How I accessed Top Secret intelligence on PRC election interference in Canada
https://www.thebureau.news/p/how-i-accessed-top-secret-intelligence
‘Confidential Source 3’ brought Privy Council Office documents and a BIC mini-lighter to our September 2022 meeting in Quebec
I woke about 5:30 a.m. and double-checked my backpack to make sure I had pens to spare and no electronic devices, left home and started pedalling towards Parliament Hill and the bridge over Ottawa River to Quebec.
It was September 10, 2022, a sunny morning, and I could see the hills of Gatineau to the north until I approached the river and a fog descended as I rode across the pedestrian bridge.
On the Quebec side I rode for a while, looking over my shoulder whenever I rounded a corner.
My mind was reeling with a sense of awe and burden.
I approached the Cenotaph at Notre Dame Cemetery and locked my bike. As usual, I guessed, Confidential Source 3 was watching from a distance to make sure I hadn’t been followed.
That summer I was accelerated into a world of tradecraft I never could have envisioned when I decided to become a journalist in the early 2000s.
It wasn’t my first time secretly meeting with government sources. I’d been doing that since 2017 when I started to investigate casino money laundering in British Columbia.
But I had never been so jolted with information. Continue…