Each minute of inaction is itself its own scandal. For about a week now, the Canadian public has been aware that individuals believed to have colluded with foreign governments may continue to serve as senators, staffers and/or members of Parliament. And for about a week now, those with the power to do something have done nothing.
The report by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) told Canadians that a parliamentarian may have provided “information learned in confidence from the government to a known intelligence officer of a foreign state.” It reported that others have accepted “knowingly or through willful blindness funds or benefits from foreign missions or their proxies.” And it suggested one or more parliamentarians may be actively conspiring against their own government by “providing foreign diplomatic officials with privileged information on the work or opinions of fellow Parliamentarians, knowing that such information will be used by those officials to inappropriately pressure Parliamentarians to change their positions.”
How is a democracy to function after this sort of intelligence is made public? How can the work of government continue if members of caucus, or maybe even cabinet, are wary of speaking openly out of concern that their remarks might be conveyed to agents of hostile governments? And how can Parliamentarians continue to debate comparably frivolous matters such as taxing the streaming giants, when the first order of government – safeguarding our democracy, and the public’s trust therein – could be compromised?
On Tuesday, all parties in Parliament supported a Bloc Québécois motion to refer the matter to the foreign interference inquiry being chaired by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue. The gesture punts responsibility over to Justice Hogue, while relieving party leaders of the pressure to actually do something. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who has been demanding that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reveal the names of those implicated in the NSICOP report, could seek the necessary security clearance and reveal the names himself in the House, protected by Parliamentary privilege; he has chosen not to. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, who has at least indicated he is open to doing something of that nature, has so far taken no action. Green Party Leader Elizabeth May read the unredacted report, but only shared her impressions, saying she has “no worries about anyone in the House of Commons.”
For his part, Mr. Trudeau, who received a draft of the NSICOP report months ago, has declined to take any further action. Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said disclosing names would not be “responsible,” and that it would rob those people of due process considerations.
The matter is indeed one of competing responsibilities: individual rights versus the public good, and the government’s responsibility to the individuals identified in the classified NSICOP report versus its responsibility to millions of Canadians who can no longer trust that their elected representatives are working in their interests. Without names, all of Parliament is effectively implicated. It should be clear where the Prime Minister’s foremost obligations lie.
This government has repeatedly emphasized that intelligence is not evidence, but as The Globe’s editorial board pointed out last week, mere intelligence was enough background for Mr. Trudeau to stand in the House in September and accuse the Indian government of orchestrating the death of a Canadian citizen. And due process concerns did not stop Mr. Trudeau from naming and suspending two Liberal MPs in 2014, following accusations from NDP MPs of sexual misconduct.
In that case, there wasn’t a committee reviewing 33,000 pages of intelligence documents, and the investigation came after the suspensions, not before. But the matter was deemed serious enough to identify and remove the MPs in question, even at the risk of their own reputations. It’s hard to imagine this government adopting the same refusal to name names it is adhering to now – and professing the same fidelity to due process – if it was publicly disclosed that there were sitting Parliamentarians who had engaged in sexual misconduct, rather than collusion with hostile governments. But perhaps Mr. Trudeau views tolerance of the former as more reputationally damaging than the latter, even if the latter compromises Canada’s national security, the daily operations of government, and the faith Canadians can maintain in our federal institutions.
But Mr. Trudeau isn’t the only leader who could take action. Mr. Poilievre likes to talk about how Canada is broken, and surely there is no more pertinent, grave example than a Parliament that has been compromised from the inside. If he, Mr. Trudeau, or Mr. Singh truly appreciates the deleterious effect this continuing ambiguity has on public confidence, they will find a way to provide answers – now. The risks to the individuals named are obvious, but there is a greater public-order risk in both concealing their names, and in permitting them to remain in government.