By Don Newman

January 30, 2025

Pierre Poilievre wants to remain in the dark. At least that’s what he’s doing by continuing to refuse the top-secret security clearance required to read classified government documents. His latest refusal came this week after the tabling of the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions by Commissioner Justice Marie-Josee Hogue.

In realtive terms, Justice Hogue’s report is pretty tepid tea, particularly given that it was set up after the Parliamentary Committee on National Security and Intelligence had reported that some members of Parliament had colluded with agents of foreign countries. In her report, Justice Hogue said the dealings of some members of Parliament with people connected to foreign governments were “problematic” but that’s she found no “traitors” in Parliament.

CSIS — the Canadian Intelligence Security Service — has offered confidential briefings on the Hogue report to party leaders who hold “top secret” security clearances. The security clearance process for top-secret level involves a background check by the RCMP, including the verification of all credentials, interviews with personal and professional character references, a criminal record check, a foreign travel assessment and a CSIS security assessment.

All the party leaders but Poilievre have obtained the security clearances and have had security briefings in the past. But the Conservative leader has refused to get the top secret clearance required on the grounds that being privy to information that way would restrict what he could say about what he had been told.

That is true. He would be somewhat restricted. But that hasn’t bothered or stopped Bloc Québécois leader Yves-Francois Blanchet, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh or Green Party Leader Elizabeth May from getting a top-secret clearance, getting briefed and continuing to actively criticize the government in the House of Commons and elsewhere.

What it appears to mean is that Poilievre isn’t planning any changes in his political style or messaging as the country faces a general election campaign that has informally been underway since Liberal by-election losses last summer and that could formally begin as early as next month.

How Poilievre would handle this question if elected prime minister remains to be seen, but he shares his aversion to intelligence briefings with Donald Trump.

Whether in the House of Commons or in speeches around the country, the Conservative leader employs a slashing, accusative approach castigating his opponent — until now Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — that is built around perceived public grievances but is not always closely associated with fact.

How Poilievre would handle this question if elected prime minister remains to be seen, but he shares his aversion to intelligence briefings with Donald Trump, who was famously dismissive of the Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) during his first term, and who refused briefings during the 2024 presidential campaign — on grounds that amount to a variation of Poilievre’s stated concern about how his knowledge could redound politically — so that he could not be accused of leaking information. Trump reportedly began acquiescing to the briefings in November.

Poilievre’s unwillingness to be constrained by fact was honed when he was a parliamentary secretary and then junior minister in the last Conservative government of Stephen Harper. It fell to him to defend the Conservative Party in the House during the “in and out scandal,” a plan the Conservatives used in the 2006 election to transfer money from the Party’s central headquarters to local riding associations, ostensibly to be spent on local campaigns.

Instead, the local associations immediately transferred the money back to central headquarters, where the party used it for other campaign spending. The scheme was uncovered after many of the riding associations that transferred the money back to national headquarters then applied to Election Canada for rebates for election expenses they had not incurred. As the scandal ran its course, four people, two of them Conservative senators, were charged. After plea bargaining and negotiations, those charges were dropped, the Conservative Party was fined $52, 000 by Elections Canada and reimbursed the agency more than $200, 000 dollars.

During that period, it was often Poilievre who was on his feet defending the Harper government. Most of the time, he skirted the facts surrounding the scandal and instead attacked the Opposition parties who were questioning the government. It was quite effective.

Since the Conservative defeat in 2015, first as Finance critic and for the past two-plus years as party leader, he has transferred that same technique to Opposition in the House of Commons.

Now, as the election approaches and he has again rejected a secret security clearance, Poilievre presumably plans to go on as he has; in the dark and unfettered by fact.

Policy Columnist Don Newman is an Officer of the Order of Canada, and a lifetime member and a Past President of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery.