Head of Canada's cyber spy agency to become PM's new national security adviser

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the name of his new national security and intelligence adviser Monday, moving the head of Canada's electronic spy agency into the position being vacated by the retiring Daniel Jean.

Chief of the Communications Security Establishment Greta Bossenmaier will begin her new role May 23.

Bossenmaier, who began her public service career as a scientist for National Defence, has held a number of key security-related positions during her career: deputy minister for the Afghanistan Task Force, associate minister in the Department of Foreign Affairs and deputy minister of international development.

A report issued by her agency last year warned that online attempts to influence or undermine Canada's elections system are becoming more frequent, and great caution should be taken to prepare for such threats before the next federal election.

"Looking to 2019, we do anticipate to see cyber attempts to influence the election," Bossenmaier told a news conference in June, 2017. "We believe multiple hacktivist groups will make such attempts. While much of it will likely be low-sophistication, groups will likely study past operations and adopt more sophisticated means."

Bossenmaier is replacing Jean, who is retiring after 35 years as a federal bureaucrat. During his tenure he held a number of senior positions, including deputy minister of Foreign Affairs and deputy minister of Canadian Heritage. 

But Jean will most likely be remembered for his recent attempts to explain how a man convicted of attempted murder in connection with a failed political assassination managed to get himself invited to two high-profile events with Trudeau, his wife Sophie and senior members of the federal cabinet during a February trip to India.

The Atwal affair

When CBC News broke the story that Jaspal Atwal — convicted of attempted murder for trying to assassinate Indian cabinet minister Malkiat Singh Sidhu while he was visiting Vancouver Island in 1986 — had been photographed with Sophie Trudeau and a number of cabinet ministers a film industry event in Mumbai, a tidal wave of criticism threatened to scuttle the prime minister's India mission.

As the story began to consume the news cycle, Jean offered journalists in the Parliamentary Press Gallery an off-the-record briefing about how the security lapse was allowed to occur, and whether political elements in India may have been involved.

When the media coverage of that briefing first emerged, the Conservatives began pressuring the government to have Jean provide the same briefing to MPs.

Conservative MPs carried out some procedural trickery several weeks ago — including a marathon voting session on a series of motions in the House that lasted the better part of 24 hours — to protest efforts by the Liberal government to kill a motion that would have demanded Jean appear before the committee to answer questions about the Atwal invite.

Trudeau offered instead to have Jean give Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer a classified briefing. Scheer agreed, on the condition that Jean give the House of Commons national security and defence committee an unclassified version of the briefing first.

Jean appeared before committee last month and defended his briefing to reporters, saying he felt he needed to counter a "false narrative" about Trudeau's trip.

Jean said it was his decision to brief reporters, but added he spoke to officials in the Prime Minister's Office to get a list of reporters to contact in order to clarify the sequence of events and answer questions.

A statement from the PMO said that Trudeau congratulated Jean on his retirement "following an exceptional career."