That's a very good question, Ms. Blaney, because I think the thresholds used to date need to be questioned.
Part of the final questions I outlined and that I think Madame Hogue and this committee must examine.... The critical election incident public protocol and the group of five were—or should have been—aware of all the allegations from 2019 in the unredacted NSICOP report of the briefings the Prime Minister received in January and February 2021. They should have been aware of the intelligence with respect to the official at the Chinese embassy and Mr. Chong's family.
We now know, only due to reporting and some leaks, that there were many incidents that, I believe, would have met a threshold for at least telling the parties at the start of an election that there were current risks in the environment. Not only were we not told, we were led to believe there were no serious problems with 2019 and there was nothing to flag as the election got under way. I think that was an error.
The threshold those officials used in engaging with the parties.... Each of the parties had to have a security-cleared representative. This was not ad hoc. I think the group of five's conduct needs to be examined.