In his own words, David Johnston explains why he didn't recommend a public inquiry

Special rapporteur David Johnston tabled his long-awaited first report Tuesday, saying in part that a public inquiry would be ineffective because the sensitive and classified information involved could not be aired publicly, even if redacted.

The former governor general sat down with CTV National News' Chief News Anchor and Senior Editor Omar Sachedina to discuss the 55-page report at length.

Johnston concluded there should be a public process on the issue of foreign interference, rather than a public inquiry, a decision that drew criticism from opposition parties, all of which said they wanted to see him call for a public inquiry.

Johnston examined thousands of pages of classified and unclassified documents over the course of his probe, and said while redacting some for the sake of a public inquiry could work in theory, in practice it would not lead to any real answers or transparency for the public.

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“I think the notion of redaction is possible, but then do you have enough in what's left to be able to come to an intelligent assessment, if the non-redacted part is left there on the line,” he said.

He added that a conversation about what is and is not classified, and how foreign interference is communicated with the public, should likely be re-evaluated in the coming months.

Johnston and Sachedina also discussed the impact of foreign interference allegations on diaspora communities, the failings of the machinery of government in some cases, and whether he still believes he is the best person to study the issue, considering criticisms of his relationship with the prime minister.

They also touched on whether the absence of a public inquiry could lead to more leaks of classified intelligence to the media, to which Johnston responded that those leaking information are breaking the law and putting Canada’s security apparatus at risk.

“You can't reform, I think, by encouraging people to break the law, and then carry out their particular concern or protests,” he said. “We must function through our democratic institutions.”

Read David Johnston’s full interview with Omar Sachedina, which has been edited for length and clarity.

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Omar Sachedina: On the one hand, you've shut the door on a public inquiry, because you say Canadians won't have access to sensitive, classified information. And at the same time, you've admonished the leaker or leakers, because you say those leaks lack context and contribute to what you call “misapprehension.” Is there not a risk that if you don't have a public inquiry, those leaks could increase?

David Johnston: “Two different questions, there. First of all, the reason we can't have a public inquiry dealing with the question of who knew what when and what did they do with it, is because to get at that, you have to deal with classified information. We can't disclose that classified information in the public realm either for a hearing about it or to report the details. The reason is it's based on secure networks. Some of the sources we have, their lives would be at stake if this becomes an open matter, our relationship with our Five Eyes allies, we share information, that disappears.

So much as we would like to have a public inquiry into this question of who knew what and so on, it can't be done in using classified information, and therefore, you can't put it out in the public. What we do say is that there are accountability committees created by statute, the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, and the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, both of which have an oversight role, both of which will review our report and the confidential annex, and come to a conclusion as to whether we're right or wrong in our conclusions. They, of course, will face the same difficulty that when you get into classified information, you can't deal with it in the public.

So that's the dilemma we have, and ultimately, what we do say is when we get into the challenges in our machinery of government — and there are some with respect to how we manage foreign influence, especially because it's grown so exponentially in the last two or three years — we have much work to do to improve it. In the second part of our mandate, the next five months, we will have public hearings to deal with precisely those things, and we hope to come up with recommendations that will be very helpful in improving our system.”

Sachedina: I understand the dilemma that you're presenting, but does this decision that you have made, that was made public today, does it not embolden people who clearly want to say something, the leakers within the intelligence community? Does it not embolden them to come out with even more information, which you admitted today is piecemeal, it lacks context, and could add to the misapprehension that you spoke about today.

Johnston: ”Well, one cannot encourage … leakers. These are people, if they're qualified security professionals, who are well educated, signed up to be part of the security establishment, took an oath to maintain total confidence on classified information, and under the Securities and Information Act, they are committing crimes, when in fact they disclose that. One cannot have a system like that, because our whole security intelligence apparatus begins to crumble, and people's lives are at stake, and we lose the ability to compute it with our Five Eyes allies. I think people who feel that they have a real sense of grievance about our system should become private citizens and come provide some testimony to us at our public hearings on what you think is wrong or do a submission to us. And we'd be very glad to look at it. But you can't reform, I think, by encouraging people to break the law, and then carry out their particular concern or protests. We must function through our democratic institutions, which do encourage a whole range of ideas and how they can improve our government.”

Sachedina: Journalists, though, get information that is redacted from time to time, that they will report on. Is there absolutely, unequivocally, no scenario where there could be a public inquiry where even some of the most sensitive information you talked about today is redacted to a certain extent, thereby achieving the goal of some transparency for the public — which obviously is very seized with this issue of foreign interference — and making sure that this information is out in the open? Was that scenario even entertained?

Johnston: “Well, I think the notion of redaction is possible, but then do have enough in what's left to be able to come to an intelligent assessment, if the non-redacted part is left there on the line.”

Sachedina: How do we know that? It appears that the door was slammed on that even before that process was entertained, because you said today that Canada may also have a problem with over classification, too, right?

Johnston: “I think that should be examined. Can we be more relaxed in what we're doing in terms of what is classified or non-classified? Other jurisdictions face the same problem and I think we can learn from them. But there becomes an absolute line where you simply can't expose certain gathering of intelligence. And the difficulty with the leaked reports is they’re based on only a partial understanding of the whole panoply of information, even with documents that presumably have been taken from secret files, they want to tell a part of the story. To come to an understanding of a real threat and act upon it usually involves many different pieces of information, usually gathered over a period of years and very often drawing on the intelligence of our allies.”

Sachedina: Could there have been a scenario where a process had been initiated to examine what could and what could not have been redacted first, before shutting the door on a public inquiry completely?

Johnston: “I think that process has been done with respect to what's classified what isn't classified. In the documentation and the testimony that was given to us by security officials, they went, I think, as far as they could, in trying to move that threshold of what must be secret and what must not, more so than I've seen in any other circumstance. Nevertheless, it left a substantial body of evidence, which we have collected in our confidential report, which will be reviewed by the two committees I mentioned. So yes, there's been some relaxation there.

One of the issues that we'll face in next five months is: can we be more flexible with classified and declassifying information? Now, we don't want to declassify as President Trump suggested, ‘I simply think it is declassified and it is’, we have something a little more robust than that. That's just to illustrate that other of our allies have these problems in spades. And I think we can do a better job of trying to understand MI-5 in the U.K., the Australians who have been very enterprising in dealing with foreign threats, to manage this difficulty of what you must keep in secret and what you can put in the public realm. The one thing that we can do, I think, to deal with that issue, Omar, is to be much more active in communication with the public that foreign influence is real. It's pernicious, it's growing, it’s very sophisticated, and the advent of digital media just puts us in a whole new world as to how we handle it.”

Sachedina: So for the average Canadian out there, what are some of the fresh takeaways from the report today?

Johnston: “I think the first takeaway is that foreign influence is very real, pernicious, growing, not going to go away, and it does real danger. It especially does danger to our minority communities, our ethnic communities. I think of the Chinese communities right now with Chinese influence, they are victims of this and carry this burden of being wonderful Canadian citizens, and all of a sudden are viewed with suspicion because of this foreign influence, which attempts to get at people and influence in one way or the other. That's really an awful situation. And I think we must understand that there are influences at work that are trying to turn us against one another with respect to that kind of thing. There’s a lot of work to be done: public education, but I think we have to lead with our elected officials to bring this to the forefront and say it's real, it's tough. and here's what we're doing, and here's what we must do more effectively to be sure people understand what we're dealing with.”

Sachedina: I think some people watching the press conference today or reading a report might be wondering what the action plan is. What fundamentally changes tomorrow to address an urgent threat to Canada's democracy?

Johnston: ”Well, we outline in the report about nine different initiatives that have been taken over the past three or four years to deal with this growing threat, beginning with the two committees I mentioned, which are oversight committees, created by legislation through Parliament. They have an important watchdog role to lead our response to this. Of eight or nine initiatives I've just mentioned, these have all come about in responding to a threat, but what happens is it's bigger and larger. And in the work we'll do in the next five months — and we expect parliamentary committees to be doing that as well — we'll be looking specially at how our allies are handling this problem and what we can learn from them, as they would say what they can learn from us.”

Sachedina: On pages 27 and 28, you outline how CSIS sent a note to then-public safety Minister Bill Blair and his chief of staff that China intended to target MP Michael Chong, and neither the minister nor his chief of staff received that message because they did not have access to a top secret network to access that email. The public safety minister did not have access to this top secret network. If intelligence officials can't even communicate that information, that basic level of information, to elected officials, does it make our Five Eyes partners lose faith in Canadian intelligence?

Johnston: ”That was a mistake. That was a problem in our machinery of government that should be rectified. Moreover, when that became understood, then the National Security and Intelligence Advisor met with Mr. Chong to deal with that, and a new protocol was developed, which said that as these threats ripen but are not necessarily crystallized into something that is clear and present danger, there must be a communication of those particular facts and move into this secret territory with elected members of parliament. So that protocol is now in place, but that's making policy on the fly. That's the kind of thing that should be done in a very considered way. With respect to that issue, yes, our allies look at that and say, ‘that is not acceptable that your machinery of government is not providing a tracking of how that information goes up and what happens to it.’”

Sachedina: Your mandate officially ends in October. I know you were asked at several points today in the news conference, there has been a lot of attention placed on your critics saying that you're too close to the prime minister. Given that we are in a time when our institutions have been called into question, and appearance and optics matter, despite your credentials, do you think or have you ever entertained a scenario where you step aside and have somebody else take on part two of this process?

Johnston: “Well, number one, when I was asked to do this, those who appointed me understood who I am and what my background is. With respect to the allegations of not being impartial and not being able to be nonpartisan, the friend of the current prime minister it is simply this: when our daughters were about the same age as he was, 11-12, and his two brothers, we had a condo at the slopes of Mont Tremblant ski mountain, within 100 metres of the actual trails, and their father had a country place in Morin-Heights about 50 kilometers away from us. On about five occasions, over two or three years, he came and parked his car at our parking space, and we went and skied for the day on the hill. So our children got to know one another when the current prime minister was 12 years old. On one of those occasions, he had to go back to Montreal and I dropped the three boys off at their mother's country place with her second husband, which was about 10 kilometers away. Those were the only occasions where I had direct meetings with the young Mr. Trudeau.

When he was elected to Parliament, and I as a governor general, I saw him in ceremonial things. I never had a meeting with him. I was never in his home. He wasn't in my home. We never exchanged a telephone call or emails or letters. The only occasion I recall meeting him was when my wife and I attended a funeral of his father. So there was no friendship, there was no connection. So that's just an unfortunate allegation.

With respect to my connection with the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, when I was asked to do this, I asked a retired Supreme Court of Canada Justice Frank Iacobucci to review the matter, and he concluded there was no conflict of interest nor an appearance of one. The Trudeau Foundation was something I respected much as a university president because it was one of the most important scholarships in the areas of social sciences and humanities. When I stepped down as governor general about a year later, late 2018, I was asked if I would become a member of the association of the Trudeau Foundation, which was just like shareholders of a company, and your duty is to attend the annual general meeting. There was nothing involved with decision making, in which case you receive an annual report. You approve the financial statements. You elect the auditors for the subsequent year and you elect the board of directors. So I was not a participant in the decision making. I was not a member of the board of directors. I had no particular influence on strategy or decisions.

And the final area of attack is somehow I can't be impartial or nonpartisan. And what I simply say to that is that as a professor of law, I've chaired or served on somewhere between two and three dozen advisory committees to government, including being recommended by a Conservative prime minister to be governor general for five years and then extended by that government for another two years. At no time in any of those occasions was my integrity or my impartiality in question. Why would it happen all of a sudden now with this particular mandate? Are there other people who would do it? Yeah. Are they going to be subjected to some kind of accusations? What troubles me about that most of all, is this is a precious country. It's our responsibility to protect and to be stewards of it. If you're asked to serve in a public service position, you don't say, ‘well, I don't think I want to because you know, it's a little uncomfortable when people criticize me.’ But it's a chilling effect when you have these kinds of allegations that are then carried, that somehow suggest that you are part of the scheme or that you can't be trusted. I wrote a whole book about trust when I was governor general … And I did so because I'm concerned about trust in public institutions. And this kind of invective is what weakens our trust in our public institution and it's precisely what our enemies want to see. To put our democratic institutions into disarray.”

With files from CTVNews.ca’s Senior Digital Parliamentary Reporter Rachel Aiello