Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Regarding the last two votes to adjourn, I'm certainly not going to let the Conservatives get off that easily, because—for Canadians who are watching the committee proceedings right now—the Conservatives are essentially running interference and defence solely for their leader. They simply do not have any justifiable reasons for this charade to go on any further. Their leader's reasoning for not getting security clearance has been thoroughly debunked by multiple national security experts.

I do believe that, given the seriousness.... This issue has come up in the past, but given the fact that we had these RCMP revelations come out on Thanksgiving Monday, I think the game has changed significantly right now. If you look at what is contained in that RCMP report—the references to very serious criminal activity on behalf of the agents of the Indian government—I believe this is a time when we have to put our country first and when the partisan interests of our party need to come second to the interests of Canada.

I believe the interests of our country right now demand that we form a united front. That means all federal political party leaders getting the clearance necessary to receive those briefings so that they can make informed decisions within their own caucuses and so that our foreign adversaries can see, when they look at the House of Commons, that yes, we have our political differences and we fight very hard on the floor of the House on many different issues, but when it comes to an issue as serious as foreign interference, we stand united and we have a united front within which all political party leaders are getting the briefings necessary to take relevant actions.

Now I want to refute a few points that were brought up in arguments by my Conservative colleagues.

Mr. Motz earlier talked about the CSIS Act, and I want to quote Wesley Wark, who has been at this committee many times and who has been a member of both Liberal and Conservative governments as a national security adviser. He has briefed them. I just want to quote from this iPolitics article. It says:

Wark also shut down the idea previously floated by the Conservative Party that the federal government had other avenues of briefing Poilievre on critical information that don't involve a security clearance, namely invoking the “threat reduction measures” included in the CSIS Act.

“He [is] playing with the public on that one too,” said Wark. “Threat reduction measures are not meant to be a tool to provide intelligence to people. They've been used as a workaround by CSIS because they don't otherwise have the authority to share intelligence.”

“The important thing to understand about threat reduction measures is that they are targeted. They are not designed to provide broad information.”

That directly refutes the arguments that were just made by Mr. Motz at this committee.

This is a time, I think, when the continued refusal of only one leader in the House of Commons to get security clearance is raising far more questions than is necessary, questions such as, what could possibly be holding back the Leader of the Opposition from getting it? Is he even able to get it? Are there concerns about his ability to apply? Is that why he's not making it?

The other thing that's bringing me quite a bit of levity is the fact that my Conservative colleagues love to quote Mr. Mulcair, the former leader of the NDP. I haven't spoken to Mr. Mulcair since 2017. He doesn't represent our party anymore. He is paid, I believe, by CTV, to be a political commentator. He is not a national security expert, and if he's on the air and you're quoting him as an authoritative source and you're completely ignoring the many CSIS officials who have spoken out on this measure, I think you're obviously doing the argument here a complete and total disservice.

I also want to talk about some other quotes on this particular subject. In the Hill Times, former CSIS executive Dan Stanton was also quoted. I'll read from the article:

Stanton said Poilievre deserves criticism for not getting a security clearance. He said that classified data is necessary for the Conservative leader to take action on any compromised members of his party.

He said Poilievre's explanation that his chief of staff takes briefings “is ridiculous.”

“Briefing his chief of staff is pointless,” said Stanton. “[He] cannot advise [Poilievre] as to the contents of the briefing. Nor can [the chief of staff] take the action a party leader can and should.”

I want to also go back to the iPolitics article because there are more quotes here from Wesley Wark, who basically said that the arguments being made by the leader of the Conservatives are nonsense. Mr. Wark said:

...the Tory leader is knowingly misleading the public by claiming he doesn't need the clearance because his chief of staff has received briefings.

“Pierre Poilievre's idea that it's sufficient for his chief of staff to be briefed for him and for his chief of staff to share that information with him is complete nonsense,” Wark told iPolitics.

“And Poilievre, having been a former privy councillor and minister, knows it's nonsense.”

Ward Elcock, the former director of CSIS.... I don't think you can get more authoritative than that. It says:

Both Wark and Elcock agreed that there was no reasonable justification for Poilievre not to pursue the security clearance.

I know, from conversations I had in private with the RCMP and with CSIS, that they absolutely would like it to be a fact that every single federal party leader has the necessary security clearance.

Everyone keeps on talking around this table about a “gag order” being placed on the leader. First of all, I'm not sure it's actually physically possible to place a gag on the leader—he's not a verbally challenged person—but they're missing the point completely here. This is not about what you can and cannot say. This is about actions, and the leader of each party wields an incredible amount of power in their caucuses. I mean, that has just been a trend in politics. There has been a centralizing focus of power, and in each party caucus the party leader has the ability to determine who has which parliamentary roles, who sits on which committees and, most importantly, who gets to have their nomination papers signed to run under that party's banner in the next election.

There's a huge difference between intelligence and evidence, which is why our national security experts are quite loath to have the names just released out into the ether, as there might not be room for proper judicial process. I think we have to respect those very real fears, Mr. Chair, and I'm not the one saying this: These are our national security experts, the people, the men and women who work in the field.

If a party leader were aware that there may be some compromised individuals in their caucus, this kind of clearance would allow them to take the necessary briefing to ensure the person is nowhere near sensitive parliamentary proceedings and, what's most important for Canadians so that they can have confidence in our elections, that the person does not run under their party banner.

Again, Mr. Chair, all of the arguments that were put forward by the Conservatives and by their leader have been directly refuted by men and women who are former and active members in our intelligence and security agencies. If the leader of the Conservative Party thinks he knows better than them, he should have the courage to go on the record and say so—level with Canadians—because right now it's becoming increasingly clear that this is nothing more than a partisan charade. It is meant to.... I don't know what the actual reasoning is, but I think the Conservatives have definitely painted themselves as agents of chaos in this Parliament, and this is yet another example of it, at a time when we should be taking this extremely seriously.

I would love to get to our study on India. We have a study about Russia going on. There are all kinds of important matters that this committee needs to be seized with. It's great that we had that unanimous consent last week to get into that, but if we are serious about that, let's get to a vote and get this to the floor of the House of Commons. Maybe we can have a concurrence debate, and then the wider House can be seized with this issue and we can have a debate about what the right course of action is.

I don't think that this going on and on serves Canadians, so I urge my Conservative colleagues to stop their speaking spots and listen to the evidence that's been presented by multiple people who work in this field. Let's get on with this.

Let's show our foreign adversaries that, while we may have our political differences, on this front we stand united. We stand united in wanting all of our federal party leaders to have the security clearance and briefings necessary, so that they can take the actions within their respective caucuses to make sure that in the next election there is no candidate who might be compromised by a foreign power.

I'll leave it there, Mr. Chair.

Alistair MacGregor

$600,966.00