the BL Quebec leader says some of his counterparts have been a little Loos lipped on foreign interference e franois Blanchett has yet to read that top secret report alleging some MPS have helped foreign agents but when he does Blan plans to keep the details to himself unlike green party leader Elizabeth May and NDP leader jug meet Singh prime minister Justin Trudeau joined me for an exclusive interview yesterday and he said the public inquiry into foreign interference will be the best way to get clarity on this maybe they should not have had the right to read it if they don’t know what to do or what not to do with such information but I’m certain that they did not have the right to say that I want to make sure that there’s no case of MPS being compromised in my caucus that’s the only thing I need to know Richard faten is a former director of the Canadian Security intelligence service and he joins me now Richard faten always good to see you thanks for joining us today glad to be there I I wonder if I can start by getting your reaction to something that came up on my interview with the Prime Minister yesterday when when I asked him about jug meet Singh suggesting that members of his caucus the NDP caucus were not affected by Foreign interference just want to play this and get your reaction is it tenable to to just go on without names attached to some of these allegations I mean jug me Singh has said that uh there’s nobody in his caucus he needs to worry about can you say the same thing with comfort and Clarity um I I hadn’t known that jug meet said that um I would be wary of any party leader uh drawing any sort of conclusion like that including Mr Singh I would be wary of any party leader drawing any conclusion like that Richard what do you make of that jug meet sing’s assertion and the prime minister’s response there well I think too many parliamentarians are playing this a little bit too cute um do you mind if I do a bit of alphabet soup with you sure Sr special reporter NS Ria the National Security review and intelligence agency NSI cop and piffy all of these agencies have looked at this issue of foreign interference in one shape form or other and to the PM’s credit he asked two of them to actually look at the matter but what I find striking about this there’s no parliamentary group involved in looking at this at all there are words from the Prime Minister from Mr Singh and Miss May which are not particularly enlightening so I think we need some form of parliamentary involvement in this because in the final analysis I think this isn’t entirely a security and intelligence issue or a national security issue it’s an accountability issue and the people who are most accountable are in no way involved in any of this research or in any of this analysis okay so so nsic cop though would be a committee made up of MPS and senators of parliamentarians but they’re Bound by secrecy you’re talking about a more traditional committee for example that like we have with Finance or government operations that sort of thing yeah what I was thinking of I don’t can I ask you to cast your mind back to the Winnipeg Winnipeg Labs issue and in May of 2023 the leader of the house put out a press release saying he was constituting a a committee of the house which would have access to secure documentation and then he said they’re constituting a panel of experts two former Supreme Court Justices and the federal court of appeal Justice who would be empowered to judge and to formulate how things could be made public what I don’t understand is if they could do this for the Winnipeg Labs why can’t they do it here it to my mind you know everybody says they’re terribly concerned about foreign interference but they seem the parliamentarians seem to be pushing this out as far as they can and as you know uh M hug or Justice hug is not entitled to release any of this information Beyond a certain point the only person who was authorized to issue or released this information was the man you were interviewing yesterday yet the Instinct seems to be to push it out to another agency to another group other than parliamentarians right he he was uh the Prime Minister obviously was suggesting yesterday that he is not going to take extraordinary steps uh to provide Clarity on this is what I took from the interview and urge essentially Canadians and journalists and commentators and experts to trust the individual processes nsic cop and S the alphabet soup you went through but as you say Richard the the the public inquiry into foreign interference can’t sort of name names and reveal the things people are asking for so what do you think can come from Justice Aug on this because she said she’s going to take it up you know she thinks she can do this under her terms of reference what what can come out of that process to help us with this well I think if she goes through this exercise and you know she talks to a whole bunch of people it’ll be interesting if she thinks she needs to speak to Mr McGinty and all of his people for example uh but I think in end she’ll probably add some credibility to the findings that we’ve all been talking about from all of these various incend organizations having said that that’s a good thing but we’re still not going to get any names or any further so what I do not really understand and would argue that we need to get around is the prime minister talked to you for you know five or 10 minutes yesterday about foreign interference he could have said my caucus is not affective or my caucus is affected and I’m going to deal with it doesn’t have to release names doesn’t have to do anything all of the other party leaders could have done the same thing and my sense is that unless something like this happens there’s going to be a huge question mark and a reduction in the confidence that people feel in their public institutions because all of this alphabet collection of alphabet soup institutions have said the same thing in one shape form or another we have a serious foreign interference problem but none of the party leaders have stood up and said my caucus is affected or not and I’m going to do something about it so it seems to me we that would go a long ways towards resolving some of the issues even if as I say I think Justice hog will help The credibility of this whole file but in the end it is Party leaders the prime minister in particular who’s the man ultimately accountable for for for National Security who has to I think all of them have to stop referring this to other institutions and to step up themselves well the argument has been and and this has been what David McGinty the chair of nsic cop has said is that we want the party leaders to come together and have an adult conversation about this instead kind of what we’re getting are these fragmented assessments where Elizabeth May does a news conference one day and then several days later has another one to clarify it chug meet sing has his news conference which seemingly contradicts Miss May Pierre PV won’t read the report because he says he doesn’t want to have his hands tied and and Mr Blanchett From the Block said today he’s going to read it he just wants to know if he’s got anyone to worry about and you will not see him speaking publicly about it because he doesn’t think what jug meet Singh and Elizabeth may have done has been helpful does that sound like the adult conversation David McGinty and his fellow parliamentarians are asking for what does that look like to you no it doesn’t it seems to me they’re all looking to their particular interests I mean you know I understand at one level why Miss May and Mr Singh wanted to say something in public public but they wanted to say something in public that was classified secret there’s a bit of an oxymoron here I think Mr blanchett’s position at one level is more rational but at another level I don’t understand given all of the confusion that is surrounding this Mr McGinty doesn’t stand up and try and offer a few explanations a few justifications he’s not a judge we have a tradition in this country that judges don’t defend their decisions he’s not a judge I would think he more than almost almost anybody could add you know a few facts here and a few facts there to increase the credibility of the process but I I don’t think that the party leaders all making statements uh somewhat contradictory will add to their credibility the this committee enop nsop however you want toh say it was created by this prime minister right so we’re we’re finding out about the issues here from a committee that he created but he’s also cast out on its findings after suggesting uh more than a year ago when when he sent them on this assessment path that Canadians could sort of trust this committee because it was built for this kind of purpose where does that leave us I mean I I guess the prime minister is is free to disagree with the conclusions of this committee but does it undermine its work does it undermine its findings or is this just the normal tension between the executive and and and a committee I think this is quite extraordinary as you know the Prime Minister had access to this report I think it was April or March March 22nd I believe yeah yeah he could have asked NSI cop for clarification he could have asked them to talk to CIS indeed he could have asked the privy Council Office to contact our close allies and see what they thought of all of this so to wait until yesterday or the day before whenever he said this to say that he had preoccupation strikes me as extraordinary he amongst everybody else in this country was a is able has the authority and the responsibility to clarify any preoccupations that he might have and if necessary you know ask mcin and Company to issue a new report but I think that does a great deal of harm to not the nsic cop itself but what governments are going to do with the system I think it’s to Mr Trudeau’s government’s credit that they created nsic cop but I think you’ll recall or I hope you’ll recall nsic cop issued report not too long ago chastising the government for not implementing or dealing seriously with their recommendations so clearly there’s an issue here so just as a final point I I mean just to go through the leaders you’ve got Mr Trudeau who is uh sort of casting doubt on the findings of the committee he created and has been criticized for kind of ignoring the recommendations of really for a number of years M May who says she’s still alarmed about the issue but more relieved about the the the composition of the House of Commons jugg me sing says he’s more alarmed after reading it Mr Blanchett who says he won’t say but Mr PF who says he won’t read it at all because he feels this is not something he needs to do because he’ll be he’ll have his hands tied what’s the best path here should Mr PV read it or is he better off staying out of it until the the judge renders some sort of a decision later this year I I think he should read it and uh I I I don’t buy the argument that his hands are going to be tied throughout the last several decades you know members of parliament have been briefed on security things on what’s called a privy Council basis their colleagues in Westminster and in Australia do this on a regular basis I don’t think these circumstances are so special and the issue is so unimportant that Mr POV who is after all a potential prime minister can simply say on this important national security issue I want to maintain my ability to comment on a piece of paper that I haven’t read so I think he should read it and whether or not he makes a public statement of course is for him to judge but particularly since all of the other party leaders will have seen the report I’m not sure it again will reinforce our confidence in the possibility that you know he will take National Security seriously in the next 1 two 3 four 5 years former CIS director Richard faton always appreciate the time thank you sir good to talk to you all right so what are Canadians thinking about all of this let’s bring in the power panel on that Kate Harrison is a conservative political analyst Emily Nicola is a columnist with lud devoir Michelle cadario is a former liberal national campaign director and franois B is a former NDP mp uh franois I I’d like to start with you what did you make of the Prime Minister there in his response to what jug meet Singh had to say about there’s no one he has to worry about in his caucus first he was startled and second I was startled I was startled that the Prime Minister was not aware or nobody made him aware of what uh Jag mid Singh had said I mean if I’m going to go do an interview with de David uh believe you me uh I mean Ser that’s reserve for David Common by the way but anyway go ahead I would say to my team you brief me on everything I mean as much as you can but that set aside he really looked startled uh like he couldn’t believe that J mid Singh had said that you remember last week we were all relieved I personally was super relieved after May said I was wondering why she came out and said such a thing if she had the right to but other than that I was happy that all the traitors were put to rest and we would stop trying to hunt them and and so on and so forth and and then come Jag me and then it’s I’m not sure I understand what what he says versus what may says and then Justin Trudeau’s comment means that he shouldn’t have said it because it’s not true or you shouldn’t have said it because it implies that other party I I mean I could see all the questioning in his head as for Mr mcfaden uh I might come back a bit later on that one I’ll let my other colleagues talk about it but uh I so disagree with him part of the problem is themselves the the the the information if two people can read the same thing not understand a thing imagine when they’re brief on interference foreign interference uh if they’re that clear no surprise that our leaders don’t know what to do and with all that info m Michelle I couldn’t you know with the Prime Minister when he paused I I I said to him look people are going to look at those answers and think you’re you know implicating the new Democrats and he wouldn’t go further on that I don’t know if he was startled as Francois says or just choosing his words very carefully as a lot of politicians have who have read the report and have been asked about the specifics of the report but where do you think we are in our understanding of all of this now based on three different versions from three different leaders and Mr bloned saying I’m going to read it and I’m going to shut up well good for Mr Mr Blanchett actually it’s that’s probably wise but I think that what I’d like from where I have have heard of this what Jag me sing said in terms of his current MPS not H not being named in the report is actually consistent with what you know Elizabeth May said in terms of saying no current MPS are are in in this report I think that what Mr Trudeau and what I heard him say is he wasn’t actually speaking specifically about who was in and who was out because that is pro you know that he could see that as crossing the line in terms of what you’re allowed to say and not but what he talked about is that all Party leaders should have probably be taking concerns that are being raised not bro more broadly about very seriously and that each party leader has a responsibility to act within their own party to make sure that they are addressing those kinds of things that are within the party purview and I suspect that when the commissioner comes out with her more comprehensive report and comprehensive set of recommendations it’s those very kinds of issues um that will be will be raised it’s hard because this is all security matters and nobody can speak in specifics and everyone is super cautious because they don’t want to break the secrets act they’ve taken an oath to to uphold so you know I I think that we all are can read what we want into it or see different sides of it because it’s such a murky murky Communications that’s coming out well well and Emily we all have to parse the meaning of every individual word because we are Flying Blind and the politicians are being careful and they are being selective so the Prime Minister says you should be wary of any leader who says their caucus isn’t touched by Foreign interference but what the report talks about is witting and unwitting participants in foreign interference so touched by Foreign interference could mean you were the target you were solicited without knowing and then witting and unwitting implies a level of corroboration or willful blindness like it it is so subjective and interpretive it only adds to the confusion and lower understanding at this point yes and it allows uh for uh people to uh Panic essentially uh because the problem with this report and I think I’ve said this before is that there the the definition of foreign interference in West Carolina is is so vast that now people associate foreign interference with issue of you know somebody in a rigan election and really what it’s included is in this report is much much more broader than that there’s issue of just influencing policy there’s issue of just meeting with diplomats or meeting with people who have ties with uh foreign countries and and and and and because all of that is tied together it makes for emotions to be running very high and I think it implies it it sorry it has some consequences as well in terms of what we saw on the air with you when when when the prim was was titled first of all he usually has a team of people thinking of put communication lines with him he didn’t have that he was put on the spot and the the words he chose I think are can be explained if you understand Point inference in the broadest sense possible uh that you know everybody need essentially everybody needs to be uh careful nobody is above the the problem but we do also need to realize that necessarily the closer you are to power the more interesting you are to be influenced and uh be the target of any form of lobbying would it be from private sector would it be from uh civil society would it be from uh foreign actors as well and so of course it’s more less likely for the NDP and the blacka and the green party uh to be uh of interest uh to foreign actors given that they’ve never held uh Power in Ottawa and so there is there is that and I think it explains maybe uh why the NDP is feeling confident and speaking the way it does right but at the same time if you’re talking about you know just we need to solve the issue and make it nonpartisan then the way that the Prime Minister answered made a lot of sense Kate uh how do you view where we are now that three of five leaders have read it yeah uh I don’t know that we’re any further along in terms of understanding what foreign interference looks like in terms of the context and the scope um who of course is actually at fault is it current parliamentarians current Senators previous parliamentarians um you know which parties are impacted and I I I will say I think uh prime minister Trudeau was correct to call out jug meet Singh for being so equivocal in that statement because we should be taking a bit of a broader lens to the forign interference question so I think you know we now have three Party leaders that have seen it um we’re not really any further along we’re still operating in a big information vacuum which I think helps the conservatives in terms of defending their position in terms of letting Canadians see and decide and judge with some context um how how deep this interference runs um rather than just receiving a private briefing choosing to you know pronounce on some elements of that in or in you know Mr blanchett’s Case not at all um but let’s put a little bit more sunlight add some context not just names uh but add some context to this because with without that uh we’re going to continue operating in this very distrustful and sort of vague environment with people assuming the worst of their colleagues or future candidates okay I I want to play something just on because context comes with getting all the information and reading the report which is something Mr P won do and I asked Richard faden about that in the interview just want to play what that the former head of cus had to say and get your reaction on the other side I think he should read it and uh I I I don’t bu the argument that his hands are going to be tied I don’t think these circumstances are so special and the issue is so unimportant that Mr POV who is after all a potential prime minister can simply say on this important national security issue I want to maintain my ability to comment on a piece of paper that I haven’t read okay you know he Richard faton also said it doesn’t give you a lot of confidence that a conservative government would take National Security issues that seriously he also criticized the Prime Minister for not acting on the past recommendations of nsic cop a committee he created and points to is how he takes this issue seriously that’s the former head of cesis saying the opposition leader should read it he should know what’s going on and everybody needs to be informed and at the table if they’re going to deal with this in Parliament yeah I think there is a difference between uh being aware of the contents via a a briefing one to one uh obviously there is a disagreement in terms of what uh the party uh leader can actually do in terms of disciplining caucus members for example that could be caught up in something like this um but there is a difference between having the the context and all of that information in the report or at least what can be shared brought forward for everyone to see and judge and what one individual leader may be privy to I think actually seeing how Singh and May and Blanchett and to some extent the Prime Minister have responded so differently is actually a great rationale for why everybody should see some elements of this report rather than leave it to the determination exclusively of party leaders right but uh I guess um franois Party leaders have to deal with nominations Party leaders have to deal with leadership races and other party roles I mean the the call from D David McGinty and and others is for an adult conversation and everybody’s going off in their own Direction like a foreign intelligence Tower of Babel story and that’s what baffles me in a sense we all claim that foreign interference is a serious serious problem in this country well if so we should take it as such and act accordingly now we’ve got a few people because we have to understand when you’re dealing with foreign interference and spying and so and treason and all type of of concept like this you have to you have to thread very carefully legally but also protect some Source uh sources and and so on and so forth thus the secrecy you trust that you’re elected official and and even more so your leaders and the prime minister to act really seriously upon the information that they’re put that’s what we always say uh leave it to the adult in the room I would have wished that it was all the leaders that they would maybe have sat together and say okay we might not agree on everything or read the same thing inside the report or the information that is there some people might be more sensitive to certain aspect than others but we can agree on Common Grounds maybe on on on uh choosing our future candidates uh maybe uh like the the the registry we’ve got a government that read the report at the top that knows what’s in there and came up with Bill I think it’s C70 or yeah I might and and in bill c7e you should see almost elements of answers to a problem I’m not so sure that we see everything into it because I suspect that there will be some some claims about uh Aldi sponsored by uh other countries uh sponsor trips to some little delegation and I’m not talking about going to learn how they do their election in certain countries but to try to influence politically and and show certain aspect even Gaza Palestine right Israel so many of these things that are the bill is footen by those those group outside of our Parliament there’re might be some recommendation at some point in time by the commissioner that’s why I say at this point in time she’s the only adult left and hopefully she’ll have a stronger recommendation than what we’re reading right okay but Michelle uh you know the and the judge the the statement from the commission and taking this up says uh this will all be done in accordance with the rules and principles applicable to any independent Commission of inquiry and include the obligation to respect the principles of procedural fairness and the fundamental rights of any person affected by its work in compliance with the rule of law so a very judicial type lens and process is going to be taken here everybody who deals with intelligence or dealt with intelligence for their career like Richard fed and Ward elcock experts like Philip lagas and Stephanie Carin who we’ve had on the show they all say this is a role for the party leaders in Parliament to deal with and they’re all coming up with process reasons not to deal with it directly as leaders of the parties of parliament by sending it to the inquiry or or saying you know other bits of legislation stop me from dealing with these things I mean what do you make of this using proc as a shield well first off I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with with sending it to the commissioner of inquiry to a judge to someone who actually is within who knows the scope of the law to be able to come back with real recommendations and that doesn’t mean that from there then the party leaders don’t act you know it might be precipitous for them to act without without it and uh you know having those kinds of recommendations make sense but the very fact that Pierre POV continues to put his head in the sand and would actually rather see in in sense of what he’s saying that let’s just burn any of our intelligence assets um because I need to make a political point is he suggesting that all of his cabinet documents are going to be open is he suggesting he’s never going to take a top secret uh briefing that it’s just going to be a complete open government not a chance and so he’s just he’s being hypocrite on this and you know how can you take him seriously um and believe that he actually cares about this issue you know I don’t want to say that he’s covering public release of names though Michelle calling for the public release of names that is not putting your head in the that imp let start a big list let’s start a list of people who aren’t confirmed and in the process PBE put people’s lives in danger he’s asking for a list that he doesn’t even know what it is so how about actually go and read the report see what it is see how what the intelligent sources are and who they are and how they they came about this information if anybody would be put at risk in terms of putting that information out and then if he still feels the same nothing stopping him from saying that that afterwards exactly at all there’s nothing stopping him from saying it after he’s actually read the report okay informed I I got to get to a break but I want to give Emily a quick last word uh I think we need to backrack uh backtrack Sor a little bit last summer uh we waited for weeks for MPS to put together the terms for a commission of inquiry because after everybody was calling for inquiry they realized how hard it was to come up with terms that made sense to look into this conversation in a way that would be productive and helpful uh the committee of MPS that worked on those terms for that commission worked really hard and then realized that David Johnson wasn’t so you know wrong when he was saying that this isue was really complicated and now we have this Commission of inquiry and what you have is an completely different process basically a a report drafted by MPS who who’s basically stolen the spotlight of a commission of inquiry that was carefully for months uh you know T through in terms of how difficult it was to have this process not go off the rails because of how sensitive the information is and so that’s the situation we’re in now is that after we’ve spent all last summer realizing how hard it was to have this conversation the way I was productive and not make the conversation go off rails we’re just ignoring that Commission of inquiry and making the process go off rails and that’s been it seems to me the new cycle for the for the last 10 days
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he has some ‘concerns’ about some of the findings in the NSICOP report. Both the NDP leader and Green Party co-leader also read the unredacted version of the report and drew different conclusions. Former CSIS director Richard Fadden discusses the varying takes by party leaders and explains why he thinks these comments are ‘not enlightening’ to Canadians.
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