Tories Table Motion to Compel Telford to Testify on Foreign Interference

Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister Katie Telford arrives to appear as a witness at the Public Order Emergency Commission in Ottawa on Nov 24, 2022. (The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick)

The federal Conservatives have tabled a motion in the House of Commons to order Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s top advisor to testify before a parliamentary committee studying foreign interference in Canada’s past two federal elections.

The motion, sponsored by Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre on March 20, called for the Commons Standing Committee on Ethics to undertake a study of “all aspects of foreign interference in relation to the 2019 and 2021 general elections” in light of reports of interference by Beijing.

Poilievre’s motion calls on the committee to compel Katie Telford, Trudeau’s chief of staff, to testify for three hours under oath before April 14 concerning any knowledge she may have of foreign interference in the past two elections.

The motion also calls on the committee to invite Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino, and Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair to each give two hours of solo testimony on the matter before May 19.

In addition to inviting the ministers, Poilievre’s motion also calls on the committee to invite testimony from Morris Rosenberg, who penned a recent assessment of the Critical Election Incident Public Protocol (CEIPP) for the 2021 federal election, which concluded Beijing’s attempts to interfere did not influence the election’s outcomes.

The motion also calls for Canadian Security Intelligence Service Director David Vigneault, certain former ministers and ambassadors to China, and a number of both past and present CEIPP members to be invited to appear as witnesses before the committee.

The motion follows attempts supported by all opposition-party members on the Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs (PROC) to pass a motion in committee compelling Telford to testify, but Liberal members on PROC have filibustered over several committee meetings to avoid a vote on the matter.

Debate

Prior to the latest motion being tabled in the House, Poilievre and a number of other Conservative MPs called on support from the NDP to give the opposition parties a voting majority over the Liberal government.

“Will the NDP, which will have the deciding vote, help Trudeau cover up the truth again?” Poilievre wrote on Twitter on March 16.

Conservative MP Michael Cooper, who previously tabled a similar motion to order Telford to testify before PROC, wrote on March 19 that the NDP “has a choice.”

“They can continue to do the bidding of PMJT’s corrupt government or vote with us to demand answers on Beijing’s election interference,” he wrote on Twitter.

Liberal MPs voiced opposition to the Conservatives’ motion in the House on March 20, with Mendicino saying the Liberal government “takes foreign interference with the utmost seriousness” and has already taken a number of actions to counteract it.

A number of Bloc Québécois MPs voiced support for the motion, while NDP MPs questioned why the motion seeks to only study Beijing’s attempts to interfere in Canada’s last two elections instead of undertaking a broad study of interference by a number of other countries, naming Russia and Iran as examples.

Conservative MP Cooper said the study should focus on the “very specific reports” of the Chinese Communist Party interfering in Canada’s recent elections rather than making the study’s scope too broad.

The House will vote on the motion on March 21.