Achi news desk-
Democratic Institutions Secretary Dominique LeBlanc says he plans to introduce legislation this week to help the federal government address foreign interference, but he would not say whether the proposal would include registering foreign agents.
LeBlanc – who also serves as Minister of Public Security and Intergovernmental Affairs – said that he submitted a bill aimed at combating foreign interference in the message, paving the way for its submission in the House of Representatives in the coming days.
There have long been calls for the federal government to implement such a registry — a searchable online database of agents working for foreign governments, similar to systems in place in Australia and the United States — but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said it is “a complex file.”
In an interview on CTV’s Question Time that airs Sunday, when asked by host Vasi Kapelos if one of the tools the government is proposing to prevent foreign interference is registration, LeBlanc said he would not discuss the details of the legislation before it is filed.
“I want to respect the parliament,” he said. “There are rules surrounding the discussion of legislation before it is presented in parliament.”
Last fall, members of the Ethics Committee of the House of Representatives published an 82-page report at the end of the months-long study on foreign interference, in which they called on the government to act in accordance with their nearly two dozen recommendations, including the establishment of a registry of foreign agents. “As soon as possible.”
And last September, LeBlanc told Capelos in an interview on CTV News that his administration “hopes to move quickly” on legislation to implement such a registry.
LeBlanc’s latest interview comes on the heels of Commissioner Marie-José Hogue issuing the first of two expected reports in the foreign interference investigation.
Hogg’s interim report, released Friday, with the final report due later this year, concludes there was foreign interference in both the 2019 and 2021 federal elections, which may have affected two ridings, but the overall election results were unaffected.
