Poland rejects allegations of foreign interference from former Alberta politician

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A former Alberta cabinet minister is accusing Poland’s government of engaging in what he describes as foreign interference in Canada, first through phone calls asking him to cease criticizing a controversial Polish priest and later by pressing Warsaw’s consul-general in Vancouver to gather information on him.

The allegation against Poland, a staunch NATO ally of Canada’s, is one that Warsaw’s ambassador to this country flatly rejects.

Thomas Lukaszuk, a Polish-born Edmontonian who was an MLA for 14 years and served as Alberta’s deputy premier from 2012 to 2013, said he received two phone calls – one in 2021 and one in 2022 – from officials at Warsaw’s embassy in Canada.

He says the first call asked him to stop criticizing Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, a Roman Catholic cleric who wields influence in Poland’s governing Law and Justice Party. The second call, he said, asked him to walk back his efforts to limit visits to Canadian churches by the Polish priest and restrict the broadcast of his Radio Maryja network in this country.

Father Rydzyk has been accused repeatedly by human-rights groups such as the Anti-Defamation League and B’nai B’rith of inciting hatred. B’nai B’rith in Canada, in a statement, has condemned his Radio Maryja network for what it calls “long-time promotion of vitriolic anti-Semitic content, including conspiracy theories about imagined efforts by Jews to control Poland and exploit the Holocaust for personal gain.”

Mr. Lukaszuk has worked with B’nai B’rith over the years to convince Canadian radio stations to end their broadcasts of Radio Maryja and persuade Catholic archdioceses to bar Father Rydzyk from visiting their churches.

This year, Mr. Lukaszuk said, he was sent what he believes are internal Polish government e-mails detailing how Warsaw was repeatedly asking Andrzej Mankowski, its consul-general in Vancouver, to build a dossier on him.

The correspondence suggests that Mr. Mankowski declined to carry out this information-gathering on behalf of his government.

The e-mails, which were viewed by The Globe and Mail, appear to be communications between Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Mr. Mankowski.

In one, dated May 13, 2022, a director-level official reminds the Polish diplomat of a standing request to prepare an “in-depth note regarding the political and social activities” of Mr. Lukaszuk and his influence on Alberta’s Polish community.

In a second e-mail, dated June 14, 2022, a deputy-director-level official again reminds the consul-general, asking for the requested dossier on Mr. Lukaszuk to be sent by “encrypted correspondence” to Warsaw by June 20.

Mr. Lukaszuk notes Mr. Mankowski’s posting in Vancouver is ending on Thursday and he alleges that Warsaw has cut that assignment short because of the consul-general’s refusal to comply with this order.

He said he thinks the phone calls were intended “to have a chilling effect on me” and said this conduct constitutes foreign interference as far as he is concerned. “This is why I am so outraged about this, and so shocked that it is coming from Poland of all countries.”

The controversy has hit the Polish press and, in late July, a parliamentary committee in Poland probed the matter.

Witold Dzielski, Poland’s ambassador to Canada, said he won’t discuss why Mr. Mankowski is leaving his post this month.

But, he said, it’s not because Mr. Mankowski allegedly declined to prepare a briefing note on Mr. Lukaszuk.

“Diplomacies do not comment on personnel decisions,” Mr. Dzielski said in a statement. “They remain the sole responsibility of appropriate foreign ministries. The long-term and short-term performance of Polish diplomats should not be a topic of public debate.”

The ambassador declined to discuss the e-mails Mr. Lukaszuk has obtained and called Mr. Lukaszuk’s allegations of foreign interference “an absurd accusation” that could “misinform the Canadian public” as well as the Polish community in Canada.

“As a rule the Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not comment on documents which allegedly are, or could possibly be the correspondence of Polish diplomatic relations,” Mr. Dzielski said.

The ambassador said he cannot address the alleged phone calls to Mr. Lukaszuk because they took place before he was posted to Ottawa.

Mr. Dzielski rejected the suggestion Mr. Mankowski’s term was cut short, saying “there is no such a thing as an official term for the position of Poland’s consul-general.”

Mr. Mankowski declined to be interviewed. “If you are preparing a material about my dismissal, unfortunately I cannot comment on it,” he said in an e-mailed statement.

At the July 28 hearings of the Polish parliamentary committee for liaison with Poles abroad, committee chairman Robert Tyszkiewicz, an MP, read from the confidential e-mails to Mr. Mankowski about Mr. Lukaszuk and asked the government to explain what had happened.

“It resembles the practices from the communist era and not a democratic Poland,” Mr. Tyszkiewciz said.

Piotr Wawrzyk, a secretary of state for the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whose responsibilities include the Polish community abroad, suggested it’s not unreasonable to remove any diplomat who doesn’t comply with requests from the ministry.

“There should be no doubt in anybody’s mind that if the consul does not follow the orders from head office, that’s enough of a reason to take these actions.”

Slawomir Kowalski, a foreign ministry official appearing before the committee, played down the request to gather information on Mr. Lukaszuk, suggesting it was standard practice.

He said the Vancouver consul had characterized the Albertan as “an outstanding member of the Polish community abroad” and the ministry was merely asking him to spell out these merits in a report. “This is not surveillance,” he told the committee, calling such an interpretation “over-sensitive.”

He added: “We can also wonder where Mr. Lukaszuk got an internal MSZ correspondence, which is also very interesting,” using an acronym that refers to Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Mr. Kowalski said the matter has been taken out of context. He said head office wanted to know what Mr. Lukaszuk has accomplished for the Polish community abroad – also known as Polonia – and a report was the way to accomplish that. For example, he said, if Warsaw wanted to give him a medal “for his great merits, these merits are unknown to us.”

He said the ministry’s opinion is that Mr. Lukaszuk, while a Canadian political figure, is not particularly involved in the affairs of Polonia.

Mr. Lukaszuk said he has worked with Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs many times in the past and so the notion that they need a dossier “to be introduced to me is simply ludicrous.”

Canada’s Department of Global Affairs, when asked whether it has investigated and taken action as a result of Mr. Lukaszuk’s allegations, said only that it has been discussing the matter with relevant parties.

“Global Affairs Canada is aware of the situation and has been in contact with Thomas Lukaszuk and the Polish Embassy in Ottawa regarding these allegations. The department has also been in close touch with security and intelligence community partners to assess the situation,” Global Affairs spokesperson Marilyne Guèvremont said in a statement.

Zenon Kosiniak-Kamysz, a former Polish ambassador to Canada, says he is “extremely disgusted” by what has allegedly transpired.

He said he considers it suspicious for the Polish government to ask a diplomat in Canada to prepare a report on Mr. Lukaszuk.

Mr. Kosiniak-Kamysz said if Warsaw wanted to know something about Mr. Lukaszuk, whom he calls a good friend, they could just have asked him.