Calls for Liberals to expand foreign interference inquiry to investigate bombshell allegations

we are going to start with a developing story on Parliament Hill this hours the Liberals say they’ll be supporting an opposition motion to expand the scope of the foreign interference inquiry after last week’s stunning report that alleged some parliamentarians are quote wittingly helping foreign States the motion is being debated today with a vote in the House of Commons expected tomorrow and in just over an hour a senate committee is going to hear from some of the MPS who authored that report with more now I’m joined by Steve Chase who’s a senior parliamentary reporter with the globe in mail he’s been following this story very closely breaking most of them Dan Stanton is also here he’s a former CIS executive manager and Wesley work is with us he’s a senior fellow at the center for international governance Innovation both Professor war and Mr Stanton just testified before that same committee were set to see uh the enop parliamentarians testify in front of in just about over an hour’s time hi everybody good to see you thanks for making the time Steve uh I’ll start with you the government is supporting essentially this motion Now to turn things over to the foreign interference inquiry the first question I had when I was listening to it was like the timeline’s already pretty tight on this thing I’m not sure like what what difference does this make in actually investigating the intelligence do you can Justice o actually say you know this is right this is wrong there’s proof of this there isn’t proof of that that’s a good question we don’t have an answer yet we’ve asked the foreign interference commission to comment they said they’ll wait until the vote takes place tomorrow um one of the things that uh is important I think is not only for the commission to get access to the information which was the basis of these findings last week but also that there’s some kind of investigative process do these alleged parliamentarians appear before the committee or the Commission in private do they defend themselves and so on so yeah it’s going to take some more time uh I I think that um in some ways this is a benefit for all parties to punt the issue because I think it would there was uncomfortable questions for everybody starting to surface and so I think I in some ways I think this the best possible solution for any party leader who doesn’t want to face questions about why they aren’t taking action in their caucus it may be a politically convenient and helpful solution as Steve outlines Mr Stanton but is it the way to get it the answer I guess is the question and for Canadians like if if the if the question is did these people collude with uh foreign States who are they like are is do you see the inquiry as a venue to find that information no not at all as with the RCMP the deflection to the RCMP now we’re hearing the deflection to the inquiry the parameters of the inquiry are not wide enough to cover this we have one former MP who may have worked and collaborated with a foreign intelligence service that potentially could be Espionage that’s not part of the Ambit of the inquiry so the government kind of owns this mess and I feel the government should deal with it they need to come up with a strategy to deal with it we need to have political leaders indoctrinated cleared reading the import the reports and then deal with it that way not deflect it to these other entities Professor work what’s your what’s your sense of what the best venue to kind of get the answers Canadians are looking for might actually be in this case is it is it just through the political parties is is there law enforcement involved like what what does it look like from where you said well vassy I think part of the the question is is what are people actually expecting might come out of uh this block motion that would um ask the foreign interference commission to investigate further some of the findings from the National Security intelligence Committee of parliamentarians I would say about that a couple of things one is um I don’t think we should expect that the foreign interference commission can go any further than the uh ncop uh report did in terms of naming names we won’t hear names coming out of the foreign interference commission and I think actually that’s a good thing um we might get more contextual detail from uh an investigation conducted by commissioner Hogan I would say response to Dan’s comment that that um the you know the commission may get some new marching orders that it may be prepared to accept coming out of the block motion to be voted on tomorrow so I wouldn’t be surprised if their mandate is expanded in this in this direction and they may need more time to do that investigation but we won’t see more names we won’t see names and we won’t see more details of the intelligence reports themselves on which um the ncop uh you know committee based its its findings the the foreign interference commission is working under the same kinds of constraints as enop worked under in in terms of the need to protect Secrets but I think there could be some value in um more context about the nature of these allegations you know over what period of time did they take place how strong in general is the intelligence that that supports these allegations um you know which which foreign countries might have been involved some of those details I think could could well be presented I also think the government could have decided to do that themselves but uh you know as as your guest suggest this has been punted over to the commission I I wonder also that if it does sort of insulate political parties Steve for a little while H how long that lasts because ultimately I think they will continue getting questions if you have so-called foreign agents in your midst like aren’t you required to do something about it to your point there are hard questions for every part I mean right now the greens and the NDP are willing to take a briefing the conservatives are not the Liberals are unwilling to disclose anything about what they’ve done as a party as well I I think that the party leaders should go ahead and get the briefing still this doesn’t preclude them and in fact let’s keep in mind that Mr Trudeau has access to all the information so if there’s anybody in his caucus or in in the uh in candidates uh he knows those names already and he can deal with them and the same goes for the other parties so I I don’t think this precludes the party leaders going ahead and asking for those uh those security briefings that would reveal what the anop knows nobody really seems to want to do that though Dan Mr Stanton because uh I mean they they’ve put forward reasons which are essentially if I get that information in the conservatives case I can’t act on it again for the Liberals I’ve done the same line of questioning for them it’s opaque like I can’t I can’t ascertain from the way that they’ve answered my questions whether or not they actually have done any looking inside their own caucus whether they’re prepared to act on it whether they feel it meets an evidentiary bar understandably it is just an accusation at this point but I don’t know if they’ve done anything more to find out no what else and and it’s it’s it remains politicized and it’s interesting because we have Unity now on Bill C70 we have the opposition engaged and supportive in these legislative changes which are going to in many ways prevent this type of activity so in a way almost wish they would Parliament would sort of maintain that spirit and and sort of put down the part and uh uh line on this and and get the briefings and at least they’ll know what’s going on in their parties cuz all we’re going to get now is we’re going to get rumors we’re going to get leaks we’re going to get conspiracy theories and this has to be sorted out with expediency at the same time Professor work I imagine if they were to find out and then all of a sudden we see four MPS kicked out of caucus the world you know that the Canadians and and the media and every will assume uh a causal relationship there I think it’s fair to say that may well be the outcome uh vassie but but I think you know to be honest um many of the political parties are probably still in a bit of a State of Shock about the findings of the ncop report and um if if they all if the leaders of those parties do get the security briefings and I’m I’m absolutely in agreement with Steve that I think it’s incumbent on Mr PV to take that briefing on behalf of the conservatives so that they have an understanding uh based on the classified intelligence about um the nature of these allegations when whether any of them touch any of their um current or past caucus members they can then decide uh you know what they want to do about that but that that’s down the road I think that’s the first step and the other other thing I think it’s very important not to forget is that there is a an important role for the RCMP to play here I don’t think it’s a matter of deflection the RCMP is our national security law enforcement agency it’s that agency that we really need to look to to pursue investigations in fact tell us a bit more about those investigations the RCMP is way too Clos lipped about that pursue them see if charges are going to be laid and you know if names are going to be named it should happen in a court of law to Professor work’s point I think what would have done gone a long way Steve to sort of direct the conversation as if in that that initial stage the RCP had come back and said we are conducting investigations instead what they said is broadly speaking we are investigating this issue we will not comment on whether or not we’re investigating any number of parliamentarians or this issue more specifically and what’s more what they did say was we knew some of the stuff in this report but we didn’t know everything and if you go through the report which I’m sure you have some stuff it says we were it was referred to the RCMP but some stuff says the RCMP wasn’t made aware of this intelligence so again I’m kind of left with a sense of opaqueness about like what actually is law enforcement able to investigate at this point yeah and we have this long-standing problem as has probably been discussed many times before on the show of how we don’t have a process to collect uh evidence from from intelligence that meets the standard necessary for prosecution so what was interesting about the report however was the RCMP seemed very positive about the ncop report they effectively endorsed it uh so you sensed a that was a that statement from the RCMP last week that you got was I think the longest statement I’ve ever seen that’s true from the RCMP which is generally uh shy about commenting on hotly debated issues in Parliament Hill so they were basically clapping so they were that was remarkable they C I mean they certainly took part Mr Stanton in um in the process that that en I mean enop spent months right in investigating this issue 33,000 pages of uh documents I think something to that nature that they look through and then they conducted tons of interviews including with members of the RCMP do do you anticipate Mr Stanton that um we will hear more from the law enforcement s at some point I don’t think so vashy and you know all due respect I I think my colleagues a lot of this foreign interference activity does not lend itself to criminality I worked this for many years I have a long time in Counter Intelligence and with a few exceptions perhaps a one case a lot of it is not meeting a threshold of criminality and because most intelligence work isn’t directed towards does that mean in layman’s terms like they’re doing things that aren’t it means what type of influence wittingly cooperating with a foreign state to influence there isn’t really until this legislation comes through a hammer to hit people with so it’s it’s not like the anti-terrorism ACT it’s not like soya with respect to Espionage and leaking there isn’t anything that’s that’s going to get law enforcement motivated on this I mean all due respect to the RCMP I don’t think a lot of these files are are ones they’re going to be able to prosecute and as far as the intelligence to evidence if I may a lot of that’s being exaggerated intelligence isn’t a showstopper in prosecutions you you only have to have a little bit of it and in some cases you don’t need any of it but what’s happened since 911 is the RCMP has gotten used to getting intelligence leads whether it’s from cus or third parties but there’s nothing stopping them from Prosecuting on their own that said if if if if one or two of those cases does meet a criminal threshold uh Professor work I’ll give the last word to you uh if I gather if I’m sort of um implying from your comments so far I think you think it’ll be a while if at all before any names come out whatever means that ends up happening I think that’s probably the reality Vass and I I’m I don’t regret that um I think we have to be very careful in a democracy about naming names in the in the Public Square that really is is pretty rolent of um McCarthyism and you know Senator Joe McCarthy’s I have you know 304 names of known Communists in the state department and so on and so forth we have to be very very careful about that in in a democracy and follow the rule of law I would say I mean I with with all due respect to Dan’s experience on this file we do have crial sanctions available uh have been available for some time um in terms of both the security of Information Act and and the treason offenses in the criminal code that could could have been used I think the problem for the RCMP is that you know it is a vastly overstretched agency it doesn’t have the resources that it needs to conduct complex foreign interference investigations and perhaps to Steve’s Point part of the reason why they were clapping about the report is it was calling attention to the fact that they don’t have the resources and maybe they hope in these straighten circumstances they’ll get some from that report well good luck to them all right I’m GNA leave it there thanks everybody I appreciate the discussion and your analysis tonight Steve Chase with the globa mail at Dan Stanton and Wesley work

The opposition is calling for allegations about some MPs aiding in foreign interference to be included in the inquiry.

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