This week's tonic: "Canada’s spies and the hypocrites who adore them - Did China interfere in Canada’s elections? We don’t know. But journalists must not rely on friendly leaks for the truth."

This week's tonic by columnist Andrew Mitrovica: "Canada’s spies and the hypocrites who adore them - Did China interfere in Canada’s elections? We don’t know. But journalists must not rely on friendly leaks for the truth." 

"I am the author of one of two books of any consequence written about the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the nation’s equivalent of Britain’s MI5. My 2002 exposé, Covert Entry, revealed a rogue agency rife with laziness, incompetence, corruption and lawbreaking."

"Sadly, too few reporters, editors, columnists or editorial writers in Canada have made the effort to understand how CSIS functions with impunity and hold it to account.

"I am sharing this history and context because, lately, there has been a geyser of leaking of “top secret” stuff going on in Canada that is causing quite a tizzy.

"...This is all to say that Canadians should be cautious about accepting as fact stuff that is leaked to “friendly” journalists and news organisations who are not as cautious as they should be – despite having the imprimatur of an “intelligence” service stamped on it.

"...The consensus among a preening batch of grandstanding reporters, columnists, editorial writers and politicians is that China’s “interference” in Canada’s elections is bad because China is a “bad actor” on the international stage.

"I missed all the hyperventilating outrage when Canada’s deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, joined those Alexis-de-Tocqueville-like paragons of democracy, Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro and former US President Donald Trump and tried to engineer what amounted to a coup d’état and install their man, Juan Guaido, as the president of Venezuela.

"Freeland was praised by the same apoplectic columnists and editorial writers for interfering – openly and secretly – in Venezuela’s domestic affairs since, like China, the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro, is a “bad actor”.

"This is a news story oozing with congratulatory glee, published widely among sympathetic Canadian news outlets, heralding Freeland’s “key role” in playing a “behind the scenes” part in a failed attempt to depose the socialist leader.

"When Canada interfered in Venezuela’s right to choose who will be president, most Canadian establishment columnists, editorial writers and politicians applauded. Canada is, they agree, a “good actor”.

"The sanctimony is as galling as it is instructive.

"But, these days, you won’t hear so much as a whisper about Canada’s not-so-secret record on the “interference” score since a capital city and newsrooms filled with amnesiac, spy-adoring hypocrites are too busy pointing an accusatory finger at China."