Public Safety committee  To be very clear, what I told the media in the background briefing was that there was what seemed to be orchestrated misinformation. They asked me, and I went out of my way to say very clearly that this was not the Government of India. They asked who it was. I said that they were

Public Safety committee  Mr. O'Toole, first of all, Mr. Akin was not on the list of journalists I briefed on background on February 22—

Public Safety committee  Can I just finish answering your question? The journalists who were briefed on background on February 22 in the afternoon and in the evening, and on February 23 in the morning, were the ones who were accompanying the Prime Minister. The choice was made by the PMO. That's not some

Public Safety committee  I'm just saying that Mr. Akin did not receive the full background briefing.

Public Safety committee  No, what I meant by “we”—

Public Safety committee  I don't think there would have been much credibility for a political staffer to go and explain that people were using the names of three respected public institutions in an inappropriate way to try to create a narrative that was totally false. That's the rationale. I think I've e

Public Safety committee  I have three points in response to that. Two of the positions I've held at the Privy Council Office have involved crisis management, cabinet secretary for operations and national security advisor. I have also worked in positions abroad. In Haiti, for instance, I was constantly

Public Safety committee  In general terms, we're doing a lot of work, as I said. We're doing a lot of work to support the Minister of Democratic Institutions, and we're also doing a lot of work to support the Minister of Public Safety. There is, of course, foreign interference when you are in a situation

Public Safety committee  Not necessarily, no. I think that when you have a situation like that, in the heart of a crisis, the national security adviser is right in the centre of it. He's the one who has all the information. Otherwise, I would have had to bring in the CSIS people, the RCMP people, the GAC

Public Safety committee  In all fairness—

Public Safety committee  I have a lot of respect for Mr. Fadden. I was actually his right arm when he was the deputy minister at immigration, and—

Public Safety committee  —and I'd like to say that it's very difficult to command when you don't have facts in front of you. Now there will be some facts.

Public Safety committee  I never raised a conspiracy theory, as I said before. What I said is that there were coordinated efforts to try to misinform, and I said that these were either private people—it was definitely not the Government of India—or if there were people from India, they were acting in a r

Public Safety committee  Sir, at the stage where I am in my career, I don't think I would be trying to do something like that. Second, the easy thing would have been to stay away from it, and of course, Canadians would have had a lot more misinformation implicating public institutions that are respected.

Public Safety committee  First of all, we're not going to discuss classified information here, but what I can say is that, throughout the incident, the Prime Minister was being briefed on both unclassified and classified information.