Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'll be very quick. I have an opening statement that I'd like to make.
First off, I'd like to say good afternoon to the members of the committee. As mentioned, my name is Mike MacDonald. I'm currently the senior assistant deputy minister, and I work in the office of the chief information officer of Canada, which is housed at the Treasury Board Secretariat.
I was the former assistant secretary of the security intelligence secretariat, which is at the Privy Council Office. I held that job from 2020 to 2023, a three-year period. At one point, I acted as the national security and intelligence adviser in 2021 for a period of two and a half weeks.
The Treasury Board Secretariat of Canada advises and supports the national security and intelligence adviser, or NSIA, including coordinating operational and policy initiatives. It also provides management functions for interdepartmental security and intelligence committees.
The secretariat also supports the NSIA and, more recently, the deputy NSIA in their briefings of the Prime Minister and cabinet on key national security issues, policies, operations and crises, as necessary. It also has a coordination role whenever national security or intelligence issues are going to cabinet.
You've already heard from many senior officials who have underscored the seriousness of the threat of foreign interference. You have also heard that, yes, there have been issues with the sharing of intelligence internally, including the mechanisms that are meant to flag important issues. The NSIA, Ms. Thomas, has spoken about changes that are being introduced or that have been introduced to the intelligence-sharing system to strengthen information sharing.
There should be no illusions about the threat posed by foreign interference against our institutions. I would reiterate what witnesses before me have said—there is confidence that Canada's 2019 and 2021 federal elections were free and fair.
As you have already heard, we have robust tools in place, such as the critical election incident public protocol, which established both the panel of five and the SITE task force. This view has also been reinforced and thoroughly examined in both protocol reports—the Jim Judd report and the Rosenberg report—as well as by the independent special rapporteur. Both NSIRA and NSICOP have studies on foreign interference under way, providing further assurance that our system is robust, and we are co-operating with the review agencies.
We continue to build on this foundation to address a serious threat to our democracy.
I welcome any further questions from the committee.