OTTAWA—Conservative and NDP opposition critics say they are unsatisfied with explanations by the prime minister’s national security adviser for the Jaspal Atwal affair, and vow to continue to press Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over what they call inconsistencies in the government’s version of events.

Daniel Jean, testifying before the Commons standing committee on public safety Monday, said it was his idea to brief reporters about the Atwal affair as it was unfolding during the prime minister’s trip to India.

He said he wanted to “de-bunk misinformation” in the media that the Liberal government had failed to heed prior warnings about the convicted would-be assassin’s invitation to a Canadian high commission event in New Delhi. That invitation was later withdrawn once stories and photos of Atwal posing with the prime minister’s wife at an earlier event in Mumbai made headlines.

Jean said CSIS, the RCMP and the High Commission in India did not receive — nor had the PMO ignored — prior information that the B.C. Sikh man convicted more than 30 years ago in Canada of trying to kill an Indian cabinet minister on Canadian soil would be on the guest list.

Jean said he proposed background briefings with journalists because he feared a “false narrative” aimed at discrediting three “respected public institutions” — CSIS, RCMP and the Canadian High Commission — was being deliberately circulated, and he wanted to correct the record.

“We needed to ensure these three institutions were not tainted.”

Throughout the one-hour appearance, Jean defended his own actions, saying he never released classified information during those briefings but sought to “de-bunk” what he and the government viewed as a “fabricated narrative.”

Jean said he coordinated with PMO and PCO officials the key messages he would convey in calls to reporters in Ottawa and in New Delhi, but denied he was politically pressured or instructed to do so.

And Jean denied he ever used the word conspiracy or suggested the Indian government had set out to embarrass Trudeau or sabotage the trip.

“What I said is that we had concerns that this seems to be coordinated misinformation by actors possibly to exacerbate the faux pas — the fact that an invitation that shouldn’t have been made had been made — in order to reinforce the notion that Canada is complacent on the risk of extremism, a perception that has been brought at times by Indian intelligence services and one that we do not share.”

But Jean denied ever saying “rogue elements within the Indian government” were responsible as some media outlets had subsequently reported, and Conservative Opposition Leader Andrew Scheer had seized on.

“I never raised a conspiracy theory,” Jean said. “What I said is that there was coordinated efforts to try to misinform and I said these were either private people — it was definitely not the government of India, and, if it was people from India, they were acting in a rogue way.”

Convicted attempted murderer Jaspal Atwal says he’s “devastated” over the outrage caused by his invitation to events in India with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. At a press conference on March 8, Atwal said he requested the invite. (The Canadian Press)

But Conservative critic Erin O’Toole suggested Trudeau wore much of the blame for providing “different versions” of what happened. Trudeau’s comments in the House of Commons appear carefully scripted to back what a “senior public servant” said, but to refrain from detailing them.

On Monday, after Jean’s testimony, Scheer charged in the Commons that “the Prime Minister advanced the theory that Jaspal Atwal's presence at a Government of Canada event in India was orchestrated by rogue elements within the Indian government.”

The NDP’s Mathieu Dube said Jean appeared to have overstepped his bounds as a public servant and got involved in doing communications damage control for the government.

Jean testified he believed it was important, then and now, for a “neutral” government official to answer “tough questions” and clarify facts about what he told reporters later was a “diplomatic faux-pas.”

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Jean says his aim was to clarify the role of Canadian agencies in screening guest lists and “no-fly” lists, and to clarify that CSIS, the RCMP and the High Commission in India had not in fact received or ignored warnings about Atwal. He said Canadian authorities no longer viewed Atwal as a security risk, and “presumably” the Indian government took the same view, having removed Atwal from its blacklist in 2017. Jean says he told reporters Atwal’s invitation to the second reception was rescinded not because he was a risk but because it was too “controversial.”

Jean said the High Commission did receive a tip from a Surrey-based Punjabi outlet that Atwal’s presence could be potentially embarrassing, but the tip arrived hours after Atwal had already shown up at the film industry reception in Mumbai attended by Trudeau, his wife and several government ministers.

Jean said he gave separate background telephone briefings to the Toronto Star and National Post reporters based in Ottawa, which he said accurately reported his comments. He briefed other reporters based in Ottawa as well, and the next morning briefed via teleconference Canadian journalists travelling with the prime minister in India.

Atwal reportedly served five years of a 20-year prison sentence after being convicted of attempting to kill Indian cabinet minister Malkiat Singh Sidhu during his visit to Vancouver Island in 1986. In a news conference on March 8, Atwal apologized for the embarrassment he caused the prime minister and said he has renounced terrorism.

The Atwal affair created a political uproar at a time when Trudeau’s trip was already dogged by criticism that it was unfocused, too much of a family vacation, and that he was being snubbed by the Indian government.

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