Green Party leader calls on colleagues to discuss contentious NSICOP report in private

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May says it's time for her fellow party leaders to sit down for "an adult conversation" about the foreign interference report released earlier this month that's been dominating debate in Ottawa for the past two weeks.

"I think that conversation has to happen in a secure location where we all have top secret security clearance and can discuss things with each other without a media lens," she said.

"I think when we do that, we will be able to continue the work that actually puts in place the kinds of protections we need."

On June 3, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP), a cross-party committee of MPs and senators with top security clearances, released a heavily blacked-out document alleging, based on intelligence reports, that some parliamentarians have been "semi-witting or witting" participants in the efforts of foreign states to interfere in Canadian politics.

The report also said foreign interference is targeting federal party nomination contents, leadership races and other lower levels of politics.

So far, May and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh are the only opposition leaders to read the unredacted report.

During separate news conferences last week, May and Singh presented very different impressions of what they gleaned from the report.

May said she was relieved to learn that none of her House of Commons colleagues knowingly betrayed their country — a position she stood by on Monday.

"I will be firmly clear again in saying I read the full, unredacted report [and] the word treason does not apply to any current, sitting MP, at least in the unredacted report of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians," she said. "And they went through 33,000 pages of intelligence information to come to that conclusion.

"There's no reason to create an atmosphere of McCarthyism ... a witch hunt feeling of which MPs can be trusted."

On Thursday, Singh said he was more alarmed after reading the report and he's "more convinced than ever" that some parliamentarians are "willing participants" in foreign states' efforts to interfere in Canadian politics.

An NDP spokesperson later said that Singh's comments should not be taken as confirming or denying that the parliamentarians cited in the report are currently serving.

On Monday, May said she's confident in her understanding of the report and she doesn't see vast contradictions between her interpretation and Singh's.