Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made waves Wednesday by turning what started as an examination of his government’s response to foreign interference into a pointed criticism of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.
“I’m getting a little more partisan than I tried to in this case, but it is so egregious to me that the leader of the Official Opposition, who is certainly trying very hard to become prime minister, is choosing to play partisan games with foreign interference,” Trudeau told the public inquiry into foreign interference on Wednesday.
Trudeau went after Poilievre over the Conservative leader’s refusal to receive a security clearance and get briefed on top-secret and classified information regarding his party and some of its members.
Poilievre responded with a lengthy statement that included a claim that Trudeau was lying under oath and called on the prime minister to release the names of allegedly compromised politicians.
What Trudeau said
In testimony before the inquiry, the prime minister said he had seen the names of Conservative parliamentarians who are “engaged, or at high risk of, or for whom there is clear intelligence around foreign interference.” He said that while he directed CSIS to pass that information along to Poilievre, the agency is unable to do so without giving him a security clearance first.
“The decision of the leader of the Conservative Party to not receive the necessary clearance to get those names and protect the integrity of his party is bewildering to me and entirely lacks common sense,” Trudeau added.
Trudeau later said under cross-examination that he was aware of members of other parties, including his own, being vulnerable to foreign interference activities.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the inquiry into foreign interference Wednesday that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s decision not to get classified briefings means no one in the Conservative Party ‘knows the names of these individuals and can take appropriate action.’
Wesley Wark, a national security expert with the Centre for International Governance Innovation, said Trudeau’s testimony wasn’t terribly revealing.
“Prime Minister Trudeau made this sound a bit more sensational I think than it was,” Wark told CBC News.
Wark pointed to the report the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) released in June, which suggested some parliamentarians had been “‘semi-witting or witting participants” in foreign interference activities.
CSIS officials testifying before the inquiry called into question some of the conclusions in the NSICOP report. One CSIS official, in an interview behind closed doors, specifically questioned the use of the word “witting.”
Wark also said it’s not clear to what extent the unnamed parliamentarians could be compromised — and suggested many may not even be aware that they are.
“We’re talking about people who are being lured into the embrace of foreign threat actors in ways that they may not even fully appreciate themselves,” he said, noting that most foreign actors are looking to “groom” politicians.
Richard Fadden and Ward Elcock — two former CSIS directors — told CBC News’ Power & Politics on Wednesday that Trudeau probably shouldn’t have taken such a partisan turn in his testimony.
“He lapsed into really extreme partisanship when he made this accusation and he made it in terms that could not help but enrage the Conservative leader. So that was his objective. I think it worked,” Fadden told host David Cochrane.
“Did it advance the cause of national security? Did it advance the interest of the inquiry and the commissioners’ work? I’m not so sure.”
How Poilievre responded
In a lengthy statement released in response to Trudeau’s testimony, Poilievre accused the prime minister of “lying.”
“My message to Justin Trudeau is: release the names of all MPs that have collaborated with foreign interference,” Poilievre wrote. “But he won’t. Because Justin Trudeau is doing what he always does: he is lying.”
In the past, Poilievre has defended his decision not to receive a national security clearance and get briefed by intelligence agencies by arguing that it would prevent him from speaking freely and criticizing the government on foreign interference issues.
Fadden said that wouldn’t be the case.
“Just because you have a security clearance doesn’t mean you have to become a Carthusian monk and never speak,” he said. He also said that Poilievre could choose to be briefed only on issues affecting his own party if he wanted to create a buffer ensuring he could criticize the government on foreign interference.
Two former CSIS directors react to the prime minister’s testimony at the foreign interference inquiry and weigh in on whether a federal party leader’s chief of staff can receive a classified briefing in the party leader’s place.
In his statement on Wednesday, Poilievre said his chief of staff has received classified briefings.
“At no time has the government told me or my chief of staff of any current or former Conservative parliamentarian or candidate knowingly participating in foreign interference,” he said.
But Elcock said that CSIS would not brief a chief of staff on foreign interference issues pertaining to individual parliamentarians.
“What could the chief of staff do with the information?” Elcock said. “Mr. Poilievre doesn’t have a clearance, so the chief of staff can’t tell him the information. And the chief of staff has no power to do anything about the MPs or make decisions about the MPs because he’s not the leader of the party.”
During the inquiry hearing on Wednesday, lawyer Nando De Luca, acting for the Conservative Party, argued that CSIS could use something called a “threat reduction measure” to inform Poilievre about members of his party who may be compromised by foreign interference actors.
But Fadden said those threat reduction measures are meant to inform politicians when they may themselves be targeted and wouldn’t be used to share classified information with the leader of a party.
“You can’t give classified information to people if they don’t have security clearances. Can you muck around on the margins and try and get people to think differently? Yes, but that’s not what we’re talking about,” he said.
Why doesn’t the government release the names?
Poilievre and the Conservatives have been calling on Trudeau to release the names of allegedly compromised parliamentarians. They repeated that demand on Wednesday.
But law enforcement and national security agencies have been clear on this point: sharing any classified information is a crime.
“Anyone who reveals classified information is subject to the law equally and obviously, in this case, those names are classified at this time and to reveal them publicly would be a criminal offence,” RCMP Deputy Commissioner Mark Flynn told MPs on the public accounts committee in June.
When CBC News later asked Flynn whether the names could be released in the House of Commons, where MPs enjoy certain legal protections, he suggested that could be a legal grey area.
“That’s a question that should be asked, due to the complexities of parliamentary privilege, of a legal expert,” Flynn said.
During a press conference in Toronto on Thursday, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said the names of parliamentarians involved in foreign interference should be released in a manner that respects national security.
Stephanie Carvin, a former CSIS national security analyst, said there are several reasons why national security agencies wouldn’t want the names made public — starting with the fact that it could compromise ongoing investigations.
“We don’t want foreign governments knowing how we are collecting information. That’s why we protect our sources and methods,” she said.
Elcock echoed Carvin’s point.
“If information is derived from a highly classified intercept, the instant you disclose that you have information, then it alerts the people who were communicating that their communications have been intercepted,” he told CBC News.
“So you’re actually revealing more than just the name. You’re also revealing the sources and methods.”
Elcock and Carvin also pointed out that intelligence doesn’t always equal evidence that would hold up in a court of law.
“Intelligence can be hearsay. It can be rumours. It can be something someone overheard without context,” Carvin said. She cautioned that simply releasing the names without context could trigger a “witch hunt.”
“[The named parliamentarians would] not be able to defend themselves,” she said. “They may not know the context in which they have been accused. They don’t know who their accusers are. And that’s really, really problematic under our system.”
In his testimony on Wednesday, Trudeau argued there are ways in which a party leader can use intelligence to mitigate the risk of foreign interference in a party without revealing classified information. He suggested a compromised candidate could be quietly disqualified from running, while a compromised politician could be denied committee, ministerial or critic roles.
“We have many tools to respond, depending on the seriousness of the allegation,” Trudeau said.
Former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole told the commission last month that he contemplated expelling a Conservative senator from his party’s caucus over concerns that the senator was involved in foreign influence.
Carvin argued that focusing on releasing the names may not help address the threat of foreign interference in Canadian politics.
“I understand why people are focusing on it,” she said. “But this isn’t going to be the thing that fixes our democracy. What fixes our democracy are strong, healthy political parties that are well informed of the target of the threats against them.”