(Ottawa) Louise Arbour, Louise Otis, Irwin Cotler, Guy Saint-Jacques: Urged to see the government announce the launch of a public inquiry into foreign interference before the summer holidays, the Bloc Québécois is taking the initiative to propose the names of people who, in his opinion, would have the skills required to carry out the exercise.
The leader of the Bloc Québécois, Yves-François Blanchet, wrote Tuesday evening to Minister Dominic LeBlanc to summarize his expectations as to the outlines of a possible public inquiry, but also to put forward the names of people who could find themselves in charge. of such an exercise.
Among them are Louise Arbour, former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Louise Otis, currently a judge at the OECD tribunal, Irwin Cotler, former Liberal justice minister, as well as Guy Saint-Jacques, former Canadian ambassador to China. .
According to Chief Blanchet, it might be appropriate to appoint assistant commissioners. “For example, Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley, former Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, could thus hold the position of assistant commissioner,” he says.
Be that as it may, “we must proceed quickly, because it goes without saying that Parliament must dispose of this issue before the end of this session, that is in 11 days, so that the electoral process is protected from the next federal election,” argues the Bloc leader in the same missive.
Like the Bloc Québécois, the Conservative Party and the New Democratic Party (NDP) have reiterated, since the resignation of special rapporteur David Johnston last Friday, the need to launch a public inquiry into foreign interference.
Having failed to win over the opposition parties with this process, the Trudeau government chose to turn the spotlight on them last Friday, challenging them to agree on the form that a potential public inquiry should take.
In Question Period on Monday, Minister Dominic LeBlanc, responsible for democratic institutions, said there was an opening for a “public process”, arguing that the idea of a public inquiry had never been ruled out. by the Trudeau government.
It’s up to the government to find, according to the NDP
If the Bloc has decided to move forward in identifying potential commissioners, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, for his part, prefers to leave this to the government. “They are the ones who have all the resources to do the security checks,” he pleaded at a press briefing on Monday.
He did, however, set out three criteria: the person must be a judge or former judge, must not have made political donations in the past decade, and must not have any affiliation with the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation.
The Conservative Party has also preferred, for the time being, to evoke similar criteria.