Having Read Unredacted Report on Foreign Collusion, Green Party Leader Says Issue ‘Overblown’

Green Party of Canada Leader Elizabeth May speaks at a news conference on Feb.14, 2023 in Ottawa. The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld

Green Party Co-Leader Elizabeth May says she’s read the unredacted version of an intel watchdog report indicating parliamentarians have been colluding with foreign actors, but she has no concerns about any of her colleagues.

Ms. May says the good work of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) has been “eclipsed by a totally understandable media firestorm which, in my view, is overblown.”

NSICOP released its “Special Report on Foreign Interference“ June 3, which says some parliamentarians ”wittingly” helped foreign states. Conservatives have called for names to be released and a motion is about to be adopted in the House of Commons to refer the matter to the Foreign Interference Commission.

Ms. May said she was initially in favour of the motion but will now vote against it.

“I have no worries about anyone in the House of Commons,” Ms. May told reporters on June 11. “There is no list of MPs who have shown disloyalty to Canada.”

While saying she’s “relieved” about what she read, she said it “does not mean that there is nothing to see here.”

The Green Party co-leader raised concerns about one former MP who, according to the NSICOP report, “proactively” provided information to a foreign intelligence officer. Ms. May said this individual, whose name doesn’t appear in the unredacted version either, should be “fully investigated and prosecuted.”

Ms. May talked about the absence of a list of names and having seen no disloyalty shown towards Canada, but said there’s a few named people who “may be compromised.”

“They have been beneficiaries of foreign governments interfering in nomination contests,” she said.

“The few other Members of Parliament mentioned are in the category where even the intelligence reports suggest ... we can go from witting and unwitting to willful blindness, should they have known? Should they have figured it out? Who was paying for the buses to get people to show up to vote in different contests?”

The NSICOP report has a section on the 2019 Liberal Party nomination contest in the Don Valley North riding of Toronto. It says that “Many of Mr. [Han] Dong’s supporters arrived in buses [redacted] supported by the PRC [People’s Republic of China]: between 175 and 200 international Chinese students arrived in several buses.”

It says that according to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the PRC “had a significant impact in getting Han Dong nominated.” Mr. Dong left the Liberal Party in March 2023 to sit as an Independent amid allegations about his contacts with the Chinese consulate.

Mr. Dong has yet to respond to inquiries from The Epoch Times. The MP told the Foreign Interference Commission a few weeks back that he was unaware of the irregularities.

Number of MPs

Ms. May said she was explicitly told by authorities she could not divulge the number of MPs named in the report, but she did provide a ballpark figure.

“I think I’m safe to say very low number, fewer than a handful, and no one in that fewer than a handful could be described as setting out to knowingly betray Canada in favour of a foreign government,” she said.

Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said he is aware of names of lawmakers surfacing in foreign interference security reports.

“I know a number of names that were surfaced in various intelligence products that I had seen,” Mr. LeBlanc told the House of Commons public safety committee on June 6.

The minister has resisted calls to release the names, saying doing so would be irresponsible and could lead to his prosecution. He has, however, said his party supports referring the matter to the Foreign Interference Commission.