Foreign interference inquiry still pushing for documents despite quiet recent release by government

OTTAWA — The head of the foreign interference commission says she is still pushing the government for records after the Liberals quietly released additional cabinet documents less than three weeks before the start of new public inquiry hearings.

For months, the Trudeau government and the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference (PIFI) have been arguing over an undisclosed number of documents and redactions withheld by Ottawa over claims of cabinet confidence.

That’s despite a promise by Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc last year that the inquiry looking into foreign interference in Canadian elections would have access to all relevant cabinet documents.

As the commission is set to launch its second phase of public hearings on Monday, the government appears to have granted at least one of inquiry commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue’s requests.

In an order in council signed Aug. 30 and posted online, the Liberals allowed the release of confidential cabinet documents that were specifically “prepared and used” by national security officials since Jan. 1, 2019, to brief cabinet “on matters related to foreign interference that are strictly operational in nature.”

The order does not specify how many additional documents will be released to the inquiry or how many redactions will be lifted.

The order comes after Hogue noted in her first report published in May that she was challenging certain redactions in documents by the government, who cited “cabinet confidence, solicitor-client privilege or protection of personal information.”

“Discussions as to the application of these privileges is ongoing,” she wrote in a footnote in the report at the time.

But four months after the publication of her report and even after the government’s latest cabinet document release, Hogue is still pushing for more records.

“Discussions with the Government on document production remain ongoing,” inquiry spokesperson Michael Tansey said in a short statement Wednesday when asked if the commissioner was satisfied with the new recent order in council.

Tansey referred questions about the number of new documents being released or redactions lifted due to the order in council to the Privy Council Office (PCO).

In a statement, PCO spokesperson Pierre-Alain Bujold did not say how many additional documents had been disclosed to PIFI but confirmed that discussions are ongoing about redactions.

He also noted that the newly released information “provides further detail into how operational information is shared within government.”

To date, the government has provided 48,000 documents to PIFI including four cabinet documents that had already been disclosed to other national security review bodies, Bujold said.

PIFI is scheduled to resume public hearings Monday on the second portion of its study, this time focusing on the federal government’s ability to detect, counter and deter foreign interference in Canada.

In her first report published in the spring, Hogue concluded that foreign meddling had “tainted” the 2019 and 2021 federal elections and may have impacted the outcome of a few ridings, but had not affected the overall result.

Documents that contain cabinet confidences — information that is discussed at the cabinet table — are normally prevented from disclosure to allow ministers to “express their views freely during the discussions held in Cabinet.”

But national review agencies and observers are increasingly concerned that the government is constantly expanding its definition of what is a cabinet confidence to prevent the disclosure of certain information.

In interviews, two national security academics say the government’s latest release order is very narrow and unlikely to provide all the information Hogue is seeking.

“This is the government giving up very small ground on a very contentious issue,” said Stephanie Carvin, a Carleton University assistant professor and former national security analyst with the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS).

Wesley Wark, a long-time national security observer and senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance (CIGI), said the government is trying to avoid looking like its “stonewalling” the inquiry but is far from “opening the floodgates” with its recent release.

“I suspect that the number of reports going into cabinet from CSIS, CSE (Communications Security Establishment) and others that are ‘strictly operational in nature’ is very few,” Wark said. “Most of what cabinet would receive would not be of that nature.”

What is being released now is “a very narrow window into a much broader range of intelligence reporting, and it’s not the most important window either,” he added.

Wark and Carvin think the bulk of national security information brought to cabinet is likely strategic or policy advice, not operational.

The PIFI is far from the only national security review body struggling with the government using cabinet confidence claims to withhold information.

In its most recent annual report, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) accused the Liberal government of “inappropriately” withholding all or part of over a thousand documents over cabinet confidence claims during its review of foreign interference.

“The Committee is concerned that some departments and agencies may be inappropriately using claims of Cabinet confidences to avoid disclosing information to the Committee,” the report said.

A PCO spokesperson replied at the time that it was “misleading” to say that the number of cabinet documents withheld was “anything close to that.”

National Post [email protected]

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