House committee to summon Brampton Mayor and Conservative Party of Canada leadership contenders in foreign interference probe

The head of the RCMP, Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown and other contenders in the Conservative Party of Canada leadership race will be summoned to testify at a House of Commons committee about the bombshell allegations made this week about Indian state-sponsored interference in Canada.

The national security committee agreed Friday to call RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme along with Mélanie Joly and Dominic LeBlanc as part of six meetings set aside for the study.

NDP MP Alistair MacGregor put forward the motion days after Canada expelled six Indian diplomats amid allegations they worked with criminal organizations to target Sikh separatists in Canada. In a news conference on Monday Duheme said the national police force had launched a special investigative unit last February to investigate multiple cases of extortion, coercion and violence, including murder that were linked to agents of the Indian government.

In more than a dozen cases Canadian citizens were warned about threats to their personal safety and Duheme said the national police force was speaking out to try and disrupt what it deemed a serious threat to public safety.

India has denied the allegations and expelled six Canadian diplomats from New Delhi following Canada’s decision to expel India’s high commissioner and five other diplomats.

“For the RCMP, indeed for any police force that is conducting an active investigation, to come out with such explosive revelations I think underscores just how serious this is,” MacGregor told the committee.

“The RCMP made a point that they were doing this because some individuals in Canada had their lives directly in danger and the threat reached such a level they felt compelled to ignore the traditional way of going through the judicial process and make these accusations public.”

Canada’s allegations were followed Thursday by charges announced by the U.S. Justice Department against an Indian government employee who is accused in an alleged foiled plot to kill a Sikh separatist leader living in New York City.

U.S. authorities say Vikash Yadav directed the New York plot from India. He faces murder-for-hire charges in a planned killing that prosecutors have previously said was meant to precede a string of other politically motivated murders in the United States and Canada.

The Indian government didn’t immediately provide comment on the U.S. charge.

The House committee Friday also voted to call Brampton mayor Patrick Brown to testify, as well as other candidates from the 2022 Conservative leadership contest. A report released in June by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) contains a redacted paragraph that details alleged Indian interference in a Conservative leadership contest. A specific year is not mentioned.

The Conservatives have said they have been given no information about any such interference.

Brown revealed earlier this year he had previously been briefed by CSIS on examples of foreign influence in Brampton amid allegations that China  interfered in the leadership races of the Conservative Party of Canada – a contest Brown was disqualified from in 2022.

The committee is also now considering a second NDP motion calling for all party leaders to apply for a top-secret security clearance within 30 days, along with a Conservative amendment to demand Prime Minister Justin Trudeau release the names of parliamentarians listed in top-secret documents as being engaged in or at-risk of foreign interference.

At the foreign interference inquiry this week Trudeau said Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre refused to get the clearance that would allow him access the names of Conservatives from those documents, while Poilievre accused Trudeau of lying and demanded he make all the names public.

Trudeau acknowledged the documents include the names of members of other parties, including the Liberals, but said if Poilievre doesn’t get the clearance that is needed to know who is at risk he can’t take any steps to prevent or limit the impact.

Manitoba Conservative MP Raquel Dancho told the committee that Poilievre getting a briefing would be a “gag order” against criticizing the government on foreign interference.

“We can put this to bed, it’s rapidly devolving into some McCarthy witch-hunt as a result of the prime minister’s actions and we can clear this up today by releasing the names,” Dancho said.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said releasing the names is dangerous. May said she has read the unredacted NSICOP report and told the committee that no sitting MP is listed as a witting participant in foreign interference, but some are described as “semi-witting.”

May added that she originally planned to share how many people are considered “semi-witting,” but was told by security officials that could compromise intelligence sources.

“Even the number, the numerical categorization of people who might fall in that category, I was told clearly could not be said publicly without placing at risk the lives of our intelligence assets around the world,” May said.

“I want my colleagues to understand this isn’t a game, this isn’t politics.”

MacGregor said he agreed with the spirit of the Conservative amendment, but would like to see names released only with the support of both the RCMP and CSIS.

The committee will meet again to continue debating the second motion on Oct. 22.