anonymous. And that has led to a misunderstanding where many people feel that when we use, quote unquote, an anonymous source, we don't actually know the name of the individual who's speaking to us, which is a misunderstanding. We never put anything in the paper or anything online or stand behind anything unless we have spoken to individuals and we know who they are.

So we changed our style guide, which is the standards that we apply, and introduced confidentiality as a more clear piece of language. So we do know, a small number of us do know the identity of the person who wrote the opinion piece. But we granted confidentiality to the individual in order to ensure that their identity isn't more widely known, but it is known to a few people inside the globe. Okay. So that's kind of how the globe did it. Let's go into the why. Why did the globe, why did you feel that it was important to publish this piece? So we've been looking at the issue of foreign interference, specifically China, for many, many years. And when we have published the most recent series of works since the middle of

February, we have received criticism that you're asking us to take the benefit of the doubt with respect to the work that you're doing, you know, just trust us. And so I felt that the, in their own words, from one of the individuals involved in the case was a remarkable sense of perspective. But, I mean, as I said in the short note that accompanied the piece, it does ask a lot of the reader to go on the journey with us, for the audience member to say, okay, I'm going to trust. Now, what's interesting, over the weekend since we published, overwhelmingly the response has been positive. And, indeed, one of the critics of our work has since said to us that they are now persuaded because they better understand

the motivations, that there is a clarity now to the work. And I guess, could you just maybe spell this out directly here, David? Why is hearing from the person at the center of this, why is that so crucial to the importance of the wider issue and of how people understand it? I think the question of trust comes into it in a big way. The industry can no longer say, just trust us. We need to show as much transparency as we can. But I think it helps the reader to come to a conclusion that you're not just taking the journalist's word for it.

There's a real live Canadian behind this work who has risked everything. And rather than me say that and just take my word for it, if you read those several hundred words, you come away with a feeling that someone really wrestled with their conscience. And within that, the journalists, specifically Bob Fyfe the Ottawa Bureau Chief and Steve Chase who have led it and Nathan Vanderklip in Vancouver you know these reporters have worked on their own tirelessly in order to confirm material we don't ever just take information and and just run with it we have to confirm as best as we can the information we're told and we're still working on other stuff that we are hoping to validate that we haven't yet fully got to fruition.

How do you balance the importance of the public knowing who's speaking with the safety of the person at the center of this? So we always, you know, we take it very seriously. It's a solemn responsibility to ensure that we're protecting people who entrust us with information on condition that we not reveal who's given it to us. But equally, in terms of the confidentiality that we offered on this occasion, it was because the level of threat to their liberty is so severe. We're guided by a very helpful ruling that the Supreme Court gave in 2010 in relation to other work that the Globe and Mail did. This was in relation to the sponsorship scandal of the 2000s. Right. that on a case-by-case basis, journalists and news organizations have the opportunity to protect the confidentiality of their sourcing if they can satisfy four tests. And without getting into all the details, the fourth test is that the risk to the individual being identified is greater than

the story that was produced. And I believe that the public interest defense on this occasion is such that the story was so important, going to the very heart of democracy. And let's remember, this is not a federal electoral system issue only. We have evidence of problems at the municipal level, specifically in Vancouver as well. But on the balance between telling that story of grave importance nationally and protecting the individual and the consequences for the individual, I felt that the balance was struck correctly, that we needed to get the story out, but we needed to do it without providing the name of the individual. Before I let you go, David, I just want to ask you about the broader

issue of the Globe publishing information from these CSIS documents in the first place, because we're talking about secret and top secret documents here. And some people have argued that, you know, they're confidential for a reason. So why does the Globe think it's necessary to report on these documents and for the public to learn what's in them? Yeah, it's a great question. And we always are very cognizant of that responsibility to the country more than just to the next news story. We're not trying to be irresponsible and we don't want to come across as irresponsible. And it's quite interesting for such a controversial story, no one is questioning the accuracy of any of our work. But if you publish material that is secret

and top secret, you better have a good reason for it. And I think we do. And I think the stories show that it was for a reason that was otherwise not going to get the attention it needed. And that's a critical role of journalism. But I would also argue that the criticism that is sometimes against journalists when it comes to the issue of using secret or top secret information is a concern that methodology or techniques could be revealed. And we've certainly tried to keep it to the substance of the issue, which is the alleged foreign interference of the electoral system, as opposed to how the state goes about doing its work to counter that. Because I think some people are worried about national security concerns, frankly, right?

With information that's this important. So the decision was to basically make sure we're not putting any of that at risk. I would put it a different way. I would say, you know, if anyone's been following the Global Mail series on Secret Canada over the last while, you'll see there's a lot of material that is kept secret when really it's stuff that should be in the public domain anyway. I don't really know why material about alleged foreign interference of Canada is secret. I would argue that that is information that should be revealed to everyone. It shouldn't be

given over in redacted form to parliamentarians who can then wave a wand and tell the public that we've seen it, just trust us. Having said that, those classifications exist. We're all within the bounds of national security. One wants to be sensitive to the public interest, but on balance, I still think it was the case that the public interest was served. I don't want our journalism to create harm. And the journalism, if you get into the way material is gathered, that may cause a problem. But if you are revealing that the electoral system has been harmed or faces harm, I don't think publishing that is something that should be criticized. I think that that will allow the country then to ask the tough questions that previously had been kept secret. David, thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you. After the break, we'll hear the whistleblower in their own words. The piece is read by our senior producer, Adrian Chung. When I joined the public service many years ago, I swore an oath, not to party or to person, but to my country, to its democratic institutions, and to my fellow Canadians. When I first became aware of the significance of the threat posed by outside interference to our democratic institutions, I worked, as have many unnamed and tireless colleagues, to equip our leaders with the knowledge and the tools needed to take action against it.

Months passed, and then years. The threat grew in urgency. Serious action remained unforthcoming. I endeavored, alone and with others, to raise concerns about this threat directly to those in a position to hold our top officials to account. Regrettably, those individuals were unable to do so. In the time that passed, another federal election had come and gone, the threat of interference had grown, and it had become increasingly clear that no serious action was being considered.

Worse still, evidence of senior public officials ignoring interference was beginning to mount. Despite these concerns, the decision to discuss this threat with Canadian journalists was not an easy one. In this line of work, the question of whether or not to blow the whistle rarely arrives unaccompanied by other ones. I asked myself, can I do this while mitigating the risk to our country's sources and methods? Will this mean the end of my career? Who will take care of my family if I go to prison?

For me, the answer to these questions was found in weighing them against the public interest. I hold no personal complaint against our political leaders, against our national security community, or against the Liberal Party. Indeed, I have voted for the latter in past elections and hope to be able to do so again one day. Neither was my decision taken out of any special animus toward the government of the People's Republic of China, despite its driving involvement in these affairs. Instead, I hope that by providing the public with information

I believe to be in the interest of all Canadians, we as a country would begin a much deeper conversation about what it is that we expect of our government. I hope that we could launch a conversation about how to improve transparency, how to enhance accountability, how to protect all members of our society against external threats and ultimately, about how we continue to pursue a system of governance that best serves all of its citizens. While I still believe that conversation

to be necessary, it has unfortunately become marked by ugliness and division. So let me be clear, as troubling as the revelations we have seen are, I do not believe that foreign interference dictated the present composition of our federal government, nor do I believe that any of our elected leaders is a traitor to our country. Nonetheless, the growing impact of foreign interference on our ability to enjoy a free and fair political process is undeniable. Will these revelations give some Canadians cause to question the integrity of our democratic institutions and processes, yes, they well might. But preserving the alternative that Canadians remain unaware of the risks to those institutions would be to deprive them of the ability to participate in our democratic processes with meaningful agency. Moreover, it would be to brush aside the experiences of many Canadian members of diaspora communities who have long been unable to express their political voices

freely and unfettered by the threat of foreign intervention or reprisal. Indeed, I urge you to listen to those courageous Canadians who are willing and able to share their experiences in this regard. With that said, we must all recognize that this is not a partisan issue, nor is this a China issue. Your fellow progressive Canadians, your fellow conservative Canadians, and your fellow Chinese Canadians are all just that, Canadians. In having this conversation, we must resist the reflex to reduce the challenge that faces us to one of us versus them. We must recognize that protecting our civic values

should not, need not, and cannot come at the cost of abandoning our commitment to diversity and multiculturalism. We must come together as a national community and ask ourselves how we can do better, this time, the next time, and all the times that follow. On the question of what happens next for me, I have little to say but this. If and when the time comes, I will take my lumps for my part in this. I will do so without resentment or regret, knowing that while what I have done may be unlawful, I cannot say that it was wrong. I say this because I was raised to believe that integrity is the act of weighing your actions

against your principles, not against what is convenient or expedient. And here my principles remain firmly tied what is convenient or expedient. And here my principles remain firmly tied to those words in my oath. I will serve my country. I will serve the democratic institutions on which it is founded. And I will most certainly serve my fellow Canadians. I am not the first in our public service to have grappled with such an unenviable ethical dilemma in recent years. Not so long ago, our former Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould faced one that was even more acute, given what she stood to lose. I worry, however, that we may be running

short on individuals willing and able to risk the consequences of standing by their principles. So to my fellow Canadians, if you can, please work together to ensure that we are among the last public servants that will ever feel compelled to take that risk. That's it for today. I'm Mainika Raman-Wellms. Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pachenza is our executive editor

Thanks so much for listening and I'll talk to you tomorrow