Third National Security Adviser Explains How CSIS Warning on Beijing Targeting MPs Was Missed

Parliament Hill is seen in Ottawa, Ont., Canada, in a file photo. Simon Hayter/Getty Images

Another top government official has told a House of Commons committee he first learned from the media that the Chinese regime was targeting sitting members of Parliament.

Appearing before the Procedure and House Affairs Committee (PROC) on Oct. 17, Mike MacDonald was asked when he first read a Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) assessment on Beijing interference which was sent to relevant departments on July 20, 2021.

On that day, Mr. MacDonald was serving as acting National Security and Intelligence Advisor (NSIA) to the prime minister, a function he briefly occupied from July 15 to Aug. 3, 2021. His regular title at that time was assistant secretary of the Security and Intelligence Secretariat of the Privy Council Office (PCO), a job he held from 2020 to 2023.

“I don’t have an exact date when I first read that memo, but it was in the spring or early summer of this year,” Mike MacDonald told MPs on the committee.

The existence of the CSIS assessment was publicly revealed by the Globe and Mail in May. A source had also told the newspaper that one of the MPs being targeted by Beijing was Conservative Michael Chong.

“I can confirm that the document, the intelligence assessment did not come directly to me,” Mr. MacDonald said, noting he learned about it in the Globe.

“I’ve checked my personal holdings, back when I was still working for the Privy Council Office. Where it went in the Privy Council Office when it was sent out and what other offices, I don’t know. I don’t track or do not have knowledge of where it went.”

He surmised the CSIS document went to the department in PCO where intelligence is received before being issued for forward distribution or printing of briefing packages.

PCO previously indicated that the CSIS assessment, titled “PRC Foreign Interference in Canada: a Critical National Security Threat,” was included in NSIA’s read package on Aug. 17, 2021. At that time Mr. MacDonald had been replaced by David Morrison.

Mr. Morrison, the current deputy minister of foreign affairs, told PROC in June that he decided not to brief Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the matter. “It was not a memorandum for action, it was a report for awareness,” he explained.

Vincent Rigby, who served as NSIA before Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Morrison, also testified before PROC in June, pointing out he had already left the role when the CSIS assessment was distributed.

However, Mr. Rigby also said he never received a separate memo sent by CSIS to the NSIA in May 2021, when he occupied the role. The memo warned that MP Chong and then-MP Kenny Chiu were of interest to multiple Chinese regime threat actors.

PROC recently decided to expand its study into Beijing’s interest in MP Chong, in order to better understand how the government failed to act on several warnings from the security apparatus.

The study is being conducted at the same time as the public inquiry into foreign interference is running its course, with a first interim report to be filed next February.