A foreign interference report lobbed bombshells at Parliament. Now what?
CBC
If nothing else, this week's report from the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians offers an firm response to opposition politicians who have dismissed the relatively new body's ability to do valuable work.
When the Liberal government suggested that NSICOP should investigate the allegations of foreign interference contained in a series of media leaks last year, critics were thoroughly unimpressed. But the committee of MPs and senators has now delivered a highly critical report that scrutinizes the government's response to foreign interference — and also levels new allegations against parliamentarians.
It might be fair to ask whether NSICOP went too far in its reporting. Regardless, the special committee has sent the issue back to Parliament. And now the question is what, if anything, the federal government, law enforcement and parliamentarians themselves are going to do about the claims NSICOP has put on the public record.
Over 94 pages, the national security committee report walks readers through the threats posed by meddlesome foreign states, pokes at shortcomings in the government's response and recommends a number of legislative and governance changes that would put Canadian institutions in a better position to respond.
But the report also makes a series of claims about unnamed parliamentarians.
At paragraph 164, the committee says it has "seen troubling intelligence that some Parliamentarians are, in the words of the intelligence services, 'semi-witting or witting' participants in the efforts of foreign states to interfere in our politics." (Emphasis theirs.)
This participation allegedly includes: parliamentarians communicating frequently with foreign missions before or during a political campaign to obtain support from community groups or businesses; accepting knowingly or through willful blindness funds or benefits from foreign missions or their proxies; providing foreign diplomatic officials with privileged information on the work or opinions of fellow Parliamentarians; responding to the requests or direction of foreign officials to improperly influence parliamentary colleagues or parliamentary business; and providing information learned in confidence from the government to a known intelligence officer of a foreign state.
Separately, the report refers to "members of Parliament who worked to influence their colleagues on India's behalf and proactively provided confidential information to Indian officials." The committee also points to "a particularly concerning case of a then-member of Parliament maintaining a relationship with a foreign intelligence officer."
But NSICOP's report stops short of naming the parliamentarians at the centre of these allegations.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Liberal MP David McGuinty, the chair of NSICOP, said the committee had disclosed everything it was able to and it's now up to law enforcement to decide whether further steps could or should be taken.
The committee's accusations against unnamed individuals are reminiscent of similar allegations made by Richard Fadden in 2010, when the former civil servant was the director of CSIS. In an interview with CBC News in June 2010, Fadden said CSIS believed there were several municipal and provincial politicians in Canada who were "under at least the general influence of a foreign government."
Politicians across the country criticized Fadden's comments and a House of Commons committee later demanded Fadden's resignation for "sowing doubt about the probity and integrity of a number of elected officials and creating a climate of suspicion and paranoia."
Fadden is entitled now to enjoy the irony. But it's also hard to see how the public safety committee's criticisms in 2011 couldn't be levelled at NSICOP in 2024.
By failing to name names, is NSICOP not sowing doubt about all 430 current MPs and senators? If they couldn't name the parliamentarians, would they have been better off not levelling these allegations?