Commissioner Justice Marie-Josee Hogue speaks about the interim report following its release at the Public Inquiry Into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions, in Ottawa on May 3.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
You must understand: there is nothing anyone can do.
I know, I know. It is shocking to learn that a number of MPs and senators have been acting, effectively, as agents of a foreign power, selling secrets and influence to countries such as China and India in exchange for money and political favours.
We don’t know how many, and we don’t know their names. But that is the assessment, based on its reading of the intelligence, of the all-party National Security Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP).
But just because the odd traitor might be sprinkled among the 430-odd MPs and Senators – and just because they might soon be seeking our votes in an election campaign – that does not mean that we should act in haste. Or, indeed, at all.
Take, for example, those hotheads who have been agitating for someone to name the names: identify the parliamentarians referred to anonymously in the NSICOP report, together with the specifics of what each is alleged to have done and what reason the intelligence agencies have for suspecting them.
It can’t be done. First of all, who would name them? The members of NSICOP can’t: they’re sworn to secrecy. The Prime Minister can – but won’t. The Leader of the Opposition either can’t or won’t, depending on your point of view: the government won’t let him see the names because he refuses to be sworn to secrecy.
But even if anyone could, they can’t. It might compromise investigations. It risks unfairly maligning the innocent. And besides, according to Elizabeth May’s reading of the report, those named didn’t know they were betraying Canada. (“I am very comfortable sitting with my colleagues,” she said, even if some “may be compromised.”)
Leave it to the RCMP? Can’t be done. Any such investigation would be unlikely to result in charges – because the intelligence agencies won’t share their information, because if they did it might not stand up in court, because some of the activities involved were not illegal, and because, frankly, they’re the RCMP.
What about the party leaders, then? Couldn’t they be assigned to handle it somehow? Nobody gets named or charged, but just reassigned, expelled from caucus, prevented from running again. Sorry. Anything so dramatic as expulsion would amount to naming them, only without the specifics. People would be free to assume the worst, while those impugned would have no chance to clear their names.
More likely, the whole thing would be enveloped in fog. These are partisan politicians, after all. Their every instinct would be to prevent any damaging information from coming to light. Everyone would be under suspicion, but no one would face any consequences. Until, inevitably, the names leaked out anyway.
Last, there’s the alternative lately seized upon by the party leaders: hand the whole thing over to Justice Marie-Josée Hogue and the public inquiry on foreign interference. As if she doesn’t have enough on her plate already.
The former director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Richard Fadden, is adamant on this point. “I don’t think there’s time to do it,” he told the CBC. “She’s been given unreasonable time frames to begin with.”
Indeed she has: she was left just two weeks after the close of hearings to complete her initial report, on “who knew what when,” a dilemma she evaded by kicking much of the work on that question into her final report.
That’s the one in which she is also supposed to “examine and assess the capacity of relevant federal departments, agencies, institutional structures and governance processes to … detect, deter and counter any form of foreign interference,” as well as “the mechanisms that were in place to protect the integrity of the 43rd and 44th general elections from foreign interference.”
Oh, and “recommend any means for better protecting federal democratic processes from foreign interference.” All by December 31.
Asking her to put all this aside to assess the bona fides of parliamentarians seems like maybe not the best use of her time, particularly when you consider that, at the end of this process, she still wouldn’t be allowed to name any names. Essentially she’s being asked to redo the NSICOP report.
Round and round we go. Name the names! Leave it to the police! Let the party leaders handle it! Give it to the public inquiry! There is always a reason not to do each, which adds up to plenty of reasons not to do any: as I predicted, no names, no charges, no consequences of any kind.
At one point the NSICOP report frets that hostile powers “consider Canada a permissive environment, viewing interference activities as a low-risk, high reward way to pursue strategic interests.” Got that right.