From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Canada’s former national security advisor Mike MacDonald told the House of Commons Affairs Committee he didn’t keep ‘track’ of the intelligence memo. Two other political aides to Trudeau have also testified that they somehow missed the memo.

A former national security aide to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claimed he did not see a warning stating that agents of the Communist Chinese regime were directly targeting a Conservative MP.  

As per Blacklock’s Reporter, Canada’s former national security advisor Mike MacDonald told the House of Commons Affairs Committee last Tuesday that he did not keep “track” of an intelligence memo warning of possible meddling by the Communist Chinese Party (CCP) in the nation’s politics. 

“Where it went in the Privy Council Office when it was sent out and to what other offices, I don’t know,” said MacDonald. 

MacDonald said, “The document, the intelligence assessment, did not come directly to me.”  

The July 2021 memo in question comes from Canada’s spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), when MacDonald was a national security advisor. This memo warned that Chinese spies were targeting and harassing Conservative Party of Canada MP Michael Chong.  

MacDonald was asked when he first learned of the memo, to which he replied that he did not have the “exact date when I first read that memo,” but it was in the “spring or early summer of this year.” 

Conservative MP Michael Cooper asked MacDonald when he first learned about Chong being targeted by agents of the CCP, asking if it was after a Globe & Mail report from May 1, 2023 on the matter.  

“Yes, that is my recollection,” MacDonald said, but did not explain.  

Cooper noted that to him, it seemed that what was going on was a “breakdown of communication” regarding “information that is about as serious as it gets involving the targeting of multiple MPs,” including the family of one whose “family is in Hong Kong in the immediate lead up to an election, information that ultimately resulted in the expulsion of a Beijing diplomat.” 

NDP MP Rachel Blaney said the seeming security failure regarding Chong was a costly failure, and it meant losing “trust” in the “system.” 

“When the fear begins to not have trust or faith in our system it can really lead to things, I don’t think any of us want to experience,” she noted.  

Remarkably, two other political aides to Trudeau – now-retired national security advisor Vincent Rigby and current national security advisor Jody Thomas – and have testified that they also did not see the memo and somehow missed it. 

On June 1, Thomas said she was sent the security memo relating to Chong, but as she was on holiday, she did not look at it.  

“I acknowledge Mr. Chong should have been told,” she admitted.   

Chong recently disclosed that he had been personally threatened multiple times by who he believed to be a diplomat named Zhao Wei, who was acting as an agent of Communist China. He said the threats were concerning enough that he had to call the police out of concern for his safety.    

After the scandal broke, Wei was kicked out of Canada. The Communist Chinese government retaliated by expelling a Canadian diplomat shortly thereafter.     

Former deputy minister said it wasn’t ‘his job’ to inform Chong that CCP agents were targeting him  

Last Thursday, former deputy minister of public safety Rob Stewart noted to the House of Commons Affairs Committee that it was not his “job” to warn Chong that he was the target of CCP agents.  

Stewart claimed that many agents target “many people in Canada,” who are on “ongoing basis being targeted by foreign interference and it was not my job to inform them.” 

“There are processes and ways of doing so. In this instance I was not tracking what other people were doing,” he noted. 

Stewart last week acknowledged that he had received in 2021 no less than two warnings from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service that Chong was being targeted. Despite this, he did not warn Chong and stated he did not recall reading the warnings.  

Stewart noted that foreign agents targeting Canadians is a “very serious problem.” 

“There are clandestine and deceptive efforts to influence our democratic processes and society on an ongoing basis. We should take it very seriously,” he said.  

The potential meddling in Canada’s elections by agents of the CCP has many Canadians worried, especially considering Trudeau’s past praise for China’s “basic dictatorship” and his labeling of the authoritarian nation as his favorite country other than his own.  

Last month, LifeSiteNews reported on how leading Canadian computer scientist professor Benjamin Fung from McGill University said agents from China offered him a six-figure bribe if he agreed to become a stooge for the CCP. 

This report followed another from early September that noted how despite a continuous stream of evidence suggesting that CCP agents have interfered in Canada’s last two federal elections, the nation’s elections commissioner omitted any mention of China from her annual foreign interference report to Parliament last week. 

On September 7, 2023, the federal government announced it would be launching a public inquiry into potential foreign election interference, to be led by Quebec judge Marie-Josée Hogue.  

The public inquiry came after Trudeau for months was opposed to the idea of launching a full public inquiry into CCP election meddling despite calls from the opposition to do so – and after a failed attempt to launch his own internal investigation.   

His internal investigation was led by his “family friend” David Johnston, whom he tasked as “special rapporteur” in the inquiry process. Opposition Conservative MPs demanded Johnston be replaced over his ties to both China and the Trudeau family.  

After Johnston concluded that there should not be a public inquiry into the matter, calls grew louder for him to resign. In June, Johnston quit as “special rapporteur.”