Senior government officials receive CSIS document on threats from Beijing to MPs, departments confirm

Three federal departments have confirmed that their senior leadership has received an intelligence report from Canada’s intelligence agency that exposed the Chinese regime’s attempt to attack members of parliament.

The information is highlighted in an order document submitted to the government by Conservative MP Michael Chong on May 5 — four days after Globe and Mail released a report on the classified review identifying Chong as a Beijing target.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had initially said on May 3 that he learned about the matter from the Globe report and that the information never left the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

Chong asked the government on what date and who at Global Affairs Canada (GAC), the Privy Council Office (PCO) and Public Safety Canada (PS) received the document from CSIS.

The government provided it answer on June 21, stating that the intelligence agency of the GAC received the CSIS assessment in July 2021. The document is titled “PRC Foreign Interference in Canada: a Critical National Security Threat” and is dated July 20, 2021.

“As with all intelligence products, the report was provided to the appropriate senior leadership of the GAC on July 21, 2021 through secure and classified channels,” the response read.

Public Safety says it received it on the same date and handed it over to the “appropriate senior PS leadership” the following day.

‘Never notified’

Then-Secretary of Public Safety Bill Blair, currently Secretary of Emergency Preparedness, blamed CSIS for not knowing about the issue when he testified before a House of Commons Procedure and House Affairs Committee (PROC) on June 1 .

Blair said CSIS director David Vigneault determined it was not information he “needed to know”, and that he was “never made aware of the existence of that information, nor was it ever shared with me”.

CSIS had also taken the step of sending a management briefing to Blair in May 2021 informing him of Beijing’s actions and the intention to issue defensive briefings to MPs, but that also failed to reach the minister.

“I think the fact that we made a management note indicates that we wanted to emphasize the information,” Vigneault told PROC on June 13.

As for PCO, it says it received the document on July 20, 2021 and it was included in the read package of Acting National Security and Intelligence Adviser to the Prime Minister, David Morrison, on August 17, 2021.

Morrison had provided those details when testifying at PROC on June 13, saying he “couldn’t remember receiving or reading it”. He said his focus was on Afghanistan, which had fallen to the Taliban two days earlier on August 15.

After eventually consulting the CSIS review, Morrison made the decision not to notify Trudeau of the matter.

“It wasn’t a memorandum of action, it was an awareness report,” Morrison said of the document.

Although the CSIS review has reached senior management in three relevant departments, ministers say they have never been briefed.

Enquiry

Former Special Rapporteur on foreign interference David Johnston wrote in his May 23 report that the failure to provide information to ministers on this issue is “certainly the most prominent, but not the only, example of poor information flow and processing between agencies, the public service and ministers.”

Trudeau had appointed the former governor-general in mid-March instead of launching a public inquiry into foreign interference as demanded by opposition parties. The NDP, which has signed a confidence and supply deal to keep the liberal minority in power, has passed a motion in the House calling for Johnston to resign.

Johnston initially resisted, saying his mandate came from the government, but eventually resigned on June 9, blaming the “very partisan atmosphere”.

The Liberal government has since shown some openness to holding an inquiry, but no progress has been announced, with Trudeau saying opposition parties need to “buy in” on the process.