MPs wittingly helped foreign agents, Liberals slow to respond: NSICOP

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OTTAWA – Some MPs were “wittingly assisting” foreign state actors after being elected, and Canada could feel the consequences of the Liberal government’s slow response to foreign interference for years to come, according to a new report from a high-level panel of MPs focusing on intelligence.

The National Security Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) released a report Monday into foreign interference, both in the 2019 and 2021 elections, but also more broadly into the country’s democratic institutions.

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The parliamentary panel said the government’s actions have been too slow and have failed to keep up with an evolving threat.

“The slow response to a known threat was a serious failure and one from which Canada may feel the consequences for years to come,” the committee wrote. “The implications of this inaction include the undermining of the democratic rights and fundamental freedoms of Canadians, the integrity and credibility of Canada’s parliamentary process, and public trust in the policy decisions made by the government.”

The all-party committee reviewed 33,000 pages of documents from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the RCMP and other departments about foreign interference. MPs sitting on the NSICOP panel can receive top-secret information without any redactions, but the reports they release publicly are censored to remove classified information.

The report details attempts by both India and China to curry favour with politicians at all levels of government and cases where elected officials attempted to influence outcomes for the benefit of a foreign power.

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“The committee has also seen troubling intelligence that some Parliamentarians are, in the words of the intelligence services, ‘semi-witting or witting’ participants in the efforts of foreign states to interfere in our politics,” the report said.

The report said there were cases of parliamentarians “Communicating frequently with foreign missions before or during a political campaign” to get support from community groups “which the diplomatic missions promise to quietly mobilize in a candidate’s favour.”

Some MPs had “knowingly or through willful blindness funds or benefits from foreign missions or their proxies” that were disguised to “conceal their source.”

It also said some parliamentarians had provided “privileged information” about the work of fellow parliamentarians, knowing it would be used for foreign influence, and others responded to “requests or direction of foreign officials to improperly influence” Parliament to the benefit of a foreign state.

The details of these cases were all removed from the final report, but the committee said intelligence agencies found cases where MPs proactively provided information to Indian officials and attempted to influence their colleagues in the country’s favour.

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They also highlighted a case where a former MP met with an intelligence official in another country.

The committee affirmed what has been reported in media leaks from Canadian intelligence insiders, the report of former special rapporteur David Johnston, and the first report from the public inquiry into foreign interference: That foreign interference is common and that China’s government is a major actor attempting to influence Canada’s elections.

The committee also found India’s attempts to influence Canada’s politics are growing and go beyond trying to discredit Sikh activism for an independent state in India.

“India seeks to cultivate relationships with a variety of witting and unwitting individuals across Canadian society with the intent of inappropriately exerting India’s influence across all orders of government, particularly to stifle or discredit criticism of the Government of India.”

In addition to confirming previous reports that China interfered in individual ridings in the 2021 election and appears to have spread misinformation about former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu and former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole, NSICOP revealed that both China and India sought to interfere in the Conservative party’s leadership races.

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Responding to the report Monday, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said the government disagrees with some of the findings, arguing that some of the information reported within lacks necessary “caveats.”

He also took offence to criticism that his government has not adequately informed MPs who are the targets of foreign interference.

“The government’s concerns centre around the interpretation of intelligence reports which lacked the necessary caveats inherent to intelligence, as well as the lack of acknowledgement of the full breadth of outreach that has been done with respect to informing Parliamentarians about the threat posed by foreign interference,” he said

LeBlanc disagreed with a finding in the report that the government should have moved much faster to block foreign interference and that it still hasn’t done enough to counter the threat.

He pointed to legislation the Liberals recently introduced in May that is meant to bring in many long-awaited changes, including a foreign-influence registry.

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“A number of the things in the NSICOP report are already being enacted in Bill C-70, the legislation before the House to counter foreign interference,” he added.

LeBlanc said the example of an MP seeking a meeting with a foreign intelligence office is an example of information in the report that doesn’t have all the necessary caveats, implying that other documents might undermine that finding.

“That’s one of the concerns we have in terms of leaving the impression that an individual piece of intelligence might constitute evidence or might be a fact,” he said.

David McGuinty, a Liberal MP who chairs NSICOP, said the government’s response in C-70 is only part of what needs to be done.

“Definitely C 70 goes some distance. It’s certainly a step in the right direction, but it’s not complete,” he said.

McGuinty said C-70 doesn’t address the problem of how to turn intelligence information, collected by spy agencies like CSIS, into evidence for courtroom proceedings. He said the example of MPs helping foreign powers could not be properly dealt with in a courtroom today, because of this issue.

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“Some of these (actions) may be illegal … but they’re unlikely to lead to criminal charges, because we’re still not able to deal with this long standing issue of protecting classified information, sources and methods in judicial processes,” he said.

He said regardless of whether these issues can be dealt with criminally, MPs from all parties on NSICOP agreed what some MPs were doing with foreign powers was clearly wrong.

“The members were unanimously struck by these examples. And all agreed unanimously, that the behaviours as described here are deeply unethical. And they’re in breach of the oaths and affirmations that parliamentarians take,” he said.

The committee also called for significant changes to party nominations, noting they were a weak link in how the political process operates. The Liberal party, for example, allows non-citizens to vote in party nominations and no party has any outside oversight of their nominations through Elections Canada.

“Parties need to reduce or eliminate opportunities for foreign states to directly or indirectly interfere in a foundational part of our democratic system – the nomination process – by identifying and addressing vulnerabilities in their own systems and processes, including in areas such as age and residency requirements and fundraising,” the report said.

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McGuinty said Liberals should at least have a conversation about changing the party’s nomination system, but said it is really something all parties should come together on to strengthen nomination contests in every party.

“Committee members believe that this is a conversation that should be had between parties,” he said.

NSICOP members also found problems within the federal government in understanding the nature of the dangers from foreign governments, with different departments having different ideas on what exactly foreign interference is or how much of a threat it presents.

“While departments and agencies appear to have coalesced around a similar definition of what constitutes foreign interference, differences still persist in measuring the gravity of the threat, recognizing interference in practice and determining thresholds for action,” he said.

For example, the committee noted that CSIS had long warned Global Affairs Canada (GAC) about former Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei, who the government expelled last year after allegations he had participated in an effort to intimidate Conservative MP Michael Chong by targeting his family.

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“GAC had frequently dismissed CSIS reporting on foreign interference activities in democratic processes and institutions, including those conducted by Mr. Zhao. GAC believed that CSIS had misunderstood regular diplomatic behaviour,” the report said.

The report also found continuing problems with the way intelligence is shared and distributed throughout the government.

“The government must also address deficiencies in how intelligence is distributed, assessed and used internally, and in doing so build a culture where officials and Ministers alike are seized with and accountable for identifying challenges and taking decisions to address them,” it said.

National Post
rtumilty@postmedia.com

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