Defence minister clarifies after saying he learnt of base strike from media

The federal Conservatives accuse the government of being too secretive about the war and point out that Canada's allies are sharing such information openly at daily briefings.

Defence Minister David McGuinty has walked back his remarks about when and how he learned about an Iranian airstrike that may have hit Canadian assets in Kuwait earlier this month.

In prepared remarks Thursday — which he described as a “clarifying statement” — McGuinty said he first learned about the airstrike in a briefing with government officials, not by reading about it in a newspaper.

Earlier in the day, the minister suggested to reporters at a news conference he did not learn about potential damage to the Canadian camp at a Kuwait airbase on March 1 until the Quebec newspaper La Presse reported on it on March 12.

A London Free Press journalist asked McGuinty at an event in Kitchener, Ont., when he had “first learned about this attack.”

The minister replied he was “first informed about the situation in the Middle East while abroad with the prime minister on a global tour in the Indo-Pacific.”

As the reporter was asking a followup question asserting the minister “knew about this before La Presse reported on it 11 days later,” McGuinty quickly interjected.

“No, I didn’t know about it before La Presse reported on it,” McGuinty said. “I saw the La Presse story while I was overseas.”

Later Thursday, McGuinty’s press team sent The Canadian Press a video of the minister reading out a statement “clarifying” his earlier remarks about the airstrike.