Dec. 31, 2021
Dear ministers,
From the beginning, our government has been seized with its responsibility to act on important information brought to the attention of ministers. However, too much information is being brought to the attention of ministers, making them appear responsible for acting on it.
At the outset of our third term I am issuing this supplementary mandate letter to ministers regarding the handling of documents and information.
Previous protocols have proven inadequate, as noted when the Ombudsman of the Department of National Defence attempted to present written allegations of sexual misconduct by the then-chief of the defence staff to the former minister of defence, Harjit Sajjan.
Although Mr. Sajjan’s instincts were correct, his response on that occasion – shouting “No” and walking away – left the impression that he could have taken more responsibility. Mr. Sajjan will now take on new functions, but, lessons learned, he was careful not to read too many e-mails in his remaining time as defence minister, even when Afghanistan was falling to the Taliban.
Moving forward, ministers are reminded of their duty to ensure proper information flow.
Briefing notes and e-mails are regularly sent to ministerial offices and must be triaged by staff to ensure only appropriate material is forwarded to busy ministers.
This is particularly the case for ministers responsible for autonomous entities in sensitive areas, such as new Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino, whose portfolio includes intelligence, police and corrections agencies.
A Public Safety Minister who receives written advice from police would find it more difficult to speak publicly about the advice he or she did not receive verbally. Several organizations in the portfolio have the potential to inform the Minister of inconvenient situations, such as the transfer of a notorious murderer to medium-security prison.
Staff should ensure that e-mails and memos in the three “no-no” categories – nothing we can do, nothing we want to do, and nothing we want to know about – are kept from the Minister’s eyes.
Staff who receive such e-mails will have ample time to prepare talking points for the Minister expressing her or his shock at the news, with a promise to review the process for the future.
Intelligence matters are of the utmost importance and secret information must be managed carefully to ensure the wrong kind is not presented to the Minister. Intelligence memos are to be categorized as either “for action” or “for awareness.”
“For action” reports are, by their nature, never to be presented to ministers. They should instead forwarded to the appropriate intelligence-review officer’s desk (see org. chart fig. 8) for assignment to the responsible official, if any.
“For awareness” reports are critical in the intelligence-information system, and though their contents can be known, it cannot be known if the Minister is aware of them.
Such memos circulate information to intelligence consumers in a way that implies appropriate action has or will be taken without indicating how or by whom, increasing the number of people not responsible for not doing anything.
In limited cases, the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service will determine when a specific item must be presented to the Minister of Public Safety in an issues-management note – a document that must be managed so it does not become an issue for the Minister.
This is done via a protocol established by former public safety minister Bill Blair, based conceptually on drawings of staircases by the artist M.C. Escher.
Under this protocol, CSIS “shares” highly-sensitive alerts, such as warnings about hostile states targeting members of Parliament, by transmitting notes for the Minister by a secure electronic-messaging system to which the Minister does not have access. Officials print such materials for the attention of the Minister but the Minister never lets the material be “shared” with him.
The shared-not-shared nexus is augmented by circulating the material to deputy ministers on vacation but, for security reasons, destroying it before their return. This ensures more people are not responsible for not getting the memo.
In keeping with the protocols above, ministers should ensure this letter is not shared with them, just as it has not been shared with me. Further guidance for appearances before parliamentary committees on such issues can be obtained by consulting the handbook for ministers entitled, “Not that I recall at this time.”
Signed,
[REDACTED] for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau