National security advisers don’t recall receiving CSIS report on MP threats – National | 24CA News
All three nationwide safety and intelligence advisers who served Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2021 advised Global News that they don’t recall receiving a high secret intelligence evaluation ready that 12 months about Beijing concentrating on Conservative MP Michael Chong and his household in Hong Kong.
The growth raises but extra questions on how the report from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), which was allegedly despatched to the desk of the prime minister’s high nationwide safety official, someway fell by way of the cracks.
Speaking in query interval final Thursday, Chong advised MPs that he had been knowledgeable by the prime minister’s present nationwide safety adviser, Jody Thomas, that CSIS despatched a July 20, 2021 intelligence evaluation to the nationwide safety adviser within the Privy Council Office in addition to to “relevant departments.”
“This report contained information that I and other MPs were being targeted by the PRC,” Chong advised the House.
The position of the prime minister’s nationwide safety and intelligence adviser — or NSIA — is to handle the movement of data gathered from companies, turning it into info or recommendation for the prime minister and the clerk of the Privy Council Office, the bureaucratic company that helps the Prime Minister’s Office.
The summer season of 2021 noticed a number of adjustments within the workplace of the NSIA, starting with Vincent Rigby’s departure on the finish of June.
Asked whether or not he acquired a replica of the intelligence report whereas serving because the nationwide safety adviser or in some other capability, Rigby advised Global News that he stepped down from the place on June 30, 2021.
“I would not have seen any document written or circulated after that date,” he mentioned.
David Morrison, who was already serving because the prime minister’s international and defence coverage adviser, took on the position in an appearing capability from early July 2021 to early January 2022.
“Mr. Morrison does not recall having received any written material regarding threats to MPs during this time,” in response to a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada, the place Morrison now serves as deputy minister.
“He also does not recall any oral briefings or discussions on the issue while NSIA,” the division mentioned in its assertion.
Earlier this 12 months, Morrison testified earlier than the process and House affairs committee as a part of its examine into international election interference.
Morrison was additionally scheduled to look earlier than the House international affairs committee final Thursday on an unrelated matter, however was as a substitute tasked by Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly with summoning Chinese ambassador Cong Peiwu over the alleged threats concentrating on Chong and his household.
That transfer got here days after the Globe and Mail first reported that the Chinese authorities focused Canadian MPs behind a February 2021 parliamentary movement that declared Beijing’s oppression of China’s Uyghur minority as constituting a genocide.
Morrison was himself briefly changed whereas appearing because the prime minister’s nationwide safety adviser.
In an announcement, the Privy Council Office advised Global News that Mike MacDonald acted within the position from July 16 to Aug. 3, 2021.
As such, he would have began within the position simply days earlier than the CSIS report was allegedly authored.
“While the NSIA’s office regularly receives intelligence and information from security partners, Mr. MacDonald does not recall having seen any material regarding threats to MPs during this time,” mentioned Privy Council Office spokesperson Pierre-Alain Bujold.
“As a result, no material describing any such threats was briefed to PMO.”
After the story first broke, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau initially mentioned he had no prior information of the report, stating that the CSIS briefing by no means left the spy company.
“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 advised reporters on May 3.
A day later, Chong advised the House of Commons that he had been knowledgeable by Thomas that the briefing had in reality been shared past CSIS, suggesting that contradicted the prime minister’s preliminary declare.
In response, Trudeau advised reporters on May 5 that he “shared the best information I had at the time.”
Trudeau has since directed CSIS to tell the federal government about any threats made towards officers or their households, no matter whether or not they’re thought of actionable.
On Monday, the federal authorities expelled Zhao Wei, a Chinese diplomat who labored on the embassy in Toronto and was allegedly concerned within the marketing campaign towards Chong and different MPs, declaring him “persona non grata” in Canada.
China retaliated on Tuesday and expelled Jennifer Lynn Lalonde, a consul understanding of the Consulate General of Canada in Shanghai.
Beijing has denied the stories of a marketing campaign towards Chong, his household and different Canadian MPs, or that it has ever interfered in different nations’ inside affairs.
But Chong has repeatedly pointed to proof of a number of different instances of Canadians and their households in China being focused by the Chinese Communist Party, which Global News has additionally reported.
“My case is not unique,” he advised Global News in an interview that aired Sunday on The West Block.
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
