NDP leader jug meet Singh has now read the full report that alleges MPS aided foreign actors meddling in Canada’s democracy his main takeaway Singh says there have been MPS who’ve acted in unethical and traitorous ways the report indicated that I was a Target after having read the report I am more convinced than ever of the conclusions of the enop committee and the report that some parliamentarians are in the words of the entire ENT services semi- witting or witting participates participants in the efforts of foreign states to interfere in our politics that all of these behaviors of these MPS are deeply unethical and contrary to the Oaths and affirmations parliamentarians take to conduct themselves in the best interest of Canada in short there are a number of MPS who have knowingly provided help to foreign governments some to the detriment of Canada and Canadians there are also politicians at all levels of government who have benefited from foreign interference some of this Behavior absolutely appears to be criminal and should be prosecuted if there continues to be no consequences for MPS who knowingly help foreign governments act against Canadian interests we will continue to be an easy target and it really does highlight to me the the failure of leadership of both Justin Trudeau and Pierre PV deeply concerning failures of leadership like I don’t understand after having read that report why Justin Trudeau didn’t act sooner and doesn’t continues to to show inaction and why Pierre paev as as I am a prospective candidate to become Prime Minister of this country why he expects that people should have trust in him when he doesn’t want to know about very disturbing allegations directly connected to his party that India among other countries were involved in foreign interference in leadership races the fact that he doesn’t want to know and has been silent I believe very firmly disqualifies him as a prospective leader of this country okay all of this leaves conservative leader Pier PV as jug me sing was saying as the only National party leader not seeking the security Clarance to read this full report conservative MP Michael Chong says there’s no point to leaders being briefed on information they can’t share the leader uh would not be able to divulge this information to anyone else and therefore would not be able to act on this information at the end of the day uh if members of the House of Commons are knowingly and wittingly assisting foreign states to the detriment of Canada’s national interests to the detriment of the people of Canada then those individuals need to be held accountable that’s not up for party leaders to decide uh expulsion if it the the offenses are so grave that they require expulsion from the House of Commons that requires a vote of the House of Commons all right we’re going to talk about all of this with the power panel lir columnist Emily Nicola is here carlen Varan is a former Chief of Staff to Liberal cabinet ministers Gary Keller is a former Chief of Staff to conservative cabinet ministers and Andrew Thompson is a former Saskatchewan NDP cabinet minister gang it’s good to see you uh happy Thursday um carlen I would like to start with you the bit of tape we showed there jug me sing was the non-chaotic part of the press availability he had today because it it got very confusing very quickly and it left the impression he was saying current MPS are Traders and I’ve clarified with his office that that is not what he was saying one way or another he wasn’t broadening our understanding Beyond what’s in the NSI cop report but as I was just saying to Melanie Jolie klen this is not the way to do National Security it seems this has gotten quite chaotic over the past week we just blew right past due process didn’t we um I mean one of the first tenants of of of security and intelligence information is that there is a distinct difference between intelligence and evidence uh what the party leaders have been briefed on and and what the nsic cop committee has been briefed on are pieces of intelligence that have been gathered by Canada and by its allies with whom we have information sharing agreements what we saw from J sing there was sort of a a a jump right to there is evidence um that suggests uh criminal activities has been taken he said I’m convinced that um these parliamentarians have been willing participants he stated that he believed that those behaviors ought to be prosecuted I am My Hope Is that this was sort of a moment of being overzealous because I I’m sure that jig meet Singh like most people agrees with and understands the fact that in a democracy like Canada elected officials do not direct law enforcement to arrest or lay charges against or prosecute people and there’s a very good reason for that um I to I think a generous interpretation would be to say that that this was very personal for him because as he mentioned he learned that he had been a Target in this but um yeah I think uh I think he sort of blew past what um many would consider reasonable um today well I I I don’t know if he blew past reasonable or not Gary but I find my issue is is I’m getting more confused the more more politicians read in and the more they say in a partial and incomplete thing slipping back and forth between tenses and in the chaos of a media scrum like let’s face it it was chaotic uh when when he was taking questions I I just wonder what you think of like where we are in our understanding like foreign interference a big thing very clear lots of evidence on that but in terms of who the politicians are how active they are how present they are how recent they are I I’m less clear now yeah and we’ve had now uh yesterday yester’s press conference with Elizabeth May where she said she had quote unquote No worries about uh people in the House of Commons we have Jag me sing now coming out and saying he’s deeply concerned he’s saying he saw what he considered to be a legal uh activity that should be prosecuted you know when you read the unredacted version of the nyop report it talks about maybe illegal not illegal may be illegal and could potentially be an offense but the offenses are not clear we had Melanie Jolie just a few minutes ago on your show David say that she believes that the House of Commons is quote unquote pristine so there’s pristine was my word pristine was my word just to just to be clear your word I I thought she had repeated pristine in any case there are sort of three different readings there and three different interviews and this is the challenge when you have political actors weighing in on this on on this public information and I think at the end of the day it was a responsible uh approach for the House of Commons to vote for me uh Madame Justice UG and her commission she’s a judge she has proper clearances she has proper protocols in place to protect certain pieces of information and intelligence to take a look at this and to to actually weigh on in this because we’re not going to get clarity from political actors I don’t think in some cases I I don’t think it is um uh being an you know active I think like you say in the Heat and the Battle of political discussions you’re going to have different interpretations different explanations and it’s just adding to the confusion uh and and everybody just wants to know are there current sitting both members of the House of Commons or Senators who are fit that category of witting or semi- witting participants in foreign interference and today like you I still feel unclear about yeah Andrew I don’t know where you are on this it seems to me there’s probably not uh beyond the lingering question of hondong because a Don Valley North based on what Elizabeth May said and she was not already contradicted in the clarification from sing’s office but just what’s your thoughts on on where we are now yeah so this isn’t the best way to do it I mean obviously it should go over through some other process but it worries me that the Liberals continue to hide behind this fig Leaf of a difference between you know what is intelligence and what is evidence we’re not necessarily saying there has to be a criminal activity uh for a member of parliament to have disqualified themselves from serving in the parliament if they are winning participants of foreign interference clearly they should be called to account for that and I just can’t understand how it’s so hard for at least two of the parties to be able to come forward and say that and to be able to deal with that either on their own or through some other process I am glad the House of Commons has voted unanimously on Bill 70 I am glad that they’re moving uh in the majority to to move over to the old commission uh this and it needs to be looked at but you know this idea again that somehow there’s nothing to see here despite the fact everyone believing there’s something to see here uh is where the Liberals are hanging their hat on this Andrew just to follow up on that do do I get the sense the Liberals and the conservatives are willing to Chuck people who are witting if it can be proven they’re witting I I think in the conservatives case they don’t know because they haven’t read in and the Liberals case they seem to be not sure because of all the vaguery around intelligence how do you see that well again you know this can be cleared up by uh you know providing a bit more transparency into what has actually been said maybe these aren’t major offenses I said that last week right I mean it’s possible that these aren’t that these are you know transgressions uh who knows and until we actually see what uh you know what is there until they’ve had a chance I think as sing said today you know the MPS themselves should be made aware uh of the uh the allegations against them yes put some due process in place but at the end of the day not everything uh contrary to what the Liberals thinks needs to go to a court some of that should be decided by the electorate Emily what what’s your sense on this it’s been a weird week in Ottawa what’s your what’s your view of it yeah if I was a journalists in on the hill or having access directly to to MTS the one question I would be asking is what’s your understanding of the difference between foreign interference and diplomacy um that line seems to have yeah that line seems to have been lost in the plot and I think that’s why you have people reading the report saying there’s nothing to see here and people reading the report saying this is outrageous and everybody should be persecuted um I think because we’re not when when we’re talking about you know foreign actors interfering in our politics what gets messed up here is the difference between having foreign actors interference in our electoral processes uh you know uh countries trying support a campaign for a candidate or deter the campaign of a different candidate would it be in general elections or within uh political party leadership races and that seems to be what has really upseted J say and what he might have been a target a target of and then there’s the issue that’s been completely put together in the report of people discussing policies with diplomats from countries that we have decided are Bad actors yeah and so and that is a very very different issues and that is the issue in which there seems to be allegations of a whole bunch of MPS engaging in that and that is this exactly the same kind of thing that uh POS phip Shang for example when he’s advertising that he’s going to the United States talking to elected officials over there trying to defend Canadian interest there if we are using the same Lance that we have been talking about here in Canada about about foreign interference we could be saying that the Canan government is doing foreign interference in the American election we’re not doing that because we know the difference between trying to influence policy and having policy conversations with NPS and trying to mess with electoral processes and the way that this report has been drafted is that it’s not making that difference and there is things that are bundled together that should not be bundled together and there’s questions there’s things that are being framed as for interference because it’s coming from countries that are that are framed as Bad actors and that other countries are doing exactly the same thing and we’re doing exactly the same thing with other countries and that’s just framed as diplomacy and there’s no there’s no clear line there there’s there’s very little rule to to to define the kind of lobbying that MPS are able to get from Diplomat from diplomats that Canada has not cut ties with but is being in an awkward situation with and that is the the to me the the gray area of messiness that allows everybody’s feelings to get really really high and people to have a lot of questions and have very little answers right but there is a whole issue of overt and covert when when Minister shampagne goes to the United stes that is a media blitz right he’s going there to reinforce the relationship not saying vote Democrat over Republican at least that’s that’s how we understand it the covert stuff the covert stuff is the challenge and Gary so this goes back to Melanie Jolie say jug me Singh said it you know uh Pier PV is not afraid to go against the tide in this Parliament I think that’s easy to say but I there is this question of why he won’t read it he says his hands would be tied because he can’t act on it with MPS but there’s allegations of interference in leadership races involving the one he one nominations these are things you can deal with as a party leader without being constrained by the Reform Act what’s the what’s the justification and not wanting to know if the issue is so serious they had to get rid of David Johnson and demand a public inquiry well I take both the leader and Michael Chong at their words when they they say they strongly believe that they’re not going to be able to raise the issues and prosecute the case how the government is handling foreign interference in the House of Commons both inside and outside the house that’s a political rather than a naal security concern right the question is is that a politically tenable position going on at the same time when you have all these different readings into it uh and and and I and I don’t know if that will be a politically tenable position in the long run I mean I think that is that is ultimately the big question here as for you know the unredacted version of the nyop report does discuss accusations of interference in uh leadership races plural uh by both India and the People’s Republic of China um I think there’s no reason why Justice L couldn’t look at that I mean she has looked at nomination races uh involving Han dong and Don Valley West and the liberal party I I don’t see why there would be any Don Don Valley North we don’t want to implicate an in da Valley North they keep changing they keep changing the dawn valleys uh but uh yeah I think for me the question is is it politically tenable because at the end of the day uh political leaders are responsible for signing nomination papers and I take Mr pully of at his word when he says he strongly believes he won’t uh be able to prosecute the case inside or outside the House of Commons that’s a position that’s backed up uh by uh Tom mare earlier today on on another Network right okay but Tom mare uh supports be POV but but carlen is should the I guess should the motivation of a parliamentarian who is the front R to be prime minister be that I can’t prosecute it politically rather than I can solve this as a leader and as a parliamentarian absolutely not it’s about leadership um to be the only political party leader um that is deciding you know I can’t do it exactly the way I would like therefore I’m refusing to participate at all um it’s it’s shering your responsibility as a parliamentarian but beyond that you’re the leader of a political party whose leadership race is named in this report as having been subject to interference the mental gymnastics that you have to do to get to a place of saying well it doesn’t make sense for me to learn more about that as the leader of that organization um it’s staggering I actually think and I I really want to give credit to Poo’s team I think they’re an extremely strong political team they some of the smartest political strategist in Canada uh right now but I think we might be witnessing the first really true strategic error um of his team in this hard-nosed refusal to get briefed because we are weeks into this you could actually say we’re a year into this larger foreign interference story at this point and what are we talking about we’re talking about Pier PV and his refusal to get briefed it’s an increasingly untenable position I don’t see it lasting Andrew how do you see that the number one job the number one job of the leader of the opposition is hold the government to account and Mr Sing earli Mr Sing earlier today and you know what he said when he was asked Point Blank will you take this government down and will you vote against this government he’s going to have a chance to do that tonight only measure later to account in a press conference bylting faure and he was ask point blank are you going to support the government and he muffled his way out of it well I mean he has commented in the past on the wisdom of bringing down a government until you’ve dealt with the issue of foreign interference having an election until we know how we’re going to actually have safeguards but Andrew and Emily I want to get your quick thoughts uh on this you know should Mr ply have get briefed in Andrew your thoughts well sure of course you should I mean I can’t imagine a situation where political leader wouldn’t want to know what allegations are being made especially within their own party I mean I think when we listened to Elizabeth May yesterday we were all a little bit relieved although nobody asked her directly whether she had been targeted or whether she had been her party had been named but the Assumption was no uh today Singh says yes he was targeted uh ostensibly one would assume by India uh and you know that he’s concerned about this and he’s concerned about who else is is under pressure in the parliament you know for a party leader not I mean I find the other two positions tough you’ve got the liberal party leader who’s read the report but doesn’t seem to be doing anything about it and a conservative party leader that’s refusing to read the report and also isn’t doing anything about it I don’t know how either of those positions really hold uh Emily quick last word to you and we got to take a break uh we just need to remember that it was PF starting this whole fire in the first place last year because yes it has been over a year now since this stor is going on with foreign interference and and a lot of that was uh efforts targeting uh the trudo government but even looking at this non-story in hindsight that was also the Trudeau Foundation um and you know trying to really make the Liberal Party look as a bunch of corrup people who are you know in bed with China and all of that and now that it is coming back to him and what about you what have you been are you been a target of that um it is his his tactics is is changing and the only way I think he might think of getting away with this is because um people have a very short-term memory in politics but if you do take uh the long the yearlong Run of how this whole thing started P refusing to look at the report now uh isn’t looking good and I think uh if if people are given that Long View they will they will they will agree that it really doesn’t look good foro yet
After reading the unredacted report on foreign interference, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says ‘a number of MPs’ have knowingly helped foreign actors work against Canada’s interest. Singh’s office later said the leader’s comments should not be taken as confirming or denying that current MPs are involved.
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