NDP leader Jagmeet Singh speaks to journalists before Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Feb. 26.Blair Gable/Reuters
Are there traitors in the House? Jagmeet Singh says there are.
The NDP Leader used that word. He had read the secret, unredacted version of the report on foreign interference drafted by a committee of parliamentarians. And he referred to the activities of some MPs in the House of Commons as unethical, and in some cases against the law.
“They are indeed traitors to the country,” he told reporters.
How is it possible to reconcile what Mr. Singh took away from the full report of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP), and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May’s insistence that she was relieved to find no sitting MPs had set out to betray their country? It isn’t.
The most generous explanation is that Ms. May was far more willing to give her colleagues in the Commons the benefit of the doubt, to see them as not fully complicit in the interference efforts of foreign states, even if she believes there might have been some “willful blindness.”
Mr. Singh was arguing that there is too much tolerance for foreign interference.
He said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had been slow to act and also accepted a certain level of foreign interference by failing to act decisively – and made it pretty clear he thinks the PM should have booted at least some Liberal MPs from his caucus.
He accused Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of dodging responsibility because he has chosen not to seek a security clearance to read the full report, even though the publicly released unredacted version found that China and India had interfered with Conservative Party leadership races.
“The fact that he doesn’t want to know and has been silent I believe disqualifies him very firmly, disqualifies him as a prospective leader of this country,” Mr. Singh said.
Certainly, Mr. Singh’s characterization of the full NSICOP report aligns more closely than Ms. May’s does with the public, if censored, version. That version, released last week, dropped a bombshell about the “witting” involvement of unnamed parliamentarians in efforts by foreign countries to interfere in our democracy. And it set a series of recommendations to act.
Where Ms. May expressed relief after reading the full report, Mr. Singh expressed alarm.
And he did it in a way that will make both Mr. Poilievre and Mr. Trudeau a little more uncomfortable.
MPs had voted Tuesday to send the whole issue of parliamentarians’ alleged complicity to the continuing public inquiry headed by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, and the NDP called for the allegations about foreign interference in the Conservative leadership races of 2020 and 2022 to be included in the inquiry’s remit.
But Mr. Singh argued that party leaders have their own duty to do something about foreign interference – and essentially accused Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Poilievre of being soft on interference.
“I believe that we must find a way to let MPs who are named in this report know that we know what they’re up to. I believe this can be done in a way that doesn’t compromise national security,” Mr. Singh said. “Removing MPs who knowingly participate in foreign interference would have a deterring effect on this type of behaviour. It will send a message that these countries cannot try to use MPs in this manner.”
Mr. Poilievre is now isolated as the only party leader that won’t seek to read the full report – Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet has said he will seek a security clearance. That’s a stubborn insistence on being incurious that can only seem irresponsible when there are allegations of foreign interference with the Conservative Party. And other leaders are proving capable of both reading the full report and commenting on it.
But in the end, it is another indictment of Mr. Trudeau. Mr. Singh was clearly talking about the PM’s inaction in dealing with Liberal MPs – that much came through, even if the NDP Leader was not allowed to reveal details.
Mr. Singh didn’t just contradict Ms. May’s comfort. He argued that Mr. Trudeau had been too comfortable, and too tolerant, with cases of foreign interference. And while Mr. Singh sees traitors in Parliament, Mr. Trudeau still hasn’t suggested something more should be done.