Poilievre's lack of security clearance bites him on day two of the election campaign

“CSIS alleges India organized support for Poilievre’s 2022 Conservative leadership bid”

That was the headline of the Globe and Mail article that fell like a bomb on today’s election campaign stops.

While Liberal Leader Mark Carney and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre tried to focus on their respective announcements about defence and housing, the shadow of scandal made it hard for their planned messaging to break through.

“Agents of India and their proxies allegedly meddled in the 2022 election of Pierre Poilievre as Conservative Party Leader as part of a larger effort to cozy up to politicians of all parties, according to a source with top-secret clearance,” the Globe and Mail article reads in its opening line.

Later, it drops another devastating paragraph for the Poilievre campaign:

“CSIS did not share this information with Mr. Poilievre, the source said, because he does not have the necessary security clearance to access secret documents and receive classified briefings on foreign-interference activities in Canada.”

Oops. Oh, and Poilievre is the only federal party leader that doesn’t have security clearance.

This story is one that will likely dog the Tory leader on the campaign trail, as swirling questions about his lack of clearance were nipping at his heels even before this big scoop dropped.

Let’s talk about this and the other bits of news from the day so far.