Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair says staff in his office and department aren’t to blame for not informing him of Beijing threats to MPs and has repeated that Canada’s spy agency is at fault.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) “had Top Secret information that they felt that I should see, and clearly, the process that they had in place to bring it to my attention was not complete, and did not bring it to my office’s attention and that’s now been remedied,” Mr. Blair said in a press conference in Ottawa on July 11.
While making an announcement on spending to support organizations working in disaster relief, Mr. Blair was asked by reporters to shed light on the Beijing matter.
The latter refers to the Michael Chong affair, when the Globe and Mail reported in May, based on national security leaks, that the Conservative MP was being targeted by the Chinese regime in 2021 for his critical stance on Beijing.
Ministers in function at the time, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, all said they had been unaware of the issue until the media report was published.
It was later revealed that in May 2021 CSIS had sent a briefing note to Mr. Blair, who was then minister of public safety, and to his chief of staff and the department.
The note warned that some MPs were being targeted by Beijing and that CSIS would give them defensive briefings, which don’t include specific details about the threat.
“Unfortunately, it was not sent to my office, it was sent to a secure device not located in my office, but somewhere else that I had no access to, no one in my office had access to and no one in my office was ever made aware of that there was a memo,” Mr. Blair told reporters.
Days later Mr. Vigneault told the same committee the procedure for transmission of information to the department had been followed.
The Liberal government has been under increasing pressure to hold an inquiry following multiple national security leaks in the media depicting widespread Beijing interference in Canada.