The only elected official from the opposition in Ottawa who was able to read the unredacted version of the report of the Committee of Parliamentarians on National Security specifies that it does not contain any names of current MPs who have lacked loyalty to Canada.
The leader of the Green Party of Canada, Elizabeth May, deplored Tuesday the “exaggerated media storm” which accompanied the release of a report published last Monday. Its redacted version indicated that parliamentarians “knowingly assisted” foreign state actors.
The Conservative Party and the Bloc Québécois are demanding that the government reveal the names. The Liberal government as well as the New Democratic Party (NDP) also support a motion to be voted on Tuesday to ask the Hogue Commission to look into the question of their publication.
The latter will be very disappointed, according to Elizabeth May, who assures that there is in fact no list of elected officials who have collaborated with hostile states and who currently sit in the Canadian House of Commons. A few elected officials are named, at most, but they would have been exploited without having fully collaborated.
Former elected official and other levels
The most serious allegations in fact concern a former federal elected official, specifies M.me May, according to whom this person should be brought to justice. Other allegations concern elected officials at other levels of government – provincial or municipal – or even candidates for the leadership of political parties, she said.
“There is a mix in the report. […] A completely different mix of situations. There are people elected under different governments, people who sought [à se faire élire] in leadership races. […] But the impression was created [à tort] that we currently have a parliament with MPs who have done things in favor of foreign governments and against Canada. »
The leader of the Greens, a party which has only two elected officials out of 338 in the Commons, was taken Monday afternoon to an undisclosed location, without being allowed her electronic devices or even a notebook to take notes. The intelligence services then allowed him to read the confidential version of the report, to which Justin Trudeau and his Minister of Public Security also had access.
Even though he received the necessary security clearance to also read the report of the Committee of Parliamentarians on National Security, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has not yet had the opportunity to read this version, says his office, for scheduling reasons.
The leader of the Bloc Québécois, Yves-François Blanchet, says he is engaged in the process to obtain the security clearance necessary to access secret information. He clarified on Tuesday that he “does not [prenait] “not act” of what Elizabeth May revealed, since he believes that this information should not have been revealed publicly.
Minister Dominic LeBlanc clarified Monday that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) are ready to charge him with a crime if he ventures to reveal the names of people suspected of foreign interference. He accused Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of being “irresponsible” by declining the security clearance offered to him to read the full report.
A motion from the Bloc Québécois asking to expand the mandate of Commissioner Hogue should be adopted without surprise on Tuesday, although the two Green MPs now intend to oppose it, not considering it appropriate to add to the burden of Judge Marie-Josée Hogue.