National Security and Intelligence Advisor Jody Thomas gave her perspective on June 1 as to why intelligence about threats to MPs was not briefed to any relevant minister.
Thomas, who wasn’t in her current role at the time, told the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs that a “breakdown in process” was to blame.
A 2021 assessment by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) on the Chinese regime targeting MPs was never briefed to any minister. The issue only came to light after The Globe and Mail reported on the leaked document on May 1.
Thomas mentioned the “breakdown” in response to a question from Conservative MP Michael Cooper who asked whether this event showed a “colossal breakdown of the machinery of government under this prime minister’s watch.”
The CSIS assessment reportedly indicated that the Chinese regime sought to target MPs such as Conservative Michael Chong for their support of human rights in China.
When first asked about it on May 3, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, “CSIS made the determination that it wasn’t something that needed to be raised to a higher level because it wasn’t a significant enough concern.”
During her testimony before the committee, she provided additional information about who received the document. Thomas also indicated that she is the one who provided the inaccurate information to Trudeau about the information not leaving CSIS.
“I told him that it had not been briefed to him and [that] I didn’t know what had left CSIS,” she said.
Thomas added that the CSIS assessment had in fact also been sent to the deputy ministers of Public Safety, Foreign Affairs, and National Defence.
‘Black Hole’
Minister of Emergency Preparedness Bill Blair, who testified at the committee after Thomas, blamed CSIS for not briefing him on the matter. Blair was minister of public safety at the time, while Thomas was deputy minister of defence. She said she was on leave when the CSIS document was sent to her.“When I got back, I focused on Afghanistan,” she said.
Thomas added that then-Acting National Security and Intelligence Advisor David Morrison, who is currently deputy minister of foreign affairs, had received it in mid-August 2021.
Thomas agreed with Cooper who said the CSIS assessment went into a “black hole.”
“It was not briefed,“ she said. ”I told you there was a flaw in the process, we’ve corrected that.”
Thomas told MPs on the committee that the government is putting in place an “accountability framework” to keep track of who is reading the intelligence products, which will be supported by a weekly tracking report.
She also said they have established the Deputy Minister Committee on Intelligence Response in order to review the material and develop advice for the government.
Johnston called the management of the information around the Michael Chong case “certainly the most prominent, but not the only example of poor information flow and processing between agencies, the public service, and Ministers.”
He also noted how staff in the Prime Minister’s Office is routinely provided a sizeable binder with intelligence products without any guidance on what constitutes a priority.
Johnston, who the House of Commons asked to resign from his position by a majority vote on May 31, is set to testify before PROC on June 6.
Opposition parties had been calling for a public inquiry into foreign interference. Instead, on March 15 Trudeau appointed Johnston, who recommended against holding an inquiry in his first report tabled on May 23.
