Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Saturday declined to confirm whether current Liberal MPs are implicated in a classified national security report that suggests some parliamentarians are knowingly or unknowingly involved in foreign interference efforts.
The report, produced by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP), did not name specific MPs or senators in its public, redacted version.
Opposition leaders Jagmeet Singh of the New Democratic Party and Elizabeth May of the Green Party, who have accessed the full, unredacted report, stated that no members of their respective caucuses were named. However, their interpretations of the report’s findings differed, with Singh calling some current MPs “traitors to the country” and May describing the media coverage as “overblown.”
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Trudeau said that he has some concerns about “the way NSICOP drew its conclusions,” echoing sentiments previously shared by Public Safety Minister Dominic Leblanc. Despite these reservations, neither Trudeau nor Leblanc provided specific examples of inaccuracies or additional information from the unredacted document.
The House of Commons has voted to refer the matter to the ongoing Foreign Interference Inquiry, and Trudeau confirmed that officials are now working with the inquiry to review the materials that informed the NSICOP report. This development follows Trudeau’s earlier questioning of intelligence officials’ understanding of the candidate nomination process during his testimony at the Public Inquiry Into Foreign Interference.
The NSICOP report, which examined foreign interference dating back to 2018, described the actions of some unnamed parliamentarians as criminal, “deeply unethical,” and “contrary to the oaths and affirmations parliamentarians take to conduct themselves in the best interests of Canada.”
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