Security leaker deserves a medal
David Johnston says whoever leaked information about Chinese interference in Canadian politics is guilty of a “breach of duty.” The clear implication is they should be tracked down and punished.
I have a better idea — let’s give them a medal.
We don’t need a public inquiry (or even public hearings) to reach at least one important conclusion: if it wasn’t for the media reports that came out of those leaks, the “hot mess on fire” that is the way the Canadian government handles national security information would still be smouldering away in the background, with no change in sight.
The most shocking part of Johnston’s report follows an extremely understated heading: “The Dissemination of Intelligence Within the Government — a Problem that Needs Attention.”
Johnston describes how our intelligence agencies produce reports, distribute them to various agencies and departments — and then no one has any idea if they actually get read. Apparently, according to what Johnston found out, they’re collected in a “large binder” that’s kept in a secure room.
There’s no system for flagging an important report to key people, or for making sure someone reads it and decides whether anything should be done. So it seems quite possible that intelligence on, say, attempts by foreign agents to influence an election, might well disappear into that big binder and never be seen again.
Hard to believe, but it gets worse. Johnston found intelligence suggesting Beijing was targeting Conservative MP Michael Chong, another MP, and their extended families in China. In May 2021, CSIS sent an “issues management note” about this threat to then-public safety minister Bill Blair and his chief of staff. But neither of them received that note. It turns out it was sent through a “Top Secret Network email” and neither the minister nor his most senior aide had access to that.
Johnston calls all this “serious shortcomings” in the way the government handles intelligence. That’s one way of putting it. “Hot mess on fire” is how a couple of former security officials who used to work in that system described it to CBC News. It’s been like that for years, they said, and no one did a thing about it.
That’s the absurd, dysfunctional system that Canada’s security officials have been struggling with, and the government has allowed to persist for years. Who knows what other information has disappeared in this maze?
Who knows what other crises are ticking away in the background and what other intelligence ministers simply don’t know about?
Only a government and a country that doesn’t take national security seriously would tolerate such a situation for so long.
No, it took someone (the leaker or leakers) to force action. Of course, it would be hugely preferable for change to come without someone getting to the point where they feel they have no choice but to go rogue, but apparently it doesn’t work like that.
Even Johnston readily acknowledges none of this would be happening without the leaks. In fact, the government did its level best to ignore reports by Global News last fall and was forced to act only when a stream of confidential material began appearing in the Globe and Mail in February.
I don’t think every leaker or whistleblower (they aren’t necessarily the same) is a hero. It depends — on the reasons for breaking secrecy, on the nature of the information released, on the impact of a leak.
If the leaker in this case is eventually identified, he or she will no doubt face severe consequences — firing at the very least, and the possibility of criminal charges on top of that.
Personally, I think they’ve done a public service.