Majority Of MPs Votes For David Johnston To Step Down, Johnston Refuses

Today a majority of federal Members of Parliament voted to have CCP election interference special rapporteur David Johnston step down from his position.

This was a motion put forward by the federal NDP attempting to look less conciliatory to Justin Trudeau and the Liberals, which asked for a special investigation into CCP election interference and for David Johnston to step aside. This is despite NDP leader Jagmeet Singh making it clear he would not force an election over the CCP scandal. 

The motion was carried 174-150, but after the vote was complete David Johnston refused to leave his position as special rapporteur, despite his appointment into that position to look into the interference scandal being highly controversial.

Johnston said in a statement after the vote:

When I accepted the mandate to act as independent special rapporteur, I did so with full knowledge of the fact that the work ahead would be neither straightforward nor uncontroversial…I deeply respect the right of the House of Commons to express its opinion about my work going forward, but my mandate comes the government. I have a duty to pursue that work until my mandate is completed.

For those still unaware, David Johnston was at one point appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to be Canada’s Governor General, but before that, he was a close family friend of the Trudeaus and was on the board of the Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation. The Trudeau Foundation has been heavily implicated in the CCP scandal after receiving half a million dollars from a CCP-linked billionaire shortly after Justin Trudeau became prime minister in 2015.

Based on Johnston being so forward in actively opposing the wishes of Parliament, it seems like Justin Trudeau will continue using him as a shield and likely accuse those wanting to get rid of Johnston of trying to interfere with his ongoing “investigation.”

No doubt Jagmeet Singh will not put much pressure on Trudeau to have a real public investigation, and will simply hang his hat on this toothless vote in the House when Singh and the NDP can, in theory, hold the Liberals’ feet to the fire, being their minority government partners.