Kamloops MP Caputo presses government to release names of alleged foreign conspirators

Thursday morning (June 6), he grilled Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc about why the Liberal government is refusing to name the parliamentarians identified in the report. LeBlanc responded by accusing Caputo of theatrics.

Speaking to CFJC News Thursday, Caputo said it’s an important issue.

“People need to know, when they put an ‘x’ beside someone’s name in the next election, are they putting that ‘x’ beside somebody who may be compromised by a hostile foreign state actor? To me, it’s a no-brainer — name the people. I don’t care what party they’re from. This is a time when country comes before party.”

Both LeBlanc and NSICOP chair David McGuinty said they are bound by the Security of Information Act, preventing them from releasing the names.

“I’m not going to violate the Security of Information Act and risk prosecution for a political stunt, and I think Mr. Caputo knows better,” said LeBlanc. “An intelligence source or information may not have context, may be discredited, may be altered. The idea there’s a perfect list of names isn’t entirely reliable (and) that it should be released to the public is simply irresponsible.”

Caputo does not find that argument compelling.

“If you go to the report, it doesn’t really seem to equivocate,” Caputo told CFJC Today. “To me, it says ‘wittingly and semi-wittingly.’ It doesn’t say it’s still under investigation and even if something is still under investigation, that doesn’t mean you don’t release what you have now as soon as it’s corroborated.”

“I’m puzzled as to how this happened, but even worse than how this happened, why aren’t we naming the names?” he continued. “Shed the light. Everybody who has spoken about foreign interference, they say that transparency and sunlight is the best thing, and yet we have a Liberal government that refused to do that.”

by James Peters

Kamloops MP Caputo presses government to release names of alleged foreign conspirators

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