PM's former adviser says there's no indication Canada was invited to join AUKUS defence pact

Canada was left out of the trilateral defence and security pact known as AUKUS — and a new report by a respected American think tank says Ottawa must overcome its apparent indifference to the deal or risk being left behind by its allies.

The analysis report, published online Tuesday by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, was co-authored by Vincent Rigby, a former national security and intelligence adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The report pulled no punches.

"The glacial pace at which Canada appears to be adapting to the realities of modern great power competition has left it far behind the curve, with consequences for both Ottawa's reputation among its allies and its ability to protect Canadian territory, sovereignty, and contribute to global peace and stability," said the report, which probed the reasons why Canada was left out of AUKUS.

"The simple answer is that Ottawa was apparently not invited."

Several defence and diplomatic sources have said Canada was not invited to take part before the pact was formally announced by the United States, Britain and Australia in September 2021 .

CBC News is not naming the confidential sources of information because they are not authorized to speak publicly.

Rigby said he saw no indication Canada was about to be invited to join the arrangement that became AUKUS just a few months before it was announced.

"There was no indication when I was national security and intelligence adviser" that a deal was in the works, said Rigby, whose tenure as Trudeau's national security and intelligence adviser ended in June 2021. (He fully retired from the public service in September 2021.)

Rigby said that while he worked with Trudeau, he had "regular discussions" with Canada's allies in the Five Eyes intelligence sharing partnership — Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Australia and New Zealand — and the idea of AUKUS membership never came up.

"I had regular discussions with my counterparts in the United States, in the United Kingdom, in Australia. We talked about the threat environment," he said. "We talked about how we, as a Five Eyes partnership, needed to do more in terms of responding to external threats, including from China, including in the Indo-Pacific region.

"But in terms of actually coming together and focusing on either submarine capability or broader defence, technological cooperation, that did not arise on my watch."

He said that if Canada wasn't invited to take part in AUKUS in the weeks following his departure from government, it "speaks volumes about the way Canada is perceived by its allies at the present time ... that we're not necessarily seen as a significant player on the international stage and in particular in the Indo-Pacific region."

Former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull told CBC News that it's his understanding Canada was not invited because of its long-standing aversion to acquiring nuclear subs.