CSIS and Trudeau's adviser clashed on foreign interference threat during 2021: report
CBC
Intelligence regarding foreign interference sometimes didn't make it to the prime minister's desk in 2021 because Canada's spy agency and the prime minister's national security adviser didn't always see eye to eye on the nature of the threat, according to a recent report from one of Canada's intelligence watchdogs.
The National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA) released a report on Monday evening pointing to several schisms in the flow of information between Canada's intelligence agencies and the federal government during the last two federal elections.
The independent body was asked to take on the review in March 2023, following media reports, citing unnamed security sources and classified documents, that accused China of interfering in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections. Some of the reports also suggested that members of the Liberal government were aware of certain attempts at interference but didn't act.
The government tabled NSIRA's report late Monday in the House of Commons.
According to the intelligence watchdog, Privy Council Office and Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) analysts produced reports in 2021 meant to serve as summary overviews of Chinese foreign interference activities.
The prime minister's national security intelligence adviser (NSIA), however, viewed the reports as "recounting standard diplomatic activity," Monday's report said.
"The gap between CSIS's point of view and that of the NSIA is significant, because the question is so fundamental," it said.
"CSIS collected, analyzed, and reported intelligence about activities that it considered to be significant threats to national security; one of the primary consumers of that reporting (and the de facto conduit of intelligence to the Prime Minister) disagreed with that assessment."
NSIRA said that disagreement played a role in those intelligence products not reaching the political executive, including the prime minister.
"Commitments to address political foreign interference are straightforward in theory, but will inevitably suffer in practice if rudimentary disagreements as to the nature of the threat persist in the community," the report said.
The report doesn't name which adviser it's referring to. The national security and intelligence adviser's office was in flux in 2021.
Vincent Rigby retired and left the position at the end of June of that year and was later replaced by Jody Thomas in early 2022.
Dave Morrison, the deputy minister of foreign affairs, acted as the adviser until Thomas was appointed. But during the window of July 16 to Aug. 3, 2021, Mike MacDonald was filling in.
NSIRA said the "disagreements and misalignments" between the adviser and CSIS underscore what's called the "grey zone," where political foreign interference borders on typical political or diplomatic activity.
Aggressive patients and lack of security are making nurses feel unsafe in a rural Western Manitoba emergency union, says the Manitoba Nurses Union.
Saskatoon resident Delynne Bortis knew her commute to work Tuesday morning would be particularly difficult.
WARNING: This story contains details of abuse and intimate partner violence:
The amount of money it takes for people to earn a living wage has increased across the province, according to a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
The new owner of Ontario steelmaker Stelco says his company "will not disappoint the people of Hamilton and Nanticoke," where the business's major facilities are based.
A Winnipegger is warning others about an intricate scam she says she almost fell for.
Fort William First Nation is opposing a planned redevelopment of the Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) 117 year old Kakabeka Falls Generating Station, which is located in their traditional territory.
A building that sits at the corner of Sussex Street and Brunswick Avenue has had many lives over the last century — being a church, a school and offices. Now it's set to become housing, at a time when the city sorely needs it.
A Waterloo, Ont., elementary school principal will be sentenced in the new year after pleading guilty to child sexual exploitation charges following a joint investigation that involved the London, Toronto and Waterloo police services.
Students at UPEI have let their student union know what they want from the province this fiscal year, and those priorities are reflected in a 2024-2025 advocacy document brought to the legislature on Wednesday.
Larger communities in the N.W.T. will soon see a boost in their territorial funding to maintain infrastructure and deliver services — like water and waste management — but the increase still falls short of what communities need.