Opinion | David Johnston forgot something important in his report — and it could give the reassurance Canadians need

It seems beyond obvious now that David Johnston’s report on foreign interference in Canadian democracy was politically doomed even before the former governor general weighed in earlier this week.

Regrettably, as the raucous fallout over his report has demonstrated, the current political climate doesn’t create much space for plans that hinge on trust and goodwill among parties and deference to experts and authority.

But remember: Johnston’s target audience was never the political class — or at least it shouldn’t have been.

Johnston wasn’t appointed “special rapporteur” to make Pierre Poilievre feel better about Justin Trudeau’s government. That would be like asking the Conservative leader to stop speaking in rhymes and slogans.

Johnston’s mission was and is to help Canadians retain their trust in the integrity of things that are bigger than the petty politics we’ve seen on display this week — namely, democracy and the integrity of elections.

Keeping that in mind, it’s the second phase of Johnston’s report, the public hearings he suggested, that has acquired major significance for days and weeks ahead.

If Trudeau is going to stick with the Johnston plan — and so far that does seem to be the idea — then those public hearings had better be good. In fact, they need to be knock-it-out-of-the-park good, because they are the stand-in for the public inquiry into foreign interference that so many wanted him to recommend.

Johnston said it himself in his opening remarks to the media on Tuesday: “A public process is warranted to address the parts of my mandate that are not classified. Canadians rightfully have questions and deserve to be engaged fully in my work.”

He then rattled off a number of “critical issues” to be addressed in the hearings. They include everything from how foreign interference affects diaspora communities to how current pieces of Canada’s national security infrastructure may need to fixed.

In all, Johnston identified more than a dozen questions that need to be aired in public.

My problem with his report is that this section was unfinished, incomplete. If he was going to take the risk of nixing a public inquiry — a decision my colleague Althia Raj identified as less than politically astute — then the public hearings had to be sketched out in far more detail.

Johnston told us definitively why the public inquiry was impossible — secrecy rules meant the best stuff wouldn’t be public at all. What he didn’t outline for us was why the public hearings were a good or even better substitute.

I didn’t get a chance to ask Johnston in his meeting with the Star this week when exactly over the past couple of months he had decided a public inquiry into foreign interference was impossible. He did tell us at his news conference and in his report that he had fully expected to make a recommendation for a full public inquiry, but ultimately couldn’t send the government down that road.

Whenever that moment did come though, I think Johnston and his team should have got to work on solid plans for the public hearings — maybe not precise dates and locations, but a thorough list of how this process would unfold.

It wouldn’t have calmed the political fury that Poilievre was waiting to whip up over the report, no matter what it said. (Was the Conservative leader ever going to say anything about this report other than it was written by Trudeau’s “ski buddy?”)

But it would have been a reminder that Johnston wasn’t writing his report for Conservative approval — it was to reassure Canadians that their fears, concerns and apprehensions were going to be seriously addressed before the end of this year.

A comprehensive, well-laid-out agenda for these hearings wouldn’t be just political communication strategy — although it would have given critics of Trudeau and Johnston something else to talk about, besides the fact a public inquiry was a no-go.

The hearings are ultimately a chance to put Johnston’s work where it belongs — in the realm of public trust, before the public, out in the open. It’s public trust in democracy that is at issue here, not whether political parties can get along or even whether there’s a breakdown in communication between government and the national-security system. Yes, these may be serious issues, but they’re a smaller part of the bigger picture. The overarching question is whether Canada’s democratic system is strong enough to withstand meddling from outsiders (or even insiders).

One other suggestion: Johnston envisions himself presiding over these hearings. I’d argue that’s not necessary. Better to have these public hearings led by experts in the various questions they’re going to tackle, maybe even taken from lists compiled by some of the parliamentary committees. Whether it’s fair or not, Johnston is now too much of a lightning rod and the scope of his hearings is too large, and in too short a time span, for one person.

The next phase of Johnston’s report doesn’t have to land the same way the first part did. It just requires some attention to the real target audience of this exercise: the public and its trust in democracy.

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