Liberals look to sitting judges to lead foreign interference inquiry: LeBlanc

CHARLOTTETOWN -

It is taking longer than expected to find someone to lead a public inquiry into foreign interference because the government is in talks with sitting judges, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc said Tuesday, which means following specific protocols of engagement.

LeBlanc has been working with opposition House leaders since June to agree on the scope of a public inquiry as well as who would lead it. He would not confirm or deny reports that many people had turned down requests to be the commissioner after the partisan fighting that led former governor general David Johnston to resign as special rapporteur.

"We all hoped that this might have been concluded in a final way earlier, but the good news is we're continuing to do the work necessary and optimistic about getting to the right place."

LeBlanc said he anticipated talking to the House leaders about it again later Tuesday.

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But in French he said it is a complicated process that doesn't allow the government to approach a sitting judge directly. He said the government needs to instead go through their chief judge. He said he personally sought advice from Chief Justice Richard Wagner at the Supreme Court of Canada on the best way to proceed with sitting, rather than retired, judges.

"This isn't me picking up the phone and calling a judge on a list and saying 'What are you doing for the next 18 months?"' he said.

LeBlanc said he would "obviously not" discuss which justices the government has spoken with.

The Liberal cabinet is in the second day of a three-day cabinet retreat in Charlottetown. The government is looking to set its fall agenda at this retreat, with housing and affordability their priority issues.

But the past year has been dominated by the foreign interference issue after repeated allegations that the government has failed to properly monitor and respond to attempts by foreign governments, especially China, to meddle in Canada's affairs, including elections.

Opposition parties have been demanding a public inquiry for months and the Liberals initially balked at the idea. They instead appointed Johnston as a special rapporteur to investigate specific allegations that the Chinese government attempted to influence the outcomes of the last two federal elections.

They asked him to advise before the end of May whether an inquiry was warranted. He concluded that because so many of the matters were cloaked in secrecy due to national security implications, a public inquiry would be less useful.

The Conservatives were outraged and accused Johnston of bias because of past ties to the family of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as well as the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, created in honour of his father.

Johnston denied any partisan bias and the Liberals pointed out repeatedly that he was appointed governor general on the advice of then-Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, but he decided to step down from the role.

Johnston released a final report in June that included a confidential annex of evidence that he said opposition party leaders could review after getting security clearance.

Last week, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said she took part in the top-secret briefing, but said it contained documents that cited numerous intelligence reports she was not allowed to read. She has asked the Privy Council Office to make those documents available.

Trudeau deferred questions about the matter to LeBlanc, who said Tuesday that he'd raise May's concerns with appropriate officials.

But he noted that Johnston only called for his annex to be shared, while including intelligence reports was "a different decision," which is "not made by elected ministers; it's made by security officials."

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has also received top-secret security clearance but as of last week he had not yet received a confidential briefing, which officials say can only take place in the Ottawa region.

When Trudeau offered to bring all opposition party leaders into the fold, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet declined. They said they saw it as a trap designed to prevent them from speaking about the allegations in public.

Poilievre on Monday accused the Liberals of stalling, suggesting that Trudeau benefits when foreign states meddle in elections.

"The holdup is Justin Trudeau," he told reporters on Parliament Hill.

"He's blocking an inquiry; he didn't introduce a foreign-influence registry to identify those paid agents who work for foreign dictators to manipulate our politics."

The Liberals have said they will consult on a foreign-agent registry but have offered no specifics on its scope or timeline.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 22, 2023.

-- With files from Dylan Robertson in Ottawa.