The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians has issued a press release indicating that its members have met and agreed to undertake a review of “foreign interference in Canada’s federal democratic processes.”
https://www.nsicop-cpsnr.ca/press-releases/pr-cp-2023-03-08/pr-cp-2023-03-08-en.html
This follows a request from the Prime Minister to the committee. The Committee’s statutory review powers provide that it can undertake review reports referred to it by a Minister of the Crown.
Here is the Committee mandate in full, drawn from the legislation:
8 (1) The mandate of the Committee is to review
(a) the legislative, regulatory, policy, administrative and financial framework for national security and intelligence;
(b) any activity carried out by a department that relates to national security or intelligence, unless the activity is an ongoing operation and the appropriate Minister determines that the review would be injurious to national security; and
(c) any matter relating to national security or intelligence that a minister of the Crown refers to the Committee.
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/N-16.6/FullText.html
The news is not surprising, but it puts NSICOP into the field ahead of both the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, which may still be trying to figure out its approach to the issue, and way ahead of the still-to-be-appointed “special rapporteur.”
The NSICOP press release notes that it will build on the foundations of its 2019 study of foreign interference and will also consider the (classified) version of the independent assessment by Morris Rosenberg that looked into the government’s election interference warning mechanism in the 2021 federal election.
This time around, unlike with the Committee’s 2019 recommendations, the Government will have to pay heed to whatever policy ideas the Committee puts forward.
The next step forward for the committee will be to quickly come up with a terms of reference for its study and begin engaging with federal departments and agencies on the scope of its review and access to classified material and briefings.
The Committee will do its work behind closed doors. It has no history of leaks (good for it!). How soon might we see a report? Best case is that the Committee matches its track record for the 2019 report, which it produced in a matter of nine months. Then it will be incumbent upon the Government to speedily conduct the necessary redaction exercise for any material deemed injurious to national security, defence or international relations as per the provisions of the Canada Evidence Act and the Security of Information Act. Once the redaction exercise, which is led by the Department of Justice, is completed, the report will go to Parliament.
A report that will take over nine months to make its way to Parliament and will inevitably be replete with redactions may not satisfy opposition MPs and party leaders. It may not satisfy Canadians, as the Prime Minister ruefully acknowledged in his press conference on March 6. It will not slow down the flow of leaks or media reporting. The future momentum of the election interference story cannot be predicted. All we can say with certainty is that the NSICOP report will be first to the table (unless an election is called!)
NSICOP is, simply, the best bet to get to a higher level of public understanding and government transparency around election interference and a best bet, in the present circumstances, for concrete policy recommendations on how to strengthen Canada’s defences and democratic resilience, given that the Government has essentially outsourced much of this crucial security policy work.
The NSICOP review is also a high stakes gamble for the committee on its future. Subject as it is to partisan political doubts, slanted media reporting, and to low public visibility, its future viability will rest on the quality of this one report. It will either deliver big-time, or face extinction. It will likely conduct its review in the midst of an overdue Parliamentary study of its legislation, which may bring more controversy to the work of NSICOP. Bad timing, but there it is.
As it wades into this high-stakes exercise, NSICOP at least has the benefit of a prior foundational study, a strong non-partisan approach and an expert, professional secretariat. It also enjoys some continuity of membership. Of the nine current members (eight plus the Chair), the Chair, David McGuinty, and Senator Francis Rankin are veterans of the previous 2019 study of foreign interference. Four other members have previously served on the committee (Bergeron/Bloc, Davies/NDP, Khalid/Liberal and Morrison/Conservative). That leaves it with three newcomers, two Liberals (Lattanzio and Maloney) and one Conservative (Ruff).
Current members and profiles are listed on the NSICOP website:
https://www.nsicop-cpsnr.ca/committee-members-membres-du-comite-en.html
But the Committee is also shy of its full membership. The legislation allows for a maximum of ten members plus the chair. Three can be drawn from the Senate. At present the Committee only has the redoubtable Senator Francis Lankin (who previously served on the Security and Intelligence Review Committee and knows the national security world) . The Prime Minister should act speedily to add two more Senators to the committee. There are good candidates that could be drawn from “the other place” to assist in the Committee’s work. It will need all the help it can get in what will be an existential study for it.