Canada’s national police chief has waded into a deepening political debate over whether to name MPs who are allegedly helping foreign governments, something opposition MPs have called for.
RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme urged “caution” and warned that revealing their identities could have unintended consequences.
“There are people’s lives that could be at risk because sometimes the information comes from a single source,” he told Mercedes Stephenson in an interview with The West Block.
Earlier this month, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) released a stunning report alleging that federal politicians are “intentionally” or “semi-intentionally” colluding with foreign states.
NDP MP Jenny Kwan is the latest federal politician to ask for their identities to be revealed.
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“I think we need to be cautious about the right to know and the need to know,” said Duheme, who read the unredacted version of the NSICOP report.
But Kwan says keeping the names secret damages the reputation of all members of the House of Commons and the trust Canadians have in their elected officials.
The Vancouver East MP raised an issue of privilege and requested that the matter be referred to a parliamentary committee to “explore options” on how to reveal who MPs are without “compromising national security.”
Kwan received a report from Canada’s spy agency that China had targeted her over her criticism of Beijing’s human rights abuses.
The RCMP commissioner warned investigations could be compromised if names are revealed.
“If we start revealing a lot of secret and top-secret information, there’s a trick involved in that,” Duheme said.
“We have to be aware of the impact we will have on the international partners who provide some of that information.”
The Liberal government says it cannot name names because it is bound by Canada’s Official Secrets Act and doing so would violate the law.
Duheme welcomed a new law: Bill C-70, which aims to counter foreign interference.
Security and law enforcement experts have long said the laws were not intended to pursue foreign interference, a conclusion the NSICOP also reached in its report.
But the Senate passed Bill C-70, which will create a registry of foreign agents, expand Canadian intelligence-gathering powers and introduce new criminal offences.
“That will help us… with new tools to disrupt the process,” Duheme said.
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