The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) released a damning report this week alleging that Canadian politicians are colluding with foreign intelligence agencies to spy on their own citizens. But the committee is unable to name any of their alleged co-conspirators because of the Official Secrets Act, which prevents them from doing so.
00:01:44.140In one part of the report, they also say that this espionage, this spying for foreign powers has been undertaken by MPs and senators.
00:01:55.640And senators are not elected officials, but they're certainly officials.
00:01:58.740And so we're trying to get to the bottom of this.
00:02:02.960But it is extremely arcane because it's hard to believe that the government can't name these people without violating the Official Secrets Act and national security.
00:02:19.160And so before I get to the clips that I want to show you, here is what the director of CSIS, David Mignon, Canadian Secure and Intelligence Service.
00:02:34.620I'm assuming everybody knows what CSIS is.
00:02:36.800He suggested to a parliamentary committee on Thursday that party leaders could simply disallow any of these MPs suspected of collusion or espionage, I don't get any collusion, from running for the party again or expel them from caucus over the allegations they cooperated with foreign states like China and India.
00:02:57.400Once again, you know, this is an article from the mainstream media.
00:03:02.200They don't want to say espionage or spying.
00:03:04.940So Vigneault says, if you're not able to find accountability and create an element of deterrence through a judicial process, then there are other mechanisms that have been referred to, including for the leaders to have the information and make decisions.
00:03:20.420Vigneault sounds like a politician to me.
00:04:12.580David McGinty, the chair of a parliamentary national security committee that released the damning report.
00:04:19.960Federal politicians are allegedly colluding with other countries by accepting money, revealing secrets, even meeting with a known intelligence officer of a foreign state.
00:05:04.800Will the Prime Minister release the names of these parliamentarians?
00:05:08.620No government, including the government of which he was a member, is going to discuss particularities of intelligence information publicly.
00:05:15.680The RCMP says it's aware of a, quote, broad range of information being collected on foreign interference, as it conducts multiple active investigations.
00:05:26.440But the Mounties say they did not receive information regarding all the matters contained in that bombshell report, and only learned about them after its release.
00:05:43.560It goes to show you it's getting some traction with the mainstream media.
00:05:47.500As soon as I saw this revelation earlier in the week, I said, this is probably the biggest Canadian spy scandal since Igor Guzenko was revealed to be part of a nest of Soviet spies in the Soviet embassy in the early 1950s.
00:06:03.760I think it was 1952, that one transpired.
00:06:07.120So it's absolutely scandalous that we have MPs that are willing to sell their country for what?
00:06:21.520I don't know what they're, how much money are they getting?
00:06:45.360But it's hard to believe that this is just sort of being passed off by the Liberal government.
00:06:51.160Let's hear what the Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland, had to say about this.
00:06:56.540Do you believe that the MPs who collaborated with the foreign powers should be excluded from the nomination process for the next election?
00:07:04.000The Minister of Public Safety has been at committee today and answered questions extensively on the report.
00:07:18.680Our government takes foreign interference very seriously and law enforcement is working hard on this issue as well.
00:07:34.000Okay, so yes, you expect them to say that they take foreign interference really seriously in the Liberal government, probably because there's been so much of it.
00:07:45.700But this is not the first inkling we've had about foreign interference.
00:07:52.060We still haven't resolved the election interference.
00:07:57.560And what is interesting about this whole scandal is that it does reveal that foreign powers expect a quid pro quo.
00:08:07.780This is in the report that if an MP does something for China, China expects to get rewarded and vice versa.
00:08:19.780So if China was using MPs to further Chinese interests, they're going to find some way to reward that MP.
00:08:28.660Now, how many of these MPs were on the government side?
00:08:31.400I think it's quite clear that that's probably where most, if not all of them, came from.
00:08:40.300Because if you're a foreign power looking to establish influence with another government, you're probably going to be working with government MPs, maybe even cabinet ministers.
00:08:54.760Did you find Chrystia Freeland just a little bit more twitchy than usual there?
00:09:26.860I direct the following questions to Minister LeBlanc.
00:09:29.920The NSCOP report that was recently released reveals that parliamentarians, including members of our House and the House of Commons, knowingly and deliberately assisted a hostile foreign state to the detriment of the people of Canada.
00:09:47.780This places a cloud of suspicion over every single member of the House.
00:09:55.080Elected members, do you know the names of these people?
00:09:59.920Mr. Chair, through you to Mr. Caputo, thank you for the question.
00:10:04.660I am updated regularly and I think in a complete way by our intelligence agencies, by the RCMP, by the Department of Public Safety.
00:10:14.480So I am very comfortable that I have the information that I need to do the work that I have to do.
00:10:19.920But you'll understand that discussing the details, particularly of the most sensitive information, is not something that we want to do publicly.
00:10:28.480Well, I'm not asking you to discuss sensitive information.
00:10:31.880I'm asking whether you know the names.
00:10:35.940I know a number of names that were surfaced in various intelligence products that I have seen.
00:10:41.660But I was not in the room when the Committee of Parliamentarians did their work.
00:10:45.640I don't have the exact details of which documents they saw and didn't see.
00:10:51.220But I'm very comfortable that I have access to all of the most important intelligence information, which would include, in some cases, names.
00:15:05.560So when you talk about disingenuous, you can do this.
00:15:10.020Why won't you before the next election?
00:15:12.200Mr. Chair, speaking of disingenuous, in Mr. Harper's government, the National Security Committee of Parliamentarians didn't exist
00:15:19.760because Mr. Harper's government didn't believe that parliamentarians should have access to this information
00:15:24.900or be able to review the work of our intelligence agencies.
00:15:29.220Mr. Harper's government in 2013, CESIS publicly identified an increasing risk of foreign interference in our democratic institutions.
00:15:36.120And the Harper government did absolutely nothing.
00:15:39.820So, again, Mr. Chair, I think it's important to have a context to these comments.
00:15:45.300So, you are okay with us going into an election, people putting an X beside a name where they have a cloud of suspicion, every single one of us.
00:15:54.240Let's face it, Minister, I think if there were six conservatives on that list and no other liberals, we would have had the names.
00:16:12.900Mr. Chair, again, Mr. Caputo makes something up.
00:16:15.600If there were six conservatives and no other political parties, of course, we would release the list.
00:16:20.220Mr. Chair, I'm not going to violate the Security of Information Act and risk prosecution for a political stunt, and I think Mr. Caputo knows better.