Prime Minister Justin Trudeau won’t say whether or not Liberal MPs were implicated in the bombshell NSICOP report on foreign interference.
Attending this year’s G7 conference held in Italy, Trudeau was asked several questions about the findings in NSICOP’s Special Report on Foreign Interference in Canada’s Democratic Processes and Institutions.
The report concluded that several MPs had collaborated with foreign governments for personal gain.
Upon being asked whether or not any Liberal MPs were named as witting or semi-witting participants in aiding foreign governments, Trudeau boasted about his government’s record in creating NSICOP in 2017 and establishing the public inquiry on foreign interference.
“It’s important that Canadians have confidence in our ability collectively as a democracy to defend the institutions, the processes around our elections and our democracy,” said Trudeau.
Both NDP leader Jagmeet Singh and the Green Party leader Elizabeth May have read an unredacted version of the report and confirmed that none of their MPs had been named, leaving Trudeau as the only party leader who has read the report and not given a similar reassurance.
When pressed further, Trudeau said that he didn’t agree with some of the conclusions that NSICOP had drawn in their report, suggesting that the committee had jumped to conclusions.
“Many of those conclusions and reports are varied in the conclusions they draw, in the level of assumptions and conclusions they make around what they say,” said Trudeau.
The prime minister went on to justify his interpretation of events by pointing to the wildly different perspectives that the NDP’s Singh and Green Party’s May drew from their reading of the report.
“The government has already highlighted there are a number of the conclusions of the national security and intelligence committee of parliamentarians report that we don’t entirely align with. And that actually is demonstrated by the fact that two party leaders in Elizabeth May and Jagmeet Singh who read that report in its entirety come to differing conclusions on the interpretation of what it means.”
While both Singh and May were given access to a classified version of the NSICOP report, May concluded that the allegations were overblown, while Singh said that reading the report made him more concerned about foreign interference, not less.
Trudeau and Singh have attacked Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre for refusing to read the unredacted version of the document, as the Tory leader maintains that he would be limited in his ability to oppose the government otherwise.