In dramatic testimony last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the Inquiry into Foreign Interference there were parliamentarians and others who were “engaged, or at high risk of, or for whom there is clear intelligence around foreign interference.”
Now we learn via the Globe and Mail that the PM’s top advisers on national security gave a briefing on India’s alleged complicity in the death of a Sikh activist to a foreign newspaper, the day before RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme held a news conference to tell the rest of the media about the investigation.
Trudeau’s national security adviser Natalie Drouin and David Morrison, a deputy minister at Global Affairs, met with the Washington Post to brief the newspaper on Indian interference in Canada.
As the Globe points out, Trudeau recently complained that “a criminal” had leaked information to that paper in 2023 about Chinese interference.
So, to clarify: It’s outrageous to leak information to a Canadian newspaper on an issue that affects Canadians – i.e. Chinese dabbling in Canadian affairs. On the other hand, it’s perfectly correct for the prime minister’s office to leak information on a sensitive police investigation into India’s alleged activities in Canada to a foreign newspaper – before that information was made known to Canadians.
When government does it, it’s a “briefing.” When others do it, it’s a “leak.” Got that?
We’ve never accused the Trudeau government of being overly deft or accomplished in its management of international affairs. Even by their own clumsy standards, this seems a particularly ham-fisted way to proceed.
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We have no idea of the circumstances of the briefing or whether the Post was working on a story and requested information. Surely a more appropriate course of action would have been for Drouin and Morrison to brief security officials in the American government and allow them to provide the information to the U.S. media.
Or they could have waited until the information was available to Canadian media, in the expectation that U.S. papers would pick up their reports. Was the Post given information that wasn’t disclosed at the news conference?
Sure, the U.S. is our friend and ally. All the same, releasing details of foreign interference to a foreign newspaper before telling Canadians doesn’t seem like a rational policy.