Investigative journalist Sam Cooper, writing for The Bureau, argues that "woke" politics is significantly weakening Canada's national security apparatus. Cooper contends that a prevailing culture of political correctness and progressive orthodoxy has led to an institutional aversion to risk, making governments and institutions more comfortable managing the language surrounding problems than confronting the problems themselves.
In fields where uncomfortable facts are unavoidable, such as organized crime, money laundering, and intelligence, Cooper states that criminal organizations and hostile states do not care about political sensitivities. He points to Canada's response to foreign interference as a prime example, where a reluctance to identify threats plainly due to potential political controversy meant warnings were often ignored until revelations forced the government to acknowledge the extent of foreign influence, particularly from the People's Republic of China.
Cooper's analysis suggests that this preoccupation with how an investigation will appear, rather than where the evidence leads, is a recurring institutional weakness. He argues that while authoritarian governments and criminal groups study democratic societies to exploit loopholes and sensitivities, Canada's institutions are increasingly fearful of reputational risk. Officials, he notes, learn that challenging prevailing assumptions can have professional consequences, leading to cautiousness, sanitized language, and softened reports. This, in turn, provides adversaries with a clear advantage. The report emphasizes that national security cannot be conducted on the basis of ethnicity, but rather on networks, financing, organizers, routes, and state involvement, suggesting a need for a more evidence-based and direct approach to confronting threats.
