Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attends a meeting of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities in Calgary on June 7.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
Former CSIS director Richard Fadden says Canada can’t allow allegations that parliamentarians are colluding with foreign powers to remain unresolved.
He recommends federal party leaders all request classified briefings to see if they can learn the names of those federal politicians that a security watchdog report said are collaborating with foreign governments for their own benefit.
The Globe and Mail reported earlier this week that the unredacted version of findings released Monday by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) identifies some, though not all, of those accused.
“Foreign interference by anybody is serious but the fact that parliamentarians might be involved makes it doubly serious,” Mr. Fadden said. “And we need to do something about it before the next federal election.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau already has access to the confidential version of the report and the NDP has said New Democratic Leader Jagmeet Singh will be requesting a classified briefing to learn more. Bloc Québécois spokesman Julien Coulombe-Bonnafous told The Globe Friday that leader Yves-François Blanchet is considering requesting a briefing.
So far, however, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has not indicated he would do so. He would also need to apply for a security clearance in order to obtain the briefing.
Mr. Fadden said that party leaders could assess the allegations and determine whether to take action. “To my mind, it’s in the interests of political parties to deal with any one of their members who is on the list.”
Mr. Fadden, a former director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, also served as national-security adviser to Mr. Trudeau and the Conservative government under Stephen Harper.
He said if the briefings for leaders can’t resolve the matter, then further action should be considered.
He suggested a committee be empowered, or a panel of MPs struck like the one set up to handle the release of confidential documents on scientists fired from Winnipeg’s high-security National Microbiology Laboratory.
“Once you have another group like that, they would take the intelligence and, I hope, give the individual MPs or senators an opportunity to defend themselves. That’s what I think we need,” Mr. Fadden said. “And then the next step would be, you know, make a judgment on whether the defences that are being offered make sense or not.”
Mr. Fadden does not agree with those, including the Conservatives, who have called for the government to stand up in the House of Commons and publicly name the alleged collaborators.
“I don’t believe that a person’s career and life should be ruined on the basis of some piece of intelligence,” he said. Those accused should be given a chance to explain themselves in private. “In this country, we believe people are innocent until proven guilty, and we believe in the right to privacy,” he said.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was asked during a transit funding announcement in Brampton, Ont., Friday if the Liberal government was prepared to allow voters to head to the polls in future elections without knowing whether the candidate they were voting for was colluding with a foreign power.
She said the government felt that the allegations in the NSICOP report should be left to the “appropriate law enforcement bodies,” which are “seized with the issue” to handle things.
“Our government takes foreign interference in Canada, in Canadian democracy, very seriously,” she said.
Mr. Fadden called the response from the Liberal government – that matters be left to the RCMP or other authorities to determine if individuals should be prosecuted – “overly hopeful” and will not resolve the matter in the short term.
Existing laws on foreign interference apply to very restrictive scenarios. New legislation proposed by the government, the Countering Foreign Interference Act, would create new criminal offences, including political interference. But this bill, C-70, is not yet law.
Mr. Fadden said that if the Canadian political system can’t resolve the matter of alleged collaborators, “I think it will be proof positive of the relative lack of priority the government attaches to national security, and it’s going to hurt the credibility of our institutions.”
David Vigneault, the current CSIS director, on Thursday told MPs not to expect prosecutions to result from the allegations because of the challenges of turning intelligence into evidence.
He likewise urged party leaders to get classified briefings and take matters into their own hands, for example, by removing a caucus member or barring someone from a nomination race.