Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 1st, 2023

[Jody Thomas]

I think everything you are saying is very important, and I don't disagree with it.

I would not characterize it as ministers being unable to open their email. The top secret email system means we deliver email to them. That's a responsibility of the public service.

The transparency with which we need to speak to parliamentarians is evident. I would say that CSIS has been limited by their act. They are not able to share all their intelligence, except through a formal threat reduction measure. They are now using those more aggressively than they have in the past.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Mr. Cooper is next, followed by Mr. Turnbull, Madame Gaudreau and Mrs. Blaney.

Go ahead, Mr. Cooper.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. Thomas—through you, Madam Chair—on May 3, two days after The Globe and Mail reported that MP Chong had been a target of the Beijing regime and that CSIS had been aware of this, the Prime Minister told reporters that “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.”

We know that statement isn't true. Why did the Prime Minister say that?

[Jody Thomas]

In the early days of our understanding what the scenario was and the intelligence that led to the document written in July 2021, which referenced an MP.... It did not reference Mr. Chong. Nonetheless, it talked about an MP being targeted. We were not aware that the underlying intelligence had been moved from CSIS into the system and distributed. It was an error in terms of the information provided to the Prime Minister.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Did you tell the Prime Minister that?

[Jody Thomas]

Yes.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Did you specifically tell him it had not been raised to a higher level?

[Jody Thomas]

I told him it had not been briefed to him and that I didn't know what had left CSIS.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Well, that's very different from what the Prime Minister said. He didn't say he wasn't briefed. He didn't say he didn't know where it went. He made a very specific declaration that it had not been raised. He said more than that.

Again, why did he not state what, in fact, happened? Why did he mislead Canadians?

[Jody Thomas]

Madam Chair, I don't think that's an appropriate question.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

I think it is an appropriate question. Canadians have a right to know why it is that the Prime Minister would make such a statement, when it has turned out to be patently false.

[Jody Thomas]

I think the Prime Minister reflected the information he had at the time. He told us to keep working. He organized a meeting with Mr. Chong, and we briefed Mr. Chong.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Yes, and suddenly, 24 hours later, you called MP Chong and advised him—contrary to what the Prime Minister had said only 24 hours earlier—that it wasn't so and that, in fact, the memo had gone to PCO, specifically to the then national security adviser to the Prime Minister.

What happened between the Prime Minister's making the very affirmative statement that it had not been raised to a higher level and your phone call to Mr. Chong, in which you said, in fact, that it was exactly the opposite of what the Prime Minister said?

[Jody Thomas]

Madam Chair, Mr. Chong, in his briefing, asked me whether the memo had been distributed and who received it. I told him I did not yet know. Upon finishing the review of where it had gone, I briefed the Prime Minister and returned the call to Mr. Chong, as I'd promised I would.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

What did you find out, and how did you find that out?

[Jody Thomas]

We traced all the addresses. We found out who it had been sent to and tried to determine why it had not been briefed up.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Upon tracing all the addresses, you discovered it had gone to the national security adviser. Is that correct?

[Jody Thomas]

We did.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Who else did it go to?

[Jody Thomas]

As I told Mr. Chong, it went to several deputy ministers. It's incumbent upon the deputy ministers to brief those ministers.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

It went to several deputy ministers. Which deputy ministers...?

[Jody Thomas]

It was the deputy minister of public safety, the deputy minister of foreign affairs and the deputy minister of national defence.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

It went to three deputy ministers, plus the Prime Minister's national security adviser.

[Jody Thomas]

That's right.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

That happened in 2021—