The prime minister’s former top adviser on matters of intelligence, Jody Thomas, says she was not responsible for two major reports about Chinese interference not being distributed to senior levels of government.
Thomas, who served as National Security and Intelligence Advisor (NSIA) until January, testified at the Foreign Interference Commission on Oct. 9. In her role as NSIA, Thomas made decisions that impacted the distribution of the reports.
She said in one case it was not her responsibility to approve an intelligence assessment produced by the Privy Council Office’s Intelligence Assessment Secretariat (PCO-IAS) in late 2021. The document was known as the “Special Report” on “China’s Foreign Interference Activities.”
In another case, she had requested in 2023 that a Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) assessment be unpublished, modified, and sent to a different distribution list. CSIS modified the assessment but it was not subsequently distributed.
The commission has been probing how intelligence is shared within government and heard in recent days from the former top officials who were behind the stalled PCO and CSIS reports.
The report contained “exquisite intelligence that provided the picture of the continuum of the specific activities ... employed by the PRC to target elected officials in Canada,” said Vigneault on Sept. 27, telling the inquiry he believes it should have been seen by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. This CSIS product has been referred to as the “Targeting Paper.”
Green had sent Thomas the PCO Special Report in January 2022 with a cover note mentioning CSIS agreed with the conclusions and he recommended it should be distributed to select deputy ministers, cabinet ministers, and relevant entities like the RCMP.
Thomas told the inquiry she had read the Special Report and sent it back to IAS with questions. She said she suggested it go through “normal governance” and be peer-reviewed.
“There are committees at the director general level and at the assistant deputy minister level to peer review these documents before they move on. And many documents don’t leave that process,” she said.
Thomas said it was not her understanding that Green was waiting for her approval to distribute the Special Report. She also said Green had the authority to sign off on the report for wider distribution.
Green told the inquiry on Oct. 7 he was not comfortable signing off on the Special Report.
“I didn’t feel comfortable doing that, because of the sensitivity of the issue,” he said. “That’s why I went to seek [Thomas’] direction on what we should do with it.”
‘Targeting Paper’
The federal intelligence watchdog National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA) released a report in May which discusses the non-distribution of the intelligence reports on China and the role of various Trudeau security advisers in the process.The report explains how the CSIS “Targeting Paper” had been published on Feb. 13, 2023, on the Top Secret Slingshot government portal, and pulled down nine days later on Feb. 22 at the request of Thomas.
Thomas told the inquiry she had the CSIS paper pulled for two reasons: the distribution list was too broad and it contained names of Canadian individuals which are usually masked in CSIS products.
“Normally, when there is a name of an individual, a politician, a private citizen in a CSIS report, it’s masked. We don’t see the name,” she said.
Thomas noted how during that period intelligence on PRC interference was being leaked to media and the leakers were not known.
“In the environment of leaks, that was going to look very salacious if it was leaked partially or those names [were] released,” she said.
Thomas said she also questioned whether the information in the paper pertained to foreign interference or foreign influence. “That’s not a black and white line, and things evolve. It’s a very grey environment,” she said.
The NSIRA report, quoting PCO which houses the NSIA’s office, says it was Thomas’ view that the “activity indicated in the report did not qualify as foreign interference, but was rather part of regular diplomatic practice.”
“This is in stark contrast to CSIS’s characterization of the report as the most complete and detailed analysis of PRC foreign interference directed against Canadian political actors,” wrote the NSIRA about Thomas’ views.
A meeting was held at PCO on Feb. 24, 2023, to discuss the CSIS paper, which was attended by Vigneault, Thomas, and others including then-Clerk of the Privy Council Janice Charette, the NSIRA report adds.
“According to CSIS, the outcome of this meeting was a request from the NSIA [Thomas] to produce a shorter and “sanitized” (i.e., with names *** anonymized) version of the report specifically for the Prime Minister,” says the NSIRA report.
Thomas told the inquiry she had not left the meeting thinking a new version of the CSIS Targeting Paper was meant for the prime minister.
Charette, testifying alongside Thomas, said she also didn’t have the impression the CSIS paper was destined for Trudeau.
“CSIS is under the impression that the outcome of the February 24 meeting was a direction from the NSIA to create a version of the Targeting Paper for the Prime Minister; this is difficult to reconcile with the NSIA’s position that this same product was not specifically intended for the Prime Minister,” wrote the NSIRA.
A commission counsel asked Thomas to comment on the conclusion in the NSIRA report that she had decided not to provide the sanitized report to the prime minister.
“No, that’s not correct,” said Thomas, noting that NSIRA had not spoken to her on the matter.
One of NSIRA’s findings says that “ultimately, the NSIA’s interventions resulted in two products not reaching the political executive, including the Prime Minister.”
Thomas said she had not received the modified version of the CSIS Targeting Paper before she retired in January.
The Foreign Interference Commission is currently probing the federal government’s ability to counter foreign interference. Trudeau is slated to testify on Oct. 16 and the commission must file a final report by year’s end.
