Green Leader Elizabeth May says there’s no list of disloyal current MPs in unredacted NSICOP report

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May says she’s read the original version of a highly-publicized intelligence watchdog’s report on foreign interference and she doesn’t believe any of her House of Commons colleagues knowingly betrayed their country.

“There is no list of MPs who have shown disloyalty to Canada,” she said. “I am vastly relieved.”

Last week, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP), a cross-party committee of MPs and senators with top security clearances, released a heavily redacted document alleging some parliamentarians have actively helped foreign governments meddle in Canadian politics.

The report said some Parliamentarians are, in the words of the intelligence services, “semi-witting or witting participants in the efforts of foreign states to interfere in our politics.”

May has a top security clearance allowing her to see classified intelligence and was granted access to the unredacted version of NSICOP Monday night. She said reactions to the report since it was tabled last week have triggered a “totally understandable media firestorm, which in my view is overblown.”

May described the contents of the report as “not as bad as a John le Carré novel but a bit more worrying than Miss Marple.”

“So I am very glad I read the full report. I am very comfortable sitting with my colleagues,” said the veteran parliamentarian.

The redacted NSICOP report described what it called “particularly concerning” behaviour by some parliamentarians.

For example, the report said some elected officials “began wittingly assisting foreign state actors soon after their election.” The report said unnamed members of Parliament worked to influence their colleagues on India’s behalf and proactively provided confidential information to Indian officials.

May said that case study involved people not currently serving in Parliament.

“You couldn’t find a single name of a single member of Parliament currently serving who had significance intelligence, or any intelligence or any suggestion in the unredacted report that they had put the interest of a foreign…