OTTAWA — Canada has developed a dangerous habit: when reality collides with the prevailing political narrative, we increasingly question the reality rather than the narrative.
Call it political correctness, progressive orthodoxy, institutional risk aversion or, in the language now commonly used, “woke” politics. Canada has created a culture in which governments and institutions are often more comfortable managing the language surrounding a problem than confronting the problem itself.
I have spent much of my career dealing with organized crime, money laundering, intelligence and national security. These are fields where uncomfortable facts are unavoidable. Criminal organizations do not care about political sensitivities. Hostile states do not moderate their activities because acknowledging them might make Canadians uncomfortable. Money launderers do not stop moving billions of dollars because governments announce another consultation.
Yet repeatedly, Canada behaves as though careful language can substitute for decisive policy.
I have written previously about Canada’s response to foreign interference, Chinese Communist Party influence, organized crime, illicit finance and weaknesses within our justice and regulatory systems. I have also raised questions about foreign investment, strategic resources and the troubling circumstances surrounding developments in Prince Edward Island.
These issues reveal a recurring institutional weakness: Canada has become reluctant to identify threats plainly when doing so might create political controversy.
Consider foreign interference.
For years, Canadians were assured that foreign interference was being taken seriously. Yet revelations eventually forced the government to acknowledge the extent to which foreign governments—particularly the People’s Republic of China—had attempted to influence Canadian political institutions and diaspora communities.
Canada did not lack warnings. Too many of them disappeared into bureaucratic machinery where acknowledging the seriousness of the threat carried political consequences.
The same pattern exists with organized crime.
Canada has become one of the world’s most attractive environments for money laundering. Criminal organizations exploit real estate, casinos, luxury vehicles, trade, cryptocurrency and legitimate businesses to move illicit wealth.
We even invented a term for one particularly Canadian phenomenon: snow washing—the laundering of dirty money through Canada’s reputation as a clean and respectable jurisdiction.
For years, experts, police officers, intelligence professionals and academics warned about the scale of the problem. Canada responded with studies, reports, committees and promises while criminals continued moving money.
This cultural paralysis is especially evident in discussions involving immigration and border security.
Canada is a country built by immigration. That fact should not prevent Canadians from asking legitimate questions about who enters the country, how they arrive, who facilitates their movement and whether foreign governments or criminal organizations are exploiting our immigration system.
Yet raising such questions can immediately produce accusations of xenophobia or intolerance, making serious policy problems more difficult to discuss.
My recent interviews concerning the Bishnoi Gang and the use of immigration to bring in young East Indian males through the foreign student process were never about ethnicity. National security cannot be conducted on the basis of ethnicity.
The relevant questions concern networks, financing, organizers, routes and state involvement. Yet Canada too often seems preoccupied with how an investigation will look rather than where the evidence leads.
The same problem arises when discussing the Chinese Communist Party.
Criticism of the party is sometimes treated as though it were criticism of Chinese Canadians. The distinction should be obvious.
Chinese Canadians have frequently been among the victims of intimidation, coercion and foreign interference originating from Beijing. Refusing to investigate those activities out of fear of appearing discriminatory leaves those communities more exposed to the very forces Canada should be confronting.
A democratic government should be capable of welcoming people from around the world while aggressively investigating foreign governments, criminal organizations and individuals who attempt to exploit our institutions.
There is nothing contradictory about those positions. Yet our political culture increasingly struggles with such distinctions.
Complex problems are reduced to competing moral labels. One side is compassionate; the other is intolerant. One side is progressive; the other is reactionary.
Public policy cannot function that way.
Policing taught me to follow evidence rather than begin an investigation by deciding which conclusion would be socially acceptable.
You determine what happened, identify who benefited, examine relationships and financial flows, test intelligence against evidence and act accordingly. Governments should operate with the same discipline.
Instead, Canada has created bureaucracies increasingly terrified of reputational risk. Officials learn quickly that challenging prevailing assumptions can carry professional consequences. Institutions become cautious, language becomes sanitized and reports are softened.
Canada’s adversaries understand this weakness far better than Canadians do.
Authoritarian governments study democratic societies carefully. Organized crime groups do the same. They identify legal loopholes, jurisdictional divisions, weak enforcement capabilities and political sensitivities, then exploit them.
If they discover that invoking racism, discrimination or cultural sensitivity can discourage scrutiny, they have every incentive to exploit that weakness as well.
The result is an extraordinary asymmetry: those attempting to exploit Canada operate without embarrassment, while those responsible for defending Canada operate with extraordinary caution.
None of this requires abandoning Canada’s commitment to tolerance, diversity or fairness. Those are Canadian strengths worth defending.
But tolerance without vigilance can become vulnerability. Diversity without social cohesion can become fragmentation. Compassion without enforcement can invite exploitation. Sensitivity without courage can produce paralysis.
That tension runs through many of the issues I have written about.
Canada is not being overwhelmed because its adversaries are invincible. Too often, it is being outmaneuvered because those exploiting our weaknesses are more willing to confront reality than the institutions responsible for protecting us.
A confident democracy should not fear difficult questions.
It should fear what happens when nobody is willing to ask them.
Former senior RCMP officer Garry Clement consults with corporations on anti-money laundering, contributed to the Canadian academic text Dirty Money, and wrote Undercover, In the Shady World of Organized Crime and the RCMP
