Poilievre is wise to resist Canada’s weird security clearance law

                                            Pierre Poilievre (photo credit: The Walrus)

 

Poilievre is wise to resist Canada’s weird security clearance law

By Hendrik van der Breggen

 

With Canada’s election looming so near (April 28, 2025), there’s little time for Canadian citizens to think carefully. But think carefully we must. 

Conservative Pierre Poilievre, Canada’s opposition leader, is running for prime minister against Liberal Mark Carney, Canada’s present PM. 

An alleged problem for Mr. Poilievre has to do with Mr. Poilievre refusing to agree to a security clearance. Much brouhaha is being made over this by Liberals. 

The not-so-subtle suggestion of the brouhaha is that because Poilievre is refusing a security clearance Poilievre is hiding something—and so this counts against him as a possible PM. 

But, to borrow some words from Paul Harvey, we need to know the rest of the story. And it seems that the rest of the story counts in favour of Poilievre’s candidacy for prime minister. 

Poilievre’s refusal to agree to a security clearance in the instance under discussion has to do with a particular—and questionable—security law that will not allow him to talk about the topic of a top secret document if he sees that document, a document the Liberals—i.e., Poilievre’s political enemies—apparently want him to see. 

The document apparently has something to do with foreign interference from India in Poilievre’s 2022 Conservative leadership bid, an interference that had already passed an appropriate legal review process headed up by Madame Justice Marie-Josée Hogue (a high-ranking Canadian judge). It was determined that there is no evidence that foreign attempts to meddle succeeded. 

Interestingly, this was all known since at least last June. Interestingly, too, the document has been brought to the public’s attention near the beginning of a national federal election campaign by being leaked to The Globe and Mail (one of Canada’s major legacy news outlets, heavily subsidized by Canada’s Liberal-led government). This is suspicious. 

Perhaps, though, as some CBC political commentators have pondered, the topic has changed, and perhaps the document has to do with other matters of national security. 

Whatever the case may be, it turns out that if Poilievre sees this document, he will be hamstrung as Canada’s opposition leader. That is, if the document perhaps discloses wrong-doing by the governing Liberal party, Poilievre will not be allowed to speak freely about the matter. (He would risk serious prison time—up to 14 years—if he did.) In other words, that is a weird law. 

So Poilievre has declined top-secret security clearance to see the document so he may be able to speak freely on behalf of Canadians about the document’s topic (whatever it is) if he needs to, especially if it involves wrong-doing by the Liberal government. Surely, Poilievre is correctly resisting possible manipulation by those in power. Wisely, it seems to me, Poilievre is instead leaving the document in the hands of CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) which can brief Poilievre if CSIS believes he should be briefed. 

Canadian lawyer Don Hutchinson helpfully explains in more detail:

Mr. Poilievre has declined to agree to a unique security clearance controlled by the prime minister’s office rather than by parliament. The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) was structured during the Trudeau majority to report to the prime minister rather than parliament, with the prime minister controlling security clearance requirements, content of NSICOP reports released to parliament or the public, and comments that might be made by those with clearance to see unredacted NSICOP reports and materials. Mr. Poilievre declined as the Leader of the Opposition should not be constrained by extra-parliamentary requirements controlled by the prime minister.[1]

Hutchinson adds:

Former Leader of the Opposition Tom Mulcair has been vocal in support of Mr. Poilievre’s stand to not be compromised in his constitutional parliamentary responsibilities.[2]

Here is an example of the support from former NDP opposition leader Tom Mulcair (from a recent interview with CTV News; my transcript):

I agree completely with Pierre Poilievre on this. I believe he is completely right. You do not accept to play this mug’s game where you restrain your ambit and your ability to act as leader of the official opposition, which is a constitutional role to hold the government to account. And this game where you have people in the hierarchy of the security establishment saying, “oh, he really should come in, but then he’s not really allowed to talk about it anymore.” Really? Didn’t we just have a commission of inquiry headed up by Madame Justice Hogue [concerning India’s interference with Poilievre’s leadership bid of 2022] who put all this stuff away and said that there might have been a little bit of this and a little bit of that? But all of a sudden we’re talking about whether Poilievre actually got the 68 percent. What, maybe it was 67 percent? This is madness, you know, to try to make this an issue in a campaign that is so serious for the country, to try to go back to this stuff, and to try to complain about Poilievre wanting to do his constitutional duty. He wants to do his job of holding the government to account and—no—he’s not going to walk into that bear trap that consists in getting a security clearance, seeing documents that could be important, and not talking about it.[3]

Moreover—and significantly—Canadian lawyer Christine van Geyn (of the Canadian Constitution Foundation) reports that the security clearance law at issue is presently on its way to Canada’s Supreme Court and is “likely unconstitutional.”[4] 

Yes, Canada’s election is coming very soon, so there’s little time for Canadian citizens to think carefully. But we must make time to think carefully. 

My conclusion: In the matter of refusing a unique/weird security clearance that might compromise the role of Canada’s leader of the official opposition, all Canadians—whether Conservative or Liberal or whatever—should appreciate Pierre Poilievre for acting wisely on their (our) behalf.[5] 

 

Notes

1. Don Hutchinson, Facebook comment, March 31, 2025; comment used with author’s permission. 

2. Hutchinson, Facebook comment. 

3. Tom Mulcair, “Mulcair on why Poilievre shouldn’t get his security clearance,” CTV News, March 25, 2025 (1-minute video). 

4. For a more in-depth discussion about the legal situation having to do with Poilievre’s security clearance, see Christine van Geyn’s recent analysis (15-minute video): “The real reason Pierre Poilievre doesn’t have security clearance,” Canadian Constitution Foundation, March 27, 2025. 

5. Again, for a more in-depth discussion about the legal situation having to do with Poilievre’s security clearance, see Christine van Geyn’s 15-minute video “The real reason Pierre Poilievre doesn’t have security clearance.”

 

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Hendrik van der Breggen, PhD, is a retired philosophy professor who lives in Steinbach, Manitoba, Canada. Hendrik is author of the book Untangling Trudeau: MAID, COVID, ABORTION, LGBTQ+. (Hendrik’s book may be helpful to Canadians for better understanding Prime Minister Mark Carney and those who have staunchly supported former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Also, the book should be read by Conservatives and others who hold views similar to Liberals on medical assistance in dying, Covid mandates, abortion, and LGBTQ matters.)