Another high-ranking aide to the prime minister admitted on Tuesday he had overlooked a warning in 2021 about Chinese agents targetting a Conservative MP.According to Blacklock’s Reporter, Mike MacDonald, the former national security advisor, expressed the ongoing House Affairs committee investigation should not be “about laying blame.”“The document, the intelligence assessment, did not come directly to me,” said MacDonald. “I have checked.”“Where it went in the Privy Council Office when it was sent out and to what other offices, I don’t know,” said MacDonald. “I don’t track.”A July 20, 2021, Canadian Security Intelligence Service memo revealed that Chinese spies were trying to intimidate Conservative MP Michael Chong (Wellington-Halton Hills, ON). MacDonald served as the national security advisor during that time.Asked when he first learned of the memo, MacDonald replied “I don’t have an exact date when I first read that memo, but it was in the spring or early summer of this year.”“Did you first learn about it when it was reported in the Globe & Mail on May 1, 2023?” asked Conservative MP Michael Cooper (St. Albert-Edmonton, AB). “Yes, that is my recollection,” replied MacDonald. He had no explanation.“It seems to me that what we have is a breakdown of communication on 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,” said Cooper.According to NDP MP Rachel Blaney (North Island-Powell River, BC), it was a significant security failure.“We need to be able to trust our system,” said Blaney. “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.”Two other political aides to the prime minister earlier testified they also missed the security warning. “I did not see it,” Vincent Rigby, now-retired national security advisor, testified on June 8.Jody Thomas, the current national security advisor to the prime minister, testified on June 1 she had received the secret security memo but did not review it because she was on vacation at that time.“I acknowledge Mr. Chong should have been told,” testified Thomas.Disclosures of activities by foreign agents prompted a May 8 Commons vote to “expel China diplomats responsible for and involved in affronts to Canadian democracy.”On May 8, Zhao Wei, who worked at China's consulate in Toronto, was expelled because of his involvement in targeting MP Chong's family.
