Canada Lawmakers Helped Foreign Powers Influence Elections, Report Alleges

The Canadian Parliament’s National Security Committee implicated multiple parliament members of “semi-witting or witting” cooperation with foreign powers to influence elections, according to a recent report.

The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) supported their findings with 4,000 documents totaling 33,000 pages. Their findings allege “pervasive and sophisticated foreign interference” in Canadian politics, including allegations that multiple unnamed parliament members worked with foreign actors to influence elections and campaigns in 2019 and 2021.

China was called the most “prolific actor,” according to the report.

The NSICOP says alleged illegal activities by the Parliament members is unlikely to net criminal charges, citing in the report the difficulty of using classified information in judicial proceedings.

Opposition members to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party have pressured the government to release the names of the alleged implicated parliament members. Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre spoke last Wednesday during question time in Parliament, demanding the names be revealed.

“The National Security Committee indicates there are members of this House who have knowingly worked for foreign hostile governments. Canadians have a right to know who and what is the information,” Poilievre said, “Who are they?”

So far, the government has not committed to releasing the names of the parliamentarians responsible. Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc pushed back on releasing the names of the MPs in response to Poilievre.

“The leader of the opposition knows very well no government, including the government which he was a member, is going to discuss particularities of intelligence information publicly. So he knows better than that,” LeBlanc said in the House of Commons. “He would be much more informed than he is now and we would invite him to do so, so he wouldn’t stand up and cast aspersions on the floor of the House of Commons without any information whatsoever.”

The report comes after previous investigations into foreign involvement in Canadian politics and society. Last September, Trudeau’s government charged Quebec Judge Marie-Josée Hogue to investigate foreign interference in elections after some alleged that China aided in mustering voters against a conservative candidate in Western Canada and helping elect a Liberal in Toronto, according to Politico.

The previous report from the NSICOP in 2019 did not specifically focus on the federal election that year, and instead was broader in scope, says the report.

Featured Image Credit: Flickr/Matt Boman

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