there is no list of MPS who have shown disloyalty to Canada I am vastly relieved that person former MP whose name is not included in the report should be fully investigated and prosecuted there were no references specifically to the Senate but of members of parliament named fewer than a handful and no one in that fewer than a handful would could be described as setting out to knowingly betray Canada in favor of a foreign government we begin today with unfolding details on that bombshell intelligence report that alleges some parliamentarians conspired with foreign actors green party leader Elizabeth May has read the unredacted version of this report and she joins me now Elizabeth May it’s good to see you again thanks for good to see you David thanks you’ve read this report you’ve concluded there are no traitors in Canada’s parliament and you feel better after having seen the secret information I felt worse when I read what was released publicly how did you get to this position well I mean and I was asked it was a JP Tasker asked me on air is this treason I said well this looks like to me if somebody sells out their country’s interests to a foreign government that’s kind of textbook definition of treason right I was feeling well outraged awful there’s all kinds of words one would use and I was asked a million different ways by different reporters how does it feel to sit in that Parliament and not know which of your colleagues might have betrayed their country so thankfully thanks to the uh work of the former uh repur David Johnson I was able to obtain top secret security clearance last summer so I was in a position to arrange to read the full I didn’t just receive a briefing I read the full unredacted report and I kept thinking when am I going to come to this list of MPS or are compromised there is no list of MPS okay there’s no list of MPS but when you go through the findings and the summary of the intelligence because you obviously didn’t there’s thousands of pages of of raw intelligence I’m presuming you didn’t get to read all of yesterday I read what the Committee reported okay but when you go through the findings of the report you can compile a list of incidents and events and references to elected officials to political staffers to parliamentarians which could also imply senator there are people in the parliament of Canada right now who are named in this report correct yes but none of them and again this is really important yes reading the whole report and you’re right they’re in separate instances separate boxes different case studies differently referenced right but it was a relief to find Not only was there not a list you couldn’t put together a list in fact you couldn’t find a single name of a single member of Parliament currently serving who had significant intelligence or any intelligence or any suggestion in the unredacted report that they had put the interest of a foreign government ahead of cidis okay so currently serving so since the election of 2021 uh predating that it seems that there obviously there were because it it this goes back to about 2018 it covers that and and and there are specific incidents in here where they do talk about members of parliament acting in the interest of a foreign country one on page 26 of the publicly available report right that should be investigated and I believe that individual unnamed should be prosecuted from what’s in the unredacted report so this is a former member of parliament who maintained a relationship with an intelligence officer from a foreign country not named even in the secret report that you read so you don’t know who that name is right but there are names in the report you read you said it’s less than a handful so we’re talking low single digits I know you won’t give me that level of precision I was asked not to use specific numbers in respect of protecting our intelligence assets around the world that that helped inform cus and other operatives in writing the information that the committee digested okay now look I know you swore an oath and I know you’re bound by National Security laws but I’m going to ask you about a specific paragraph in the report uh and and see if you can help me interpret this because I find this alarming and interpret this with the reassurance you you were giving Canadians today it’s paragraph 5 5 on page 25 some elected officials however began wittingly assisting foreign State actors soon after their election and then we get a couple of sentences of summary information where it says uh these sentences describe examples of members of parliament who work to influence their colleagues on India’s behalf and proactively provide a confidential information to Indian officials that those particular incidents CED there are you telling me that that does not refer to anybody who is currently in the parliament of Canada this would be people who are not elected right now correct correct okay because that would seem to be we don’t know what the confidential information is I mean that could be caucus Secrets it could be National Security information I have no idea but uh how alarmed are you by those findings having seen the fully unredacted report I was far more alarmed before I read and this be very clear I was very alarmed about the possibility that I was serving with colleagues members of parliament who had put the interests of foreign government governments ahead of Canabis it’s very clear that the efforts of foreign governments to influence Canadian Society Canadian politics in many ways shaped and form is aggressive and there’s many strategies and tactics and we have to much better protect our Democratic institutions then current rules and one place that I’ve pointed to is that that that our oath of allegiance to Canada when we when we swear our Allegiance when we’re sworn in as MPS does not really come with consequences or much guidance and I think we should work on that and I think all the recommendations of the National Security and intelligence Committee of parliamentarians should be fully implemented there are places that I am I’m not sanguin about this David I’m just saying I’m not serving with a bunch of people whose names are in some report that people can’t get at and I think it’s important for Canadians to know that the people with whom I serve have not in terms of the unredacted report there isn’t information that suggests any currently sitting Member of Parliament is deliberately putting the interest of a foreign state above that of Canada okay because because it’s clear it has happened at some point in the past and in the six-year period of time with which uh this report deals right so between 2018 and now it’s clear there were members of parliament that were acting at least that’s the inference we draw from the intelligence but you’re since 2021 there are none of those Bad actors sitting in the House of Commons that’s the information I that’s what I learned from reading the full unredacted report okay there there was some confusion in interpreting what you said about the Senate today you said there were no references to the Senate no names of senators can can we conclude that because NSI cop does make specific reference to parliamentarians that’s right which broadens it Beyond The House of Commons to include the upper house and include Senators do you have any concerns about the Integrity of the Senate as it is currently I have to say that when I was reading this report I was I hate to I was really focused on my colleagues and the House of Commons so as I read the report nothing struck me to be concerned about the Senate but I have to be clear I wasn’t reading to look see am I concerned about the Senate but you didn’t see Senator such and such from this province named as someone involved in this in this report it doesn’t mean it’s not there I want to make sure as I answer your question David that I’m not betraying any confidences in Reading how I read in the information I gleaned from the report I have to respect that some of what was in there even if I say it wasn’t in there am I betraying a confidence under the top secret security clearance that I have so I have to just say I can only say how I felt and how I felt was relieved okay now look and I appreciate that I’m trying to get clarity here not get you convicted of breaking national security laws um one other thing that has jumped out to me as a journalist in this report is the findings by nsic cop that the media has been used as an agent of foreign interference um I the great concern I have is that is this there are references in this report to it being specific Chinese language media that adopted the line of the People’s Republic of China without disclosing it and they have Financial connections uh with the PRC um is it limited to that from your understanding of the report or do we have a problem in in like not that that isn’t a problem but you know the CBC CTV globe in mail National Post Toronto Star should do do we need to consider what we’re seeing in mainstream traditional English and French media in this country I would not think that is the case as much as my sense of journalists maybe documentary makers people who receive foreign support to produce something that looks like an objective documentary but which has in a clandestine way and that’s a key aspect here if it’s sponsored content and it’s not shared with the viewer this was a paid for product of uh an a government somewhere that wants to look good to Canadians then then that’s really concerning but our mainstream media again just speaking for myself I’m not concerned that it is subject to foreign influence jug me Singh uh who who’s going to get the same briefing you got tomorrow I didn’t get a briefing well sorry he’s going to be writing yes but he’s well seeing he’s going to see the same thing that that you saw he saw tomorrow he’s going to see it tomorrow good he has said that the prime minister’s had this report since the 22nd of March and has done absolutely nothing based on what you’ve seen is there something the Prime Minister that the federal liberals should have done upon receipt of this information until now well I again anyone reading this report is aware of the fact that revealing certain bits of information in here and potentially even a lot of the information in here could actually compromise Canadian intelligence assets and actually cause them physical risk of physical harm so what is a prime minister to do I would like to think that we as elected people in the House of Commons especially as jug me Singh gets reads the report maybe he’ll disagree and he’ll have different conclusions for me it’s fair we need to talk about it I think we need to take responsibility for this as parliamentarians and not trying to kick it to someone else which is why I voted against the motion today to add this to the Mandate of Madame Justice hog I think as MPS we need to be sure that we take actions that are required to butress our democracy and by the way if governments are interested in undermining Canadian democracy nothing much better than having us all fighting with each other and trying to find a a treasonous MP under every desk no let’s just be calm what do we know what do we not know and if what we know when we read the full unredacted report if the other leaders feel as I do okay now we know what we know there are some folks who seem to be too cozy with foreign interests they may have allow themselves to be compromised by accepting favors unwittingly that’s what’s already been out there what steps do we take and I do think that some of what we find out here in the unredacted rather in the redacted version the publicly available version suggests that the Prime Minister I think should have taken action earlier based on the advice he was receiving receiving from cus or from the National Security intelligence committee but this particular report and how long he’s had it in his hands and taking action on it this particular part is hard to take action on because so much of it remains secret and classified so so you mentioned uh case studies that are referenced in this in this report and look one of them we know deals directly with hondong who is sitting as an independent and who it is very clear from the summary intelligence in this report that cus considers him to have been a witting participant it’s described as a textbook case of foreign interference in the in describing what happened in Dawn Valley North buses of students come in from a private school used by people um you know citizens of China to get educated in Canada he is still sitting as an independent right now his name has been at the center of this controversy did what you read in this how does how do you view what happened in Don Valley North how do you view hondong uh based on what you’ve seen or is that something that could get you in handcuffs no no no let me just say that when I say there were you know you there are examples and I’ve mentioned this of nomination contests that’s what we’re talking about are we talking about any evidence that Hong deliberately tried to get secrets from the government of Canada and feed them to Chinese operatives no but foreign capture being o something to the Chinese C that is without doubt already in the public domain now the question is he’s not sitting as a member of the liberal caucus what are the remedies Canadians may be interested to to know the only way to remove a sitting Member of Parliament is a vote of all parliamentarians it can happen on a simple motion by one MP and we all vote and if the majority of MPS say this Member of Parliament is no longer a member of parliament they’re gone right the due process on that is very problematic you Lou example earlier exactly but so given that there’s only that one blunt instrument what do you do uh there could be further mechanisms and as I said I think the ethics commissioner should expand that the the responsibility I mean I think it’s an ethical violation even if it doesn’t because it it doesn’t violate the official Secrets act we know from the report that People’s Republic of China broke Liberal Party nomination rules what’s the sanction for that exactly I guess it means the people from Republic of China right so you have to back up and say what do we do about it now right okay I I I have two last quick questions I’m hoping again because I know it got over time and you got to vote the conservative leadership race is mentioned in this the last two in fact China and India allegedly playing a role what concerns do you have about the Integrity of those races based on what you’ve seen well we know since 1983 that a foreigner influenced the conservative leadership race between Joe Clark the more recent ones not but it is interesting for Canadians Carl H shriber brought European money to back the anti- Clark forces since 1983 till now we’ve done nothing about foreign interference in leadership ship races we have improved election laws people running in leadership races have to declare who donated to their campaign that sort of thing but I am concerned but there’s very little information okay and I think we need to keep asking questions about leadership races and how I mean attempts at foreign interference aren’t successful foreign interference and we have to be careful before we throw mud at what can be a damaging um reputational hit until we have more facts and I think if we sat down together as MPS and tried to sort this out we’d be better prepared to protect our democracy okay so this is my La my last question Justin Trudeau knows what’s in this report you know jug meet Singh will know tomorrow e Fran Blanchett is taking steps to find out what will be required of him to be able to do it Pier PVA said no can Parliament deal with this if the leader of the second largest party isn’t briefed in and and able to sit down and help come up with the solution absolutely we have the votes without Pierre PV although why he’s committed not to knowing what’s in the report I don’t understand but he’ll have to answer for himself green party leader Elizabeth May thanks for your time today thank you okay so the green party leader feels slightly reassured the block Quebec W leader is not as convinced I want to make certain that there is none of my MPS which has any kind of implication with the foring and hostile power I feel this is my duty all right we’re going to bring in the Tuesday power panel franois Wan is a former NDP MP the cbc’s Jason marof joins us from Calgary and here with me in studio Michelle cadario is a former liberal national campaign director and Kate Harrison is a conservative uh political analyst uh gang it’s good to see you happy Tuesday uh Kate let’s start with Elizabeth May’s reassuring words about a very alarming topic there is no list of MP she says working against Canada’s interests and clarifying earlier saying the people named and the Really alarming acts in this report they’re no longer in the House of Commons how should people take that I think when we’re talking about something as foundational to trust in democracy and the process reassurance from one Member of Parliament and you know party leader can only really get you so far I think that uh it’s unlikely to curb questions you know while you know folks might not be in the House of Commons that are alleged to have done this she was very careful not to talk about the Senate um one candidate from previous elections could be a future candidate and other ones so I do think that in order for this to get kind of the fullness of sunlight it does need to be brought forward either in the house or uh as the block has proposed with uh Marie just uh justice Marie hul right but you know Michelle Elizabeth May is not saying this isn’t a problem and there hasn’t been bad actors in the past but sort of what we’ve seen of like there Heather mcferson was here yesterday saying there are Traders in the House of Commons right now she was trying to push back against that I mean what do you make of the the way this new information is coming out and and what it tells us well I thought it was incredibly helpful you know it was plain language um it kind of seemed to she she herself said her own fears were kind of a bit reassured and let’s also be clear it’s fully within Blanchette and pov’s power to go and actually sign in and swear an oath and have access to the exact same information paf can find out now who who or what was involved with the conservative leadership race they are choosing not to and they are choosing put partisanship over this I think it was incredibly responsible and quite frankly um probably the best Communications that um that the government’s seen on this whole issue as we’ve gone forward right franois someone who sat in the House of Commons more or less reassured based on what the green party leader had to say well I was really reassured I mean uh uh what a a balloon burst in in in one fraction of a second because we went from there’s Traders in the house of comment and maybe in the Senate also looking over your shoulder uh trying to justify maybe certain position and how we got we got from there to today is beyond me and that’s why I wanted I I do need to know a bit more my only point with Elizabeth may I I’ll be maybe breathing even better if I have another leader that would say uh read the same thing come to the same conclusion which I hope is what’s going to happen but at the same time I don’t get why she didn’t vote for the motion that was presented today I do understand the timeline for justice for commissioner hog but at the same time I do think she needs the the total picture because only an independent person who’s not a politician might put everybody’s at ease because last week since last week David there were a lot of Canadians willing to to to uh call Traders a lot of people so a good day today for for politicians well well Jason the greens you’ll be shocked to know we’re not enough to stop the motion from passing in the house even though their whole caucus was United on this but you know Elizabeth May’s reasoning was a lot like Philip lag who was on the show last night essentially saying Parliament needs to deal with this like don’t punt it to G she’s Bound by the same security law as everyone else is she can’t name names it’s up to Parliament to clean up its own business and for parties I mean where do you think this is today I mean none of the seem to want to deal with this to to to address to D names I me nobody was you know everybody has had the opportunity to do what uh what Elizabeth they did now um jug meet Singh will be going to uh to the to the briefing and itting to hear if he’s as sanguin as uh as the as the green party leader is on this um it also made me wonder why we didn’t hear the similar noises from uh from from David McGinty or uh or or the minister um U the minister lelong um um who also had had seen the document had the same clearance and are likely able to say the same things without um compromising National Security um you know it’s I think it’s healthy to have a 320 to2 uh vote on things uh when there’s uh you know some you know every other every other uh party thinks this is a good uh route uh there’s a dissenting voice uh with a fome explanation and uh we’ll see how useful uh you know Marie Hog’s uh inquiry is on this uh when that happens well I mean k we didn’t even know if the inquiry is going to take it up right like this is a request and we haven’t heard back yet from from the justice and how she feels about it because she’s got tight timelines and a busy job as it is but you know as Jason said jug meet Singh is going to see the report tomorrow it sounds like Mr Blanchett is going in that direction um Mr PV though still saying no I I mean how do you how do we justify that at this point given what Elizabeth May was able to do today after having seen it I mean don’t shouldn’t everybody get right in so they can all address it together yeah well able to do uh what she could do today which was speak in very careful terms about uh the nature of the information that’s disclosed and I think you know given there is very little that party leaders can do to take action and the conservatives in a particular case because they are subject to the Reform Act I.E a party leader cannot unilaterally remove somebody from caucus there would have to be a caucus vote to do so but in order to um actually do something with this information um it would it’s not possible to do that while also uh having a bit bit of an issue around kind of the information contained within the report so now that Elizabeth May has said none of the Bad actors are sitting in Parliament right now the Reform Act should no longer be an obstacle because presumably no one in the caucus needs to be kicked out right so you know you can also deny nominations these going back to your other point so is that there’s also the there’s also the question of the Senate as well and and how that would be perceived but I think it you know to to paint a similar picture uh let’s say somebody stole from you I know who it is let’s say it’s Michelle for argument sake um you know I tell you that privately but then you can’t do anything about that with that information I think that that is an unreasonable suggestion in terms of process when you’re asking a party leader to take action on these issues which again is why If This Were debated and discussed in the fullness of parliament as opposed to back room uh or or background conversations and briefings I think the expectation from the Canadian public is that this should be information that is accessible to everybody and politicians should be able to act on that information and those are not the terms that we’re dealing with right now in relation to this Michelle well but it’s fully within Pierre pao’s responsibility to actually look at how the leadership was run within his party there is nothing to say that he can’t take that information without disclosing names but look at whatever process that was raised in the report and say hey we’ve got to fix that also there’s two members of his caucus right now who are on that committee who have access to that report and there certainly don’t seem to be you know tugging at his coattail saying hey hey Pierre you got to go and read that so you know it it’s just a curious decision that I would rather choose to be ignorant on the information because that otherwise I can’t be partisan about it I don’t think he’s saying we should be ignorant of the information I think he’s saying that the information should be available and transparent to everybody not just to me as a party leader alone and I think that again when we’re talking about process versus politics we seem to be spending a lot of time on the process of what prer POV can and should learn and that way time as opposed to the politics of this and the perception that exists which is uh this has been an issue foreign interference has been an issue for this government for some time and I think again when we spend more time talking about the process and why we’re not disclosing names transparently in the house that is a bad day for the government that’s not a bad day for pier poo sure but but you know Fran to go back to what Michelle said I mean it’s the conser last two conservative leadership races that are mention of this there’s former MPS mention of this we don’t know which party they were in um he’s going to be prime minister if the polls are right in a little over a year um it’s going to be his problem then I mean wouldn’t you want to start taking action on it now oh definitely and I I want to keep that tape of Kate saying just to see in a in a year or two years how a government that would be led by PV if it comes to that uh would act in in similar circumstances because openness is not or lack of openness openness in in government is not just a liberal thing it’s been a conservative thing under Stephen Harper it’s been the same pretty much all the time now we get inside all this a foreign interf interference element that we were not really aware of or seemed to be or willing to be aware of in in the past a decade so I think we all need to know but not in a partisan way but in that’s why fine Justice hope is probably the best person to do so leave the politics aside tell the party and she’s supposed to come in her second part with elements about even nomination she might have something the fact that they want to broen her inquiry please give her time maybe not I understand we want to know all of this before the next election but at the same time we either do it well or we don’t do it at all so I think it’s very important that she can maybe give some great advice to all the parties on how to clean up their act yeah but Jason we do have this situation I appreciate the Reform Act which the conservatives adopted does limit the power of the party leader to Chuck people out of caucus it gives that power to the caucus and there are issues with information sharing there but Parliament deide two leadership races and and also frequent findings of vulnerability in the liberal nomination rules and the leader of One party doesn’t seem to want to know what went wrong with the leadership race and the other party the Liberals don’t seem to want to make changes to their nomination process because they like the openness that it creates even if it is vulnerable I mean with an election coming next year that feels problematic in a lot of ways these are important things I mean that’s you know I think we we’ve gone from yesterday say you know think this inuendo that there’s treason in the house among uh the 338 MPS to Liz May saying uh quite firmly that there’s not treason not traitorous ones Among Us what hasn’t changed is the fact that there are these uh these problems with the nomination meetings problems with the with the leadership um these parties enjoy running their themselves as uh CL as closed clubs as private private entities that it shouldn’t be have uh the elections candada or some other oversight body uh watch them um if they are all serious about uh about foreign interference and uh the Clarion calls from both uh the both the Hogan and sop are saying this um you wonder when they uh they will act and which one will uh take the first step if anyone does you know K candidates are getting nominated now I there’s probably not going to be another conservative leadership race for quite some time I think that’s safe to say that’s the Ontario PC part yeah exactly who knows what’s going to happen there but yeah yeah we may have an Ontario election in the fall um but you you can’t go into the next election without all the parties kind of taking a look at their own systems you know looking under the hood and try to Copper fasten it and but you can’t do that if you don’t know how it’s being exposed which is what this report should tell us yeah and I I think there there are different standards within each of the parties for example the conservative party does not um accept cash memberships uh that is something the Liberal Party continues to do and that is a very uh deliberate decision in order to try and uh eliminate you know faulty memberships Etc and you know signing up people on the spot when they show up on buses to nomination races so there are things the party can do and adopt to try and create a rigor and um a different standard within their own parties and it’s not about not kn the information I think it’s about how it is disclosed who it is disclosed to and again I come back to the perception the perception is that the Liberals have not done enough on the foreign interference inquiry they’ve been dragging their feet on this going back to you know the David Johnston days and now to be arguing a process argument on the part of the the Liberals I think it’s just a bit toned deaf in terms of what Canadians would expect the government to do on something so foundational as this uh just to correct you there is no membership fee in the liberal party so whole there is no there’s no cash trading hands none of that at all they actually went to an act open and free system where people who are eligible can join the liberal party so I just want to make sure that we correct that but I I think you would agree that certainly there are different standards that the Liberals have adopted for nomination races than conservatives for sure they have and there are um and i’ listen I’ve run a national campaign yes there are issues that that surface during not necessarily National Security issues that surface during nominations from all parties for sure and doing background checks and being able to understand what’s going on riding by riding right across the country takes an enormous effort and there are things that that slip through uh again not talking about security issues but things that might have been of concern but I don’t think any one party is more susceptible to that than not um we a citizenship requirement too for for conserva we need only look at the conservative races in the last leadership campaign that you know there was equal number of issues so um I’m not saying that anyone is above it I’m just saying like let’s let’s all take ownership and and have some responsibility of trying to clean up a process as much as you can given whatever information you might have at hand
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has read the unredacted version of an intelligence watchdog report that accuses some parliamentarians of conspiring with foreign governments. She says there’s ‘no list’ of disloyal current MPs in the unredacted report. The Power Panel also weighs in.
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