Trudeau tapping special rapporteur and two national security bodies to investigate foreign interference
Facing pressure over rising concerns around foreign interference in Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be naming a new special rapporteur to investigate.
Trudeau made the announcement on Monday as part of a suite of new measures aimed at addressing Canadians' concerns over alleged election meddling by China during the last two federal campaigns.
One of the yet-to-be-selected independent official's first orders of business will be to recommend to the federal government whether a formal inquiry or other form of probe or judicial review is the best next step.
The prime minister is also referring the issue of foreign election interference back to a top-secret committee known as the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP).
And, he's asking the external expert body known as the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA) to examine the work done by Canadian intelligence bodies as it pertains to foreign interference.
"In the past few weeks, people have expressed many different views about the steps we should be taking to answer questions about foreign interference. To me, it comes down to two things: that our democratic institutions are safe from foreign interference, and that Canadians have confidence that it is so," Trudeau said Monday.
Noting the mixed views among Canadians and experts around a public inquiry, Trudeau said the Liberals will "abide by" the guidance of the "eminent Canadian" chosen, on whether one is needed and if so, what its mandate and scope should be.
"Making sure that… whatever process is necessary, is unimpeachable from the very beginning is going to be part of reassuring Canadians."
The special rapporteur will have a "wide mandate" and will make recommendations on combatting interference and strengthening Canada's democracy, Trudeau said, vowing they will named "in the coming days."
He said in time, the special rapporteur will be responsible for examining the entire national security landscape and tools to counter interference in Canadian affairs, to inform the future work of the federal government , as well as the work Elections Canada does to shore up federal campaigns from foreign interference.
This comes as opposition-led calls for the federal government to launch a public inquiry dominated the Commons' return on Monday, with MP after MP rising in the House, imploring the government to act and provide more openness around the issue.
Trudeau was not present to field these calls, but during Monday's address he detailed at length the various efforts the Liberals have taken since 2015 to try to enhance Canada's ability to detect, deter and combat interference, as well as announcing what new measures are in the works.
Trudeau said the Liberals will be launching consultations this week on enacting a “foreign influence transparency registry”; will create a plan to implement outstanding recommendations from past interference reviews; and spend $5.5 million on building civil society organizations’ capacity to counter disinformation.
OPPOSITION INSIST INQUIRY STILL NEEDED
Early reaction from the opposition parties indicate that these steps will not be enough to satiate their desire to see a public inquiry called imminently.
The inquiry calls stem from a desire for more Liberal openness around the story that's been dominating headlines over the last few weeks: intelligence sources alleging in reports from The Globe and Mail and Global News that China interfered in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections. The leaks are now under RCMP investigation.
Last week, opposition MPs on the Procedure and House Affairs Committee passed a motion calling for the federal government to launch a national public inquiry into allegations of foreign interference broadly, including in Canadian elections.
Those backing the motion wanted to see Trudeau strike an inquiry with the power to compel documents and key witnesses, and for the individual heading this inquiry to be unanimously selected by all recognized parties in the House of Commons.
This non-binding motion passed after hours of testimony from top intelligence officials who sought to assure that the integrity of Canada's last two elections was upheld despite meddling attempts by China, while cautioning that they'd be limited in what more they could say in a public forum.
"All political leaders agree that the election outcomes in 2019 and in 2021 were not impacted by foreign interference… But even if it didn't change the results of any of our elections, any interference attempt by any foreign actor is troubling and serious," Trudeau said.
Reacting to the news, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said the Liberals continue to try to "cover up the truth," and suggested the NSICOP was being used "to avoid accountability" and the special rapporteur would be limited in their powers.
“Parliament is supreme. A majority of the parties in the House of Commons have demanded a full public, independent inquiry and the continuation of the investigation by the parliamentary Committee. Anything less is wholly insufficient to respond to the gravity of the situation," said Poilievre in a statement.
Both Poilievre and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said prior to Trudeau's announcement on Monday that they wouldn’t be able to get behind any process that's lacking transparency. They dismissed the idea of party leaders receiving secret briefings on classified material—which is not far off from how the NSICOP operates.
Singh said he didn't think any new investigation should be conducted behind closed doors by politicians, while refusing to commit to making a full public inquiry a red line for the fate of the Liberal-NDP confidence-and-supply agreement that Poilievre has taken to calling the "cover-up coalition."
"The process should be public," said Singh prior to the prime minister's press conference. Reacting to the news of NSICOP's role, the NDP said in a statement that it was not "an acceptable substitute" for an inquiry and that "the way to stop foreign actors from acting in secret is to refuse to keep their secrets.”
In a statement in French, Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet echoed the responses of his fellow opposition leaders, continuing to call for a public inquiry.
Responding to Poilievre's early accusation that the Liberals were trying to "sweep this under the rug," during question period, Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc accused him of doing "absolutely nothing" on the file when CSIS identified foreign interference as a challenge during the time he was the minister responsible for democratic reform under former prime minister Stephen Harper.
After Monday's raucous question period, Trudeau said Monday that foreign interference should "not be boiled down to sound bites and binary choices," nor should it become a partisan issue. He then went on to repeat similar lines about Conservative inaction nearly a decade ago.
WHAT ROLE WILL SECURITY OVERSIGHT BODIES PLAY?
The NSICOP is a high-level oversight body was created in 2017. It mirrors similar committees set up in the other "Five Eyes" alliance countries. Members include MPs and senators from major parties, who must have the highest level of, or “top secret,” security clearance.
The mandate of the committee is to act as the oversight body for Canada’s national security and intelligence agencies, but it reports to Trudeau, and then tables declassified versions of its findings in Parliament.
The NSIRA is Canada's independent expert review body for all national security and intelligence activities, created in 2019. It was designed in part to review agencies' collection and use of sensitive intelligence.
Trudeau said Monday that he'd spoken with the heads of both bodies, to underscore that "Canadians need to have faith in their institutions and deserve answers and transparency," and talked to them about taking on "urgent" work on this topic under their respective mandates.
This will include the NSICOP updating its last report reviewing foreign interference, with a focus on our elections, and NSIRA examining whether information on foreign interference is flowing properly across intelligence agencies and government departments. Both reports will be provided to Parliament.
"When democratic institutions are under attack, it is just that it'd be parliamentarians, elected officials who should be stepping up to protect those institutions," Trudeau said Monday.
The NSICOP has previously studied the threat foreign interference poses to Canada and has reviewed the work of the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force in its monitoring of meddling in the last two general elections.
In 2019, the NSICOP issued a report calling the threat of foreign interference in Canada real, while flagging that the federal government needs to do more to counter what is a "significant and sustained" effort to meddle from China, Russia and other state actors.
The NSICOP report found the federal government slow to react to the threat of foreign interference. Its members have also spoken out against a lack of responses from the government to its various calls for actions. When asked what will change now, Trudeau admitted the Liberals need to do a better job of responding.
Trudeau has repeatedly pointed to the NSICOP as a better venue than an inquiry for officials to consider sensitive security issues such as this, behind closed doors.
Former NSICOP member and retired senator Vern White told CTV News he thinks the NSICOP is a better place to examine these concerns than a public inquiry as it could delve deeper, report back faster, and do so in a way with enough nuance to communicate adequate information without infringing on national security.
White pointed to NSICOP's past report on Trudeau's troubled trip to India as an example.
"You can go back and read any of the reports… I don't think there's ever been complaints about people reading those reports [that] they could not glean enough intelligence and information out of them to know what happened," White said. "There are things that can't be disclosed and that are redacted. But, I think any public inquiry of this sort would also find a fair amount of the information gleaned would have to be redacted."
CHINESE CANADIANS CALL FOR TRANSPARENCY
Chinese Canadians have been among those calling for more transparency, in lockstep with careful consideration of how those involved are communicating that the concern is with the People's Republic of China.
Ryan Chan of the Chinese Canadian National Council for Social Justice recently told CTV News that he thinks "some form of inquiry that's public, non-partisan, that would look into issues of foreign government interference" should be called, but expressed concern about the potential and misplaced backlash against Chinese Canadians in the process.
"I think first and foremost… we're focused on this issue of kind of dispelling myths or, or at least giving full public insights into what is actually going on," he said.
"We broadly support a public inquiry as long as it's neutral, as long as it's transparent, that would shed light on foreign governments' influenced into whether or not it affects our domestic politics," said Chan.
During last week's committee hearings, both MPs and top intelligence witnesses made the point of emphasizing that, as CSIS Director David Vigneault put it, "the threat does not come from the Chinese people, but rather from the Chinese Communist Party and the government of China."
Vigneault noted that Chinese-Canadian parliamentarians and Chinese Canadians are often the primary victims of the People's Republic of China’s foreign interference efforts in Canada and federal intelligence bodies continue to put efforts towards building relationships with this community and its leaders to "establish and sustain trust."
"It's a very delicate thing to communicate when going after the Chinese government and what they're doing, versus what Chinese Canadians are doing," Bert Chen, a former Conservative national council member, told CTV News.
"And we have to be very precise about these discussions and its public discourse, because as a country of immigrants talking about a country that people may have come from, it's a very delicate balance to communicate what the state is doing back in a home country, and what Canadians here are doing now."
Cheuk Kwan, past chair of the Toronto Association for Democracy in China, told CTV News that as a Chinese Canadian he doesn't view raising questions about Chinese interference as racism, while noting that Chinese Canadians have for years been trying to draw attention to some of Beijing's influence tactics.
"We are allowed to criticize China without being called racist… I think this is a normal way to deal with critics and, I believe that people are buying this line that that the CCP has been peddling all these years," Kwan said. "We're not dealing with denigrating Chinese people. Were just investigating a Chinese government, or any government for that matter."
Some advocates have also voiced support for a foreign agent registry, as well as improved civic education and digital literacy resources as other actions that the federal government can take, in addition to as making it easier for members of the Chinese diaspora in Canada to flag to officials instances of political interference they experience.
"We need to rebuild that trust with the diaspora, allow them to safely come up their concerns, allow them to safely participate in any type of investigation or inquiry into any types of foreign interference," said Cherie Wong, executive director of Alliance Canada Hong Kong.
"But I also believe that we need to take a country-agnostic, non-partisan and a cross-jurisdictional approach and looking at any type of foreign influence in Canadian elections."
Speaking to the commitment to begin a public engagement on enacting a foreign agent registry on Monday evening, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino noted the importance of bringing along "all communities."
With files from CTV National News' Judy Trinh and Glen McGregor
IN DEPTH
Budget 2024 prioritizes housing while taxing highest earners, deficit projected at $39.8B
In an effort to level the playing field for young people, in the 2024 federal budget, the government is targeting Canada's highest earners with new taxes in order to help offset billions in new spending to enhance the country's housing supply and social supports.
'One of the greatest': Former prime minister Brian Mulroney commemorated at state funeral
Prominent Canadians, political leaders, and family members remembered former prime minister and Progressive Conservative titan Brian Mulroney as an ambitious and compassionate nation-builder at his state funeral on Saturday.
'Democracy requires constant vigilance' Trudeau testifies at inquiry into foreign election interference in Canada
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau testified Wednesday before the national public inquiry into foreign interference in Canada's electoral processes, following a day of testimony from top cabinet ministers about allegations of meddling in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections. Recap all the prime minister had to say.
As Poilievre sides with Smith on trans restrictions, former Conservative candidate says he's 'playing with fire'
Siding with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith on her proposed restrictions on transgender youth, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre confirmed Wednesday that he is against trans and non-binary minors using puberty blockers.
Supports for passengers, farmers, artists: 7 bills from MPs and Senators to watch in 2024
When parliamentarians return to Ottawa in a few weeks to kick off the 2024 sitting, there are a few bills from MPs and senators that will be worth keeping an eye on, from a 'gutted' proposal to offer a carbon tax break to farmers, to an initiative aimed at improving Canada's DNA data bank.
Opinion
opinion Don Martin: Gusher of Liberal spending won't put out the fire in this dumpster
A Hail Mary rehash of the greatest hits from the Trudeau government’s three-week travelling pony-show, the 2024 federal budget takes aim at reversing the party’s popularity plunge in the under-40 set, writes political columnist Don Martin. But will it work before the next election?
opinion Don Martin: The doctor Trudeau dumped has a prescription for better health care
Political columnist Don Martin sat down with former federal health minister Jane Philpott, who's on a crusade to help fix Canada's broken health care system, and who declined to take any shots at the prime minister who dumped her from caucus.
opinion Don Martin: Trudeau's seeking shelter from the housing storm he helped create
While Justin Trudeau's recent housing announcements are generally drawing praise from experts, political columnist Don Martin argues there shouldn’t be any standing ovations for a prime minister who helped caused the problem in the first place.
opinion Don Martin: Poilievre has the field to himself as he races across the country to big crowds
It came to pass on Thursday evening that the confidentially predictable failure of the Official Opposition non-confidence motion went down with 204 Liberal, BQ and NDP nays to 116 Conservative yeas. But forcing Canada into a federal election campaign was never the point.
opinion Don Martin: How a beer break may have doomed the carbon tax hike
When the Liberal government chopped a planned beer excise tax hike to two per cent from 4.5 per cent and froze future increases until after the next election, says political columnist Don Martin, it almost guaranteed a similar carbon tax move in the offing.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Canada Post cracks down on Nunavut loophole to get free Amazon Prime shipping
Amazon's paid subscription service provides free delivery for online shopping across Canada except for remote locations, the company said in an email. While customers in Iqaluit qualify for the offer, all other communities in Nunavut are excluded.
'My family doctor just fired me': Ontario patients frustrated with de-rostering
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
Potentially toxic chemicals hide in our drinking water and countless household objects, and they're not going anywhere
For decades, North Bay, Ontario's water supply has harboured chemicals associated with liver and developmental issues, cancer and complications with pregnancy. It's far from the only city with that problem.
'It was violent': Police tear down U of A pro-Palestinian encampment Saturday morning
Multiple people at the protest camp torn down at the University of Alberta campus Saturday say police's actions against protesters were "violent" and "disproportionate."
'I am angry': Alberta farmers will continue fight over world class motorsport resort
The rolling hills leading to the hamlet of Rosebud are dotted with sprawling farms and cattle pastures -- and a sign sporting a simple message: No Race Track.
Election deniers: West Virginia voters must pick from GOP candidates who still dispute 2020 election
When West Virginia Republicans vote in Tuesday's primary, they will have a hard time finding a major candidate on the ballot in any statewide race who openly acknowledges that U.S. President Joe Biden won the 2020 election.
Adopted daughter in the Netherlands reunited with sister in Montreal and mother in Colombia, 40 years later
Two daughters and a mother were reunited online 40 years later thanks to a DNA kit and a Zoom connection despite living on three separate continents and speaking different languages.
Man ticketed after allegedly trespassing again at Drake's Bridle Path mansion to get his bike
A man who tried to access Drake’s Bridle Path mansion earlier this week returned to the property Saturday and was apprehended again for allegedly trespassing, Toronto police say.
'Reimagining Mother's Day': Toronto woman creates Motherless Day event after losing mom
Mother's Day can be a difficult occasion for those who have lost or are estranged from their mom.
Local Spotlight
From outer space? Sask. farmers baffled after discovering strange wreckage in field
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
Wilfrid Laurier football player drafted despite only playing 27 games in his entire life
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
Federal government bans watercraft from Manitoba lake popular with tourists
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
Toronto-area dessert shop featured by Keith Lee forced to move after zoning complaint
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
'Oh Crap!' New exhibit at Canada Science and Technology Museum explores human waste
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
Regina police hope new biometric monitoring system will save lives in detention facility
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Her SUV was stolen in Montreal. A Good Samaritan on Facebook helped her get it back
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.
Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors bet on who will win Round 2 of the playoffs. Here's what's at stake
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
'No other life taken': Mother leads ATV helmet drive to honour daughter's legacy
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.