Prime Minister Justin Trudeau received at least five formal briefings from top national security officials on foreign interference in Canada since 2021, according to documents shared with a House of Commons committee.
Those formal briefings are in addition to “numerous” informal discussions about the issue with Trudeau and his staff since November 2022, when Global News began publishing reports about alleged Chinese political interference in Canadian federal elections.
The information comes from Jody Thomas, Trudeau’s national security and intelligence advisor (NSIA), in a submission to the House of Commons committee probing the issue of Beijing’s covert influence over Canadian politics and politicians. The document, which was obtained by Global News, includes an approximate list of national security briefings on foreign interference to Trudeau, his senior staff, cabinet ministers and security-cleared representatives of federal political parties.
While Thomas’ submission provides specific dates for almost every briefing to Trudeau, it also states that a total of eight briefings were given to the Liberal cabinet or cabinet committees since 2018 — but does not list specific dates for those group sessions.
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In November, Global reported that intelligence officials warned Trudeau and “several cabinet ministers” the Chinese government was conducting a “vast campaign of foreign interference,” and those warnings began in January 2022. Thomas’ submission does not list a specific briefing to cabinet for that month.
“Given the nature of national security issues, many of these briefings are conversations which are not formally scheduled. They can occur on the margins of other briefings, during foreign and domestic travel, and on an urgent basis to meet the Prime Minister’s needs for information and advice to enable responses to address threats to national security,” Thomas’s submission noted.
“The Prime Minister has received many of such briefings since 2015.”
Members of the Prime Minister’s Office had two additional formal briefings – one in September 2022 and another in February 2023 after Global and the Globe and Mail published multiple stories citing unnamed national security sources, according to Thomas’ timeline.
In addition to formal briefings to Trudeau from the NSIA and David Vigneault, the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), Trudeau’s cabinet was briefed at least eight times on foreign interference issues since 2018.
Individual ministers, including those responsible for the public safety and democratic institutions files, received at least 16 formal briefings with either Vigneault or the chief of the Communications Security Establishment, Canada’s cyber intelligence agency, over that same period.
While the content of the briefings was not publicly disclosed – “in order to protect their classification,” according to Thomas’s submission – the document suggested they could cover a “specific threat or adverse activity, as well as broader policy proposals and approaches related to foreign interference in elections.”
The disclosures came ahead of the widely anticipated testimony of Katie Telford, Trudeau’s chief of staff, at the House of Commons’ procedure and House affairs committee on Friday afternoon.
Speaking to reporters Thursday, Trudeau said there are “ongoing attempts” by countries – including China, Russia and Iran – to interfere not just in Canadian politics, but also with Canadian research institutions and diaspora communities in the country who are “always the first targets of pressure” from hostile governments.
“So conversations with my chief of staff, with Katie Telford, on this subject I have had many of them, many of them over long periods of time,” Trudeau said.
While both politicians and intelligence officials have publicly stated foreign interference is a serious and ongoing national security issue, there is no evidence to suggest any such activity substantially influenced the outcomes of either the 2019 or 2021 federal elections.
— with a file from Mercedes Stephenson
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