Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc at the House Affairs Committee Thursday refused to respond to demands Parliament Hill spies be named before the next election, per Blacklock’s Reporter. A June 3 special report by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) said multiple parliamentarians pocketed secret payments from foreign embassies, spied on colleagues and acted at the “direction of foreign officials.” One unnamed MP was suspected of “providing information learned in confidence from the government to a known intelligence officer of a foreign state.” All names were censored in the public version of the committee’s report.LeBlanc earlier confirmed he knew the identities of public office holders working for foreign embassies.“I don’t think it would be appropriate” to get into the legalities of it, explained LeBlanc when pressed on whether the culprits would be unveiled before they have the opportunity to get re-elected unbeknownst to Canadians. .Conservative MP Michael Cooper sought assurance “that names of the MPs who wittingly collaborated with hostile foreign states will be made public.” Minister LeBlanc did not reply.“I asked a simple question; answer the question,” said Cooper. “I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to offer legal advice,” replied LeBlanc.“Can you at least provide the assurance, given that the prime minister knows the names of MPs who wittingly collaborated with hostile foreign states including potentially MPs in the Liberal caucus, that none of those MPs will have their nomination papers signed by the prime minister to run in the next election?” asked Cooper.LeBlanc did not reply. The Security Of Information Act, while forbidding disclosure of secret information under threat of 14 years’ imprisonment, exempts disclosure “in the public interest.”Section 15.2.a. states: “A person acts in the public interest if the person acts for the purpose of disclosing an offence under an Act of Parliament that he or she reasonably believes has been, is being or is about to be committed in the purported performance of that person’s duties and functions for or on behalf of the Government of Canada.”Conservative MP Frank Caputo, former Crown prosecutor, told a June 6 hearing of the Commons Public Safety Committee there was no legal reason not to unmask spies on Parliament Hill. “The minister can disclose classified information when it is in the public interest,” said Caputo. “What could be more in the public interest?”“You are okay with us going into an election, people putting an ‘x’ beside a name where they have a cloud of suspicion, every single one of us. Let’s face it, I think if there were six Conservatives on that list and no other Liberals we would have the names. Let’s be honest here.”
