In war, election campaigns, and life we all get tripped up by what the historian Thucydides called the “imponderables” and former U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld classified as the “unknown unknowns.” It is how we react to those unforeseeable events that reveal some of our true nature, exposing deep, dark flaws or a courageous, indomitable spirit.

What is clear right now is that when faced with a sudden ethical dilemma, Mark Carney has made the appalling decision to keep as a Liberal candidate a man who urged a group to turn a Canadian over to the Chinese consulate in Toronto for a bounty offered by the Chinese government.