Trudeau refuses to clear up confusion over communication of China interference allegations
CBC
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he shared the "best information" he had when he told Canadians a report about a Chinese government plot to target MPs was never shared outside of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, despite information to the contrary.
But in a news conference Friday, the prime minister refused to answer questions about where the communication failure in his government rests.
"I shared the best information I had at the time," he said.
The government has been hounded by questions about how it handled intelligence reports detailing a Chinese government plot to target MPs following a Globe and Mail investigation.
On Monday, the newspaper published a story citing a top-secret 2021 CSIS document saying that China's intelligence agency was seeking information about an unnamed Canadian MP's relatives "who may be located in the PRC [People's Republic of China], for further potential sanctions."
A national security source reportedly told the Globe that the MP targeted was Conservative MP Michael Chong and that Zhao Wei, a Chinese diplomat in Canada, was working on this matter.
On Wednesday, Trudeau said the information about Chong was never shared outside of CSIS.
"We asked what happened to that information, was it ever briefed up out of CSIS? It was not," he said.
"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."
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On Thursday, Chong informed the House of Commons that the intelligence report on the matter was shared with relevant departments, including the prime minister's national security and intelligence adviser in the Privy Council Office. He said the current national security adviser, Jody Thomas, told him so.
"This report contained information that I and other MPs were being targeted by the [People's Republic of China]," he said.
Trudeau said Friday that Canada's intelligence agencies are made up of professionals who make evaluations on whether a threat is serious or credible and what actions need to be taken.
"They proceeded to go through their processes in the way that they felt was the right thing to do," he said.
The Rachel Notley government's consumer carbon tax wound up becoming a weapon the UCP wielded to drum the Alberta NDP out of office. But that levy-and-repayment program, and the wide-ranging "climate leadership plan" around it, also stood as the NDP's boldest, provincial-reputation-altering move in their single-term tenure.