Minister Blair Blames CSIS for Not Briefing Him on Beijing Threats to MPs

President of the King's Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Emergency Preparedness Bill Blair speaks with reporters as he arrives for a caucus meeting on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on June 22, 2022. Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press

Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair says Canada’s spy agency is to blame for not briefing him on Chinese regime threats to MPs in 2021.

Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Director David Vigneault, “determined this was not information that the minister needed to know, and so I was never notified of the existence of that intelligence, nor was it ever shared with me,” Blair told the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs on June 1.

At the time, Blair was in charge of the entire Public Safety portfolio. His testimony is part of the committee’s ongoing investigation into the targeting of MPs, including Conservative Michael Chong, by the Chinese regime.

Blair, like Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other ministers and senior officials, said he was unaware of the issue before the Globe and Mail published a report on it May 1 based on a leaked CSIS assessment from 2021.

When Trudeau first commented on the report, on May 3, he also blamed CSIS for not raising the issue.

“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,” Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa.

However, the next day Chong said in the House of Commons that Trudeau’s National Security and Intelligence Advisor Jody Thomas told him her office had received the CSIS assessment at the time.

Thomas testified before Blair on June 1 and said the CSIS assessment had also been sent to the deputy ministers of Public Safety, Foreign Affairs, and National Defence.

Special Rapporteur David Johnston outlined in his May 23 report how CSIS sent an “issues management” note to Blair’s office in May 2021, “noting that there was intelligence that the PRC intended to target Mr. Chong, another MP, and their family in China (if any).”

‘Poor Information Flow’

But, as Blair told Johnston and repeated during his testimony to the committee, he could not access any such note. Blair explained that he does not have access to the secure terminals on which top secret information is shared.

“There is no email account in which top secret information is shared with ministers,” he said. “There is a secure terminal that is located in certain offices, but not in any political office, and certainly not in the minister’s office. I had no access to a terminal in which this information was shared.”

He said the only way he would get such information is “if a positive decision was made by CSIS” and then he would be briefed at a secure location.

Blair said questions about why CSIS didn’t brief him directly should be directed to Vigneault, who is slated to appear before the committee at a later date. “I would not want to speculate as to how they came to that determination,” Blair said.

Johnston wrote that the disconnect between CSIS and the Department of Public Safety “is certainly the most prominent, but not the only, example of poor information flow and processing between agencies, the public service and Ministers.”

Blair said this break down in information flow was due to CSIS deciding not to bring it to his attention. “My responsibility is to deal with information that our national security intelligence agencies bring to my attention,” he said.

The Procedure and House Affairs committee will meet again on June 6, with Johnston appearing for three hours.

The House of Commons voted with a majority on May 31 asking that Johnston resign his position, with opposition parties banded together. Johnston said in a statement that he would not heed the call and instead complete the mandate he received from the government.

He was appointed on March 15 by Trudeau amid calls from the opposition to hold a public inquiry. Johnston has recommended against a public inquiry, citing the need to protect classified information.