Foreign interference | Singh concerned about Poilievre’s missing security clearance

(Ottawa) The leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP), Jagmeet Singh, finds it very worrying that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre does not obtain the high-level security clearance necessary to consult classified documents on foreign interference.

Mr. Singh says party leaders must be briefed on top secret intelligence, highlighting allegations that Indian government agents played a role in the extortion, coercion and murder of Canadian citizens on Canadian soil.

“We have these serious allegations that a foreign government literally hired gangs in Canada to shoot up homes and businesses, putting the lives of Canadians in danger. Does this sound like the response of a leader who takes the situation seriously, who truly cares about security? “, declared Mr. Singh Thursday at a press conference in Toronto.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau revealed Wednesday before the public inquiry into foreign interference that he knows the names of past and current Conservative Party parliamentarians and candidates who are linked to foreign interference. Mr. Trudeau also specified that parliamentarians from other parties, including Liberals, had also been singled out.

“I have the names of a number of parliamentarians, former parliamentarians and/or candidates of the Conservative Party of Canada who are involved or who are at high risk of being involved, or for whom there is clear intelligence regarding foreign interference,” Mr. Trudeau told the commission.

Mr. Poilievre responded by accusing the Prime Minister of lying under oath and saying he should release the names.

“If Justin Trudeau has evidence to the contrary, he must communicate it to the public. Now that he has spoken in general terms to a commission of inquiry, he should make the facts public. But he won’t do it, because he’s inventing,” Mr. Poilievre wrote Wednesday afternoon on X.

The Conservative leader maintains that on October 14, senior security officials in Ottawa informed him “of the issue of foreign interference from India.” He believes that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act (CSIS) allows the government to warn Canadians of specific risks of foreign interference “without requiring it to swear an oath of secrecy or monitoring what it says.”

Furthermore, Mr. Poilievre maintains that his chief of staff received “classified information” from the government, but that a government official never informed the leader of the official opposition, nor his chief of staff, that “ a current or former Conservative parliamentarian or candidate knowingly participated in foreign interference activities.”

Attention to national security

The New Democratic leader stressed Thursday that he preferred to examine this information with his own eyes. “I don’t want to outsource this to anyone else,” Mr. Singh said. If this impacts my party and I’m the leader of that party, I want to make sure I know what’s going on. »

Mr. Singh also stressed that he wanted these names to be released in a way that does not compromise national security laws.

Green Party leader Elizabeth May, who also has the necessary security clearance to view top-secret documents, echoed the call for Mr Poilievre to avail himself of them too.

M^me May is referring to the redacted version of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians’ report on foreign interference, released in the spring, which flagged alleged attempts by India to interfere “in a leadership campaign of the Conservative Party.

“Pierre Poilievre is the only person able to clarify the situation regarding the Conservative Party and the possible favors granted to foreign interests,” wrote Mr.^me May.

The leader of the Bloc Québécois, Yves-François Blanchet, has already indicated that he wants to obtain security clearance to examine the secret documents. His press secretary, Joanie Riopel, said Mr. Blanchet was in the final stages of obtaining that approval.