Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs, speaks in response to three performance audit reports of the Auditor General of Canada on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on June 4.Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press
Who should be named as a collaborator with foreign states interfering in Canada’s democracy?
If an MP is known with certainty to be acting in secret with a foreign power against this country’s interests, then Canadians would expect that person to be called out.
Yet we don’t know that’s the case with the parliamentarians named in the still-secret, unredacted version of the report on foreign interference by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP).
Instead, we now have a serious issue of public trust that can’t be left unaddressed – and shouldn’t be dealt with by publicly denouncing anyone suspected by the spy services. Even the spy services think that’s rash.
The heavily censored public version of the NSICOP report revealed the worrisome news that some parliamentarians have been “witting” participants in foreign interference in a variety of ways.
The secret, unredacted version of the report names some names – and that has sparked calls for the identities of the disloyal parliamentarians to be made public, from commentators and from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.
One big problem with that is there is no standard set for taking the unprecedented step of publicly denouncing a politician as a collaborator. NSICOP didn’t even suggest one in its report. Surely that’s necessary before anyone publishes a traitors list.
These are cases where there is apparently no evidence that can be presented in court, where the allegations themselves might have to remain secret, and intelligence experts are sounding a note of caution.
Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc has warned that some of the names come from cases where the intelligence is “uncorroborated or unverified.”
If you don’t want the matter to rest on the say-so of a Liberal cabinet minister, from a government that has appeared less than zealous in combatting foreign interference, then it’s worth listening to Richard Fadden, a former director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
Mr. Fadden is no shrinking violet when it comes to these issues. As CSIS director in 2010, he was lambasted for stating publicly that the service was concerned that some provincial or municipal politicians could be under the sway of a foreign government. He told The Globe and Mail last week that something has to be done to follow up on the NSICOP report, but not simply revealing all the names.
“I don’t believe that a person’s career and life should be ruined on the basis of some piece of intelligence,” Mr. Fadden said.
The people in charge of the intelligence services these days have other concerns, as well. They blacked out names and details from the report, and CSIS director David Vigneault expressed concern last week that releasing them would jeopardize intelligence-gathering secrets.
But that does not mean politicians can settle for doing nothing.
For starters, there’s no excuse for wallowing in secrecy. Both Mr. Fadden and Mr. Vigneault called for party leaders to obtain security clearances and request briefings. Leaders can decide if there is enough reason to remove their MPs from their caucus or refuse to sign a candidate’s nomination papers.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has received a security clearance, Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet has suggested he might, but so far Mr. Poilievre has not.
At this point, there’s no acceptable excuse for a party leader dodging that responsibility – especially if, as in Mr. Poilievre’s case, you are calling for names to be released from a secret report you haven’t sought to read.
Then there is that bigger step: naming collaborators even when there isn’t evidence that can be presented in court.
That’s rarely been done by democracies in this century. If we don’t want denunciations based on spies’ suspicions and politicians’ power games, then there’d better be some kind of standard set first.
There are two things that can be done now.
One is to put the matter of “witting” parliamentarians into the purview of the continuing inquiry on foreign interference headed by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, so that she can provide non-partisan, and hopefully revealing, findings.
The other is to send the matter back to Parliament. It must be up to NSICOP, or some special committee of MPs sworn to secrecy, to set a reasonable process to deal with an issue that can’t be avoided.
And can’t be solved with a rush to name names.