CSIS watered down ‘problematic’ report originally alleging foreign agents affected 2019 election results
The former chair of the SITE Task Force raised concerns about a report suggesting a foreign actor had an impact on the 2019 election
OTTAWA — The former chair of the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force raised concerns about a “massively problematic” piece of intelligence from Canada’s spy agency suggesting a foreign actor had an impact on the 2019 election.
In the end, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) determined it was too strong of an assessment and resubmitted the intelligence report with some modifications, according to testimony heard at the Public Inquiry on Foreign Interference on Thursday.
Lyall King sent an email to the CSIS SITE representative on October 31, 2019, relaying his concerns. He wrote that he was “quite surprised” by the intelligence, which he described as “extremely interesting” but so shocking that it “will raise many questions.”
“I have to question why this was not shared in advance with SITE — particularly given the severity of the alleged activity,” wrote King in the partly censored email.
CSIS assistant director Cherie Henderson told the inquiry that there was a line in the report indicating that a foreign actor had had an impact on the 2019 federal election, which happened days earlier, and that that actor would remain a foreign interference threat.
“We felt internally that that was a bit of a leap too far,” she said.
Henderson said the foreign actor would have had an impact in a “particular time frame” on a “particular issue” but said it would not have impacted the integrity of the 2019 election. In the end, CSIS determined the language was too strong and resubmitted the report.
CSIS director David Vigneault testified that his agency’s priorities are dictated by the government of the day but said he never felt pressured to censor intelligence.
