Ex-Conservative senator says committee probe of foreign interference would be 'quicker ... cheaper'
Ex-Conservative senator Vern White pushes back at Conservatives' dismissal of NSICOP
Vern White, a former member of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP), didn't mince words when describing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's characterization of the oversight group.
At the start of the week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced he had asked NSICOP to review foreign interference in Canada's elections.
Poilievre accused him of covering up the issue "with a secret process that he controls." Michael Chong, the Conservative critic for foreign affairs, described NSICOP's work as "secret hearings, secret evidence and secret conclusions, all controlled by the prime minister."
"Obviously, that's BS," White, a former Conservative senator, told CBC's The House.
"Our work was done unfettered, totally unfettered."
NSICOP is a bipartisan assembly of MPs and senators who are sworn to secrecy in order to receive top-secret briefings.
Their classified reports are sent to the prime minister before a redacted version is made public.
"And then there are strict rules on the things that need to be redacted. Read the legislation. It's very clear," said White.
"It's too bad politics is becoming the player here."
According to NSICOP's legislation, if publicly disclosing certain information would be "injurious to national security, national defence or international relations," or if information is "protected by litigation privilege or by solicitor-client privilege or the professional secrecy of advocates and notaries," the prime minister can direct the committee to redact it from the public versions of its reports.
Then-prime minister Stephen Harper appointed White to the Senate in 2012 as a Conservative representing Ontario. White had been sitting with the non-partisan Canadian Senators Group since 2019 when he retired late last year to move to Finland.
NSICOP review 'hell of a lot cheaper' than inquiry: White
When Trudeau announced the NSICOP review Monday, he also said he'd soon appoint a special rapporteur on foreign interference. The announcements landed in the middle of a heated debate on Parliament Hill about whether a public inquiry should be held to investigate claims of Chinese meddling in elections — and what the Liberals knew about it.
Poilievre has become one of the most vocal proponents of a public inquiry.
"We want [an] open and independent ... public inquiry to get to the truth and make sure it never happens again," he told reporters Tuesday.
Poilievre has said he will keep his party's members on NSICOP, adding "it hasn't been very effective but it's better than nothing."
White said he's not necessarily opposed to a public inquiry but pointed out that NSICOP already has the infrastructure and capacity to take on these questions.
"I think NSICOP would be quicker than a public inquiry and hell of a lot cheaper," White told host Catherine Cullen in an interview airing Saturday morning.
"Secondly, people who say, 'Well at least the public inquiry, everything would be public,' are not thinking this through. Everything would not be public …You're not gonna get what you can't get, right?"
White sat on the committee when it first investigated foreign interference attempts back in 2019. Their report concluded that "Canada has been slow to react to the threat of foreign interference."
The government has been criticized for not responding to those findings and recommendations.
"I guess the government should have done better," said White.
"There was very little reaction from the government. But to be fair, there was very little reaction from other politicians as well."
White doesn't think an NSICOP member leaked info
While NSICOP's public reports are redacted, White argued they have painted accurate pictures of what's happening behind the scenes ever since the group's first report, on Trudeau's 2018 trip to India.
The committee reported that the RCMP admitted that they made a mistake when they failed to inform Trudeau's protective detail that would-be political assassin Jaspal Atwal was planning to join the PM during his official visit to India earlier this year.
"I don't think anybody read that report and left there saying, 'I don't know what happened,'" White said.
Those who don't sit on NSICOP can't see everything that NSICOP members see, he said. "That's life," he added.
Earlier this week, Global News reported on a high-level warning about clandestine funding of China's "preferred candidates" that the news organization said came from NSICOP.
White insisted he doesn't think the leak came from a committee member.
"Because I couldn't have taken a Post-it out of that room," he said.
"I couldn't take a phone in. I couldn't take a tablet in, an iPad in. I didn't take my pens in … If I made a note to myself for groceries, I wouldn't have left that room with it. It's that strict."
WATCH | Trudeau's response to election interference claims
NSICOP meets in a secure location where transmitting devices are banned. No one is allowed to remove documents from NSICOP's meeting location.
White said that if Global obtained an unredacted copy of the report, "then somebody, an employee of the government of Canada, has breached confidentiality and should be held to account."
Before entering politics White served as a Mountie, rising to the rank of assistant commissioner before retiring from the RCMP in 2005. He went on to lead the Ottawa Police Service from 2007 to 2012.
"I think at the end of the day, if people are interfering in our politics and our governments and our elections, I think they should be held to account," he said.
"Whether that's criminal charges or whether that's being removed from the country because they work for an embassy, then I think there needs to be a level of accountability, absolutely."
WATCH | Minister responds to new report on alleged Chinese election meddling network
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With files from Christian Paas-Lang
