Drop David Johnston from foreign-interference job, Jagmeet Singh ...

The NDP will put forward a motion on Tuesday calling for Johnston to vacate the role, an appointment PM Justin Trudeau announced back in March to probe media reports that Beijing had meddled in general elections.

OTTAWA—NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is calling on the federal government to turf David Johnston as Ottawa’s point-person on foreign interference, as opposition parties demand a public inquiry into a matter they say is becoming increasingly clouded by conflict and bias.

“I’ve been very clear in not attacking Mr. Johnston personally, and I maintain that, but given the clear appearance of bias, given the mounting appearance of bias … it erodes the work that the special rapporteur can do,” Singh told reporters on Monday.

The NDP will put forward a motion on Tuesday calling for Johnston to vacate the role, an appointment Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced back in March to probe media reports that Beijing had meddled in the 2019 and 2021 general elections.

The motion says “serious questions have been raised about the Special Rapporteur process, the counsel he retained in support of this work, his findings, and his conclusions,” and states that “only a full public inquiry” led by someone backed by all federal parties should fill the role in Johnston’s stead.

In his first report delving into the allegations last week, Johnston recommended against holding a public inquiry because of the sensitive nature of the intelligence involved. His ruling, which Trudeau said he accepted, immediately earned the ire of all opposition parties, who have long called for a public inquiry into the government’s knowledge and handling of interference attempts.

In announcing his findings, Johnston was forced to fend off accusations that he is ill-suited for the role due to perceived conflicts of interest involving his ties to Trudeau and his family.

Johnston has said he encountered the prime minister when he was a child on several occasions during ski trips, and that he would see him on the McGill campus from “time to time” when Trudeau studied there and Johnston served as principal.

Last week, Democracy Watch reported that lawyer Sheila Block, whom Johnston retained to assist him with “obtaining, reviewing, and analyzing” materials required for his report, appeared to have issued multiple donations to the Liberal Party — and no other party — since 2006. When asked to confirm whether those donations did come from Block, the Prime Minister’s Office directed the Star to Johnston’s office, which did not immediately respond to a request for more information.

An NDP source who spoke to the Star on the condition of not being named said those alleged donations were “the straw that broke the camel’s back” for the New Democrats.

The source said the party opposed Johnston’s appointment from the start, contradicting the NDP’s public position at the time, which stated the party was supportive of the move and had “confidence in his capacity to independently look at” the steps necessary to investigate the matter.

In early March, before Johnston was named, Singh also told reporters that not only was he “open” to providing a list of names for the special rapporteur position, his party was actively “considering” who should fill the role.

But despite Singh’s calls Monday to replace Johnston, he confirmed he never did give the Liberals a list of potential contenders.

“We set out criteria. And we said the criteria was that we needed someone that was independent, someone that had unimpeachable character and someone that could do the work,” Singh said.

The NDP’s decision to introduce its motion, which is non-binding, came as Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre also called on Trudeau during Question Period to “fire the rapporteur and start a public inquiry.”

“The only person here who’s trying to cover up the truth seems to be the Leader of the Opposition himself. When he was offered the opportunity to look at sensitive documents that the special rapporteur used to reach the conclusions that were made public last week, the Leader of the Opposition refused because he prefers to play politics with an issue that affects Canadian democracy,” Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc replied.

“What I refused was to be silenced,” said Poilievre, who along with the Bloc Québécois has rejected Johnston’s recommendation that opposition leaders should review the same classified intelligence he saw, because that would require them not to speak about the documents publicly.

The Bloc’s Alain Therrien added to the opposition pile-on, calling Johnston’s report “a farce.”

Poilievre called out the NDP’s flip-flopping Monday, asking Singh to back up his demand for a public inquiry by breaking off the NDP’s governing agreement with the minority Liberals.

Singh, the only leader to agree to intelligence briefings, albeit with conditions attached, has repeatedly said the time is not right for his party to pull out of the deal that could prop up the Liberals until mid-2025.

On Monday, the PMO confirmed to the Star that there is “broad agreement” with the NDP’s conditions and that conversations on meeting Singh’s terms — which include more clarification on what the leader would be able to discuss publicly — are ongoing.

Singh was joined Monday by NDP MP Jenny Kwan, who said she received a full briefing from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service on Friday that revealed she has been targeted by Beijing due to her “activism” supporting democratic rights in Hong Kong.

“What CSIS confirmed with me is that I was a target and I continue to be a target. They use the term ‘evergreen,’ meaning that I will forever be targeted,” Kwan said.