THOMSON: Traitors in the House

We should be mad as hell. An unknown number of federal politicians are apparently knowingly working with hostile countries, to undermine Canada’s democracy.Say it isn't so. But that's the burden of a recent report from the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians’ (NSICOP.) Really. And unfortunately, these people are paid to be right.So, now what?Well for starters we can’t really appoint a Special Rapporteur to investigate the matter, can we?Back in 2022, when Global News and Sam Cooper first broke the story of serious foreign interference in our democracy, Prime Minister Trudeau and his Liberal government were reluctant to act on the allegations.It was only after significant pressure that they begrudgingly agreed to appoint former governor-general The Right Honourable David Johnston, as Special Rapporteur to investigate the matter. But Johnston was a controversial choice. Not only did he have close personal ties to the Trudeau family, he was also a member of the Trudeau foundation — a group which had been the recipient of questionable donations from individuals with ties to the Chinese government.Subsequently, his reports and his later recommendation that a further public inquiry was not required would go down — in my view — as the largest single-source whitewash contract ever signed by the Government of Canada. And how else could it be interpreted, especially considering all that we have learned since Johnston filed his last report in Jun 2023 from initial findings of the Foreign Interference Commission (FIC,) published in May 2024. It is hard to imagine that he could have missed so much if not wilfully trying to do so.But for sheer magnitude of significance, how do we process what the FIC has now reported, that there are sitting MP’s (or members of the Senate,) who are “witting or semi-witting” accomplices to foreign interference? And that some have passed secrets to foreign governments including China, India and Iran.What!? This is worse than what disgraced RCMP intelligence official Cameron Ortis was charged and convicted of, and for which he received a 14-year sentence.If you don’t recall Ortis, he was a civilian employee of the RCMP who compiled sensitive data from Canada’s Top-Secret Network (CTSN) to pass to a “foreign entity.” CTSN is computer system which holds highly sensitive information including material from other Five Eyes members such as the U.S., New Zealand, Australia, and United Kingdom.But whereas Ortis was arrested before he got a chance to pass along any damaging information, the MP’s (or senators) involved in this affair potentially did. Unfortunately at this point it’s unclear whether or not the actions of those potentially implicated in this scandal will meet the Criminal Code definition of treason, sedition, or espionage, but they certainly meet the colloquial definitions.Canadians are not going to be happy about this. Actually, they should be spitting mad.As it is, a survey conducted by the group Confederation of Tomorrow in April of this year found that a growing number of Canadians do not trust the federal government. The fact that members in both the red and green chambers of Parliament may not be acting in the best interests of Canadians, but may intentionally be acting against them, is only going to further erode this trust.For this country and its democracy to survive, the prime minister needs to set aside the petty partisanship in which he seems to find such comfort and take immediate and consequential action to demonstrate to Canadians that they can have faith in their elected officials and government.Here is how he can do that.First, the individuals that our intelligence apparatuses have identified as colluding with foreign agents must be publicly named, regardless of party affiliation and referred to the RCMP for investigation.This will send a clear message to all who work in Ottawa that this sort of behaviour will not be tolerated and carries significant consequences.Second, the leaders of all federal parties must commit to immediately remove from their caucus anyone implicated, pending the results of the RCMP investigation.Third, the identified members must have their voting privileges, proposed private members' legislation and committee positions suspended, pending the outcome of the RCMP investigation.Lastly, the proposed Foreign Influence Transparency and Accountability act needs to be re-worked.The prime minister and cabinet cannot have such broad discretion over the process, particularly in regard to what information must be disclosed, who is required to register and how it will be enforced. That’s what’s got us into this mess in the first place.The government can’t dither on this, and we can’t let them.

THOMSON: Traitors in the House

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