Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said she would welcome an investigation into whether Ottawa knew before Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine that locally-hired staff at its embassy in Kyiv might be on Russian target lists, but did not inform them. “We need to get to the bottom of this,” he told the House of Commons foreign affairs committee on Thursday, after questions about a Globe and Mail report on the row. The report said that despite the fact that the global affairs department received information confirming that Russia intended to wage war against its neighbor and that Ukrainians working for the Canadian embassy were likely on lists of people Moscow intended to hunt down, said Ottawa in Canada. embassy officials to withhold this information. In a statement released via Twitter later on Thursday, Ms Jolie said she would invite the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliament (NSICOP) to look into the matter. This organisation, which includes MPs from all the major parties, as well as some senators, is not a committee of Parliament. His reports are sent to the Prime Minister’s Office, and the Prime Minister has the ability to correct information for national security reasons. “I understand that Canadians want to shine a light on this,” Ms. Jolley said. “I want MPs to be informed and if the National Security and Intelligence Committee of MPs wishes to study this matter, they will have my full support and cooperation.” Stephanie Carvin, an associate professor of international relations at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs and a former national security analyst, said she’s not sure NSICOP is the right body to look into that. He said the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, which is currently studying Global Affairs, could look into the matter. “In theory, NSICOP could look into this, but it’s a very small specific issue. I’m not sure it’s a matter he would want a report on.” Ms. Jolly was pressed in the Commons foreign affairs committee by Conservative MP Garnett Genuis and NDP foreign relations critic Heather McPherson about exactly what she knew before Russia’s Feb. 24 military attack on Ukraine. He said he was aware of intelligence reports released by the U.S. before the Russian invasion of Ukraine that Moscow had lists of people it intended to arrest or kill — but that he was not aware of any Ukrainians working for the Canadian embassy being named. these lists. “There were some lists that specifically targeted the Ukrainian in Ukraine and of course we were concerned about those targeting,” he said. As for whether local Canadian embassy staff were under threat, Ms Jolie told the committee: “I didn’t have that information. My team did not have this information. You heard the MP. The department did not have this information. “We — myself, my political staff and Global Affairs Canada, according to what the member just mentioned — had no information about the fact that there were lists specifically targeting Canadian diplomats and locally employed personnel in Kyiv.” Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly says she didn’t know Kiev embassy staff faced threat from Russia The Globe and Mail reported earlier this week that after receiving information from Five Eyes that Ukrainian embassy staff may be on Russian lists, Canadian diplomats received clear instructions from Ottawa on how to proceed: Do not share any from the information with the Ukrainian staff members and do not help them to flee. Five Eyes is an intelligence-sharing alliance that includes Canada, the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. In the weeks after receiving the information, three diplomatic sources said, Canadian embassy staff were evacuated first to the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on February 12, and then to Poland on February 24, hours after the Russian invasion began. Ukrainian staff members stayed behind in Kyiv, fearing for their lives and angry at the way they were treated, the sources said. The Globe is not naming the sources because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. Ms. Jolie did not immediately respond to questions about whether she believed The Globe’s report was accurate in an interview with CBC Power and Politics on August 3 or in a heated exchange at the committee meeting on Thursday. He said in the CBC interview that he visited local staff in Kyiv in January and then spoke with them again in February as the Russians invaded. He knew they were in danger, he said. “The Canadian government was there and upheld our moral responsibility to the people who were helping us,” the minister said. “It was paramount for my team and my department to be protected.” But diplomatic sources told The Globe that Ukrainian staff feared for their lives in January after hearing about the Russian target lists from US embassy staff. The team prepared a presentation for senior Global Affairs staff outlining the risks they felt and asked them to evacuate with Canadian diplomats and work remotely. Several Ukrainian personnel have high public profiles, one source said, and will likely be Russian targets. Diplomats interviewed by The Globe say that if Ms. Jolie had spoken to Ukrainian staff in January, she should have been aware of their terror and their request to leave. Separately, on Thursday, Larisa Galadza, Canada’s ambassador to Ukraine, said via Twitter that she had met with staff at the Canadian embassy in Kyiv “to assure them that we did not have a list, nor were we aware of any list, targeting local personnel involved of our embassy”. The Morning Update and Afternoon Update newsletters are written by Globe editors, giving you a concise summary of the day’s most important headlines. Sign up today.
