EDITORIAL: Upgrade our laws on foreign interference

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In releasing its report on foreign interference last week, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians said it’s unlikely anyone it anonymously alleged has colluded with foreign powers will be prosecuted.

Despite listing specific examples of what it described as unethical activities by a few parliamentarians, the report noted that while some of their actions “may be illegal” they “are unlikely to lead to criminal charges, owing to Canada’s failure to address the long-standing issue of protecting classified information and methods in judicial processes.”

NSICOP identified these unethical and possibly illegal activities as:

– Communicating frequently with foreign missions before or during a political campaign to obtain support from community groups or businesses which the diplomatic missions promise to quietly mobilize in a candidate’s favour;

– Accepting knowingly or through willful blindness funds or benefits from foreign missions or their proxies which have been layered or otherwise disguised to conceal their source;

– Providing foreign diplomatic officials with privileged information on the work or opinions of fellow Parliamentarians, knowing that such information will be used by those officials to inappropriately pressure Parliamentarians to change their positions;

– Responding to the requests or direction of foreign officials to improperly influence Parliamentary colleagues or Parliamentary business to the advantage of a foreign state; and,

– Providing information learned in confidence from the government to a known intelligence officer of a foreign state.

If none of these activities are likely to result in any criminal charges, let alone convictions, then it is clear our laws and methods for enforcing them need to be improved.

That said, criminal law rightly demands the highest standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt to convict anyone accused of a crime because the freedom of the individual charged with such an offence is at stake if they are convicted.

But political parties can and do expel their members for unethical behaviour, short of being convicted of a criminal offence, and it should be clear to any political party and its leader that the unethical behaviours identified by NSICOP should result in expulsion.

One lesson from the NSICOP report is that going forward, political parties need to be vigilant about foreign interference within their own ranks, even if it does not rise to the level of a criminal offence.