National security advisers don’t recall receiving CSIS report on MP threats
Global News
The development raises yet more questions about how the report detailing China's targeting of MPs, including Michael Chong and his family, somehow fell through the cracks in 2021.
All three national security and intelligence advisers who served Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2021 told Global News that they do not recall receiving a top secret intelligence assessment prepared that year about Beijing targeting Conservative MP Michael Chong and his family in Hong Kong.
The development raises yet more questions about how the report from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), which was allegedly sent to the desk of the prime minister’s top national security official, somehow fell through the cracks.
Speaking in question period last Thursday, Chong told MPs that he had been informed by the prime minister’s current national security adviser, Jody Thomas, that CSIS sent a July 20, 2021 intelligence assessment to the national security adviser in the Privy Council Office as well as to “relevant departments.”
“This report contained information that I and other MPs were being targeted by the PRC,” Chong told the House.
The role of the prime minister’s national security and intelligence adviser — or NSIA — is to manage the flow of information gathered from agencies, turning it into information or advice for the prime minister and the clerk of the Privy Council Office, the bureaucratic agency that supports the Prime Minister’s Office.
The summer of 2021 saw several changes in the office of the NSIA, beginning with Vincent Rigby’s departure at the end of June.
Asked whether he received a copy of the intelligence report while serving as the national security adviser or in any other capacity, Rigby told Global News that he stepped down from the position on June 30, 2021.
“I would not have seen any document written or circulated after that date,” he said.
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