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ou're watching CTV News Channel I'm
Roger Peterson thank you very much for joining us we begin with a live look at Ottawa where stunning allegations released earlier this week in a foreign interference report triggered outrage on Parliament Hill it alleg that some MPS and senators are wittingly helping foreign governments like China and India meddling Canadian politics now calls are mounting for the government to release the names of those involved let's bring in Tom mare our CTV News political commentator and former NDP leader Tom thanks as always pleasure to have you be with you Roger uh it was an interesting week no agreement to release the names what are your thoughts on that this foreign interference file goes back more than 18 months now because it has to be looked at in the context of what we went through initially with the allegations of foreign government interference in Canadian elections Roger that started in November 2022 Valley Indonesia a G20 meeting we have images of Justin Trudeau finger wagging under the nose of the president of China and the journalists who are there wanted to know what all that was about and they were told by trudos people he was giving him what for because the Chinese government had been interfering in our elections when he got back to Canada he wouldn't answer he wouldn't give anything to the Canadian public he wasn't forthcoming and when you're not transparent on something as crucial and fundamental as our democracy and our institutions the public is not going to forget this overnight so the government stalled they gave it to David Johnston and we know what happened we've now got a commission of inquiry under Madame Justice hog and I start with that because Roger she's saying she's not being given all of the information that she's entitled to to be able to file her report it's being held back by Trudeau and the people around him in the prime minister's office fast forward what did we learn this week David McGinty a highly respected senior liberal MP signs a report with other members of that nonpartisan committee and say look we were not given access to about a thousand documents that we needed to see and beyond that we're not being you know we're not able to to do our work and we do know and this is what they have in their report that there are Canadian members of our Parliament whether they be on the house of common side as elected officials or on the Senate side as appointed officials who have been helping foreign governments and giving them information they're not entitled to that's a bombshell and then the issue becomes well do we release the names now and the government's arguments they they've got a Litany of arguments one is well it's not exactly a th000 documents well how many is it 980 oh well it's illegal to make those names public no it's not the an order in council signed by cabinet could could make them public is it a good idea to make them public I think that it's not a good idea to make them public because we don't have enough solid information this hasn't been tested by law enforcement it hasn't even hasn't of course been tested in court therefore so you can't just start putting out list you're into McCarthyism at that point so on that part of it the government's right but it's after 18 months of stalling that the average Canadian is just saying I get the sense that there's more going on here that meets the eye and the government is not giving me the information I'm entitled to and this is about the Canadian Parliament and again it's not the type of thing that governments know Roger that it takes about six weeks for almost anything to be forgotten by the public that's an actual number six weeks here it's not going away why because it's that important to people who care about our country and the Liberals don't seem to understand that they're still stonewalling and the average member of the public is just saying there's more going on here they're not being honest with us and we have a right to know and they do have the right to know are we going to find out do you think I think we will I mean the the the danger here is it'll be an uncontrolled leak I you know the wording of this thing wittingly or semi- wittingly I wanted to ask you about that because we found that an unusual to we were talking about it in The Newsroom the term wittingly I mean nobody you'd use the word intentionally everybody everybody would understand that but my favorite was semi- wittingly you know the old expression of somebody being a half but but let's just let's just say that none of this looks good on the people who are are supposed to be taken care of our our government and our institutions and that's the government in power the conservatives have been doing a very decent job around us they've been careful they haven't gone white hot over it PV has it kind of easy because of course he stands in the house he Huffs and puffs and says well when are you going to release the names knowing full well they're not going to he probably doesn't want them to anyway because you can be sure that they're if there's liberals in there probably some conservatives in there as well I doubt that there are block and PS who have been giving State Secrets away but be that as it may I do think that the PV you know conservatives have have been playing their hands so well for the for the same 18 months I mean this coincided with PV coming in as conservative leader um they're smart I mean when you're the basic rule of politics when your adversary is busy beating themselves up don't do anything to intervene and this is exactly the policy that they're following they give out their lines very well I listened to a detailed debate almost in successive interviews but they were they were able to hear each other between a conservative MP from Quebec on French radio on Friday and uh it's really incredible to hear him always giving the same answers Dominic Leblon on behalf of the government because of course Mr Trudeau was away at commemoration and and it was just a an absolute ball of confusion the lines that the Liberals were trying to put out there were three or to four different lines of approach oh foreign governments are probably very happy to see us talking about this stuff maybe we should stop talking about it none of it really held together but you know they it's just chaff you know coming out of the back of the plane to try to confuse the radar and this is what they're trying to do they're trying to snow people on this and Canadians are just saying hey it's too important for you to tr try to use the average strategy of a government which is to just come up with excuses and keep the thing going and that's why the conservatives are smart to keep pushing on it more has to come and the first thing the Trudeau has to do Roger is give the information to Madam Justice hope I have a feeling she's going to come out publicly on this very soon if she doesn't get the information she's entitled to okay Tom as always thank you very much for your Insight on this great to be with you CTV News political 
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