The secretive government committee tasked with studying national security and intelligence issues won’t be able to publish its highly-anticipated report assessing the threat of foreign interference and espionage in Canada made public before this fall’s federal vote.

Speaking to the House committee on national security this afternoon, chair of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) David McGuinty said work was still ongoing on the report.

McGuinty, a Liberal MP, told members that his cross-party committee faced challenges with a tight timeline ahead of Parliament’s summer recess.

“We are working as fast as we can,” McGuinty said today, in French. “We are putting in many extra hours, we are really trying very hard to complete the report. Three or four reviews are involved.”

“The problem is legislation provides for tabling reports 30 days after any redacting is carried out.”

He told reporters in April, when his committee’s first annual report was released, that it was his goal to have it completed before the federal election.

McGuinty has said the study wouldn’t focus on elections specifically but rather on the breadth and scope of overall threats of foreign interference to Canada’s institutions, as well as its primary actors. A pre-election release of the report would be able to highlight the growing cyber security issue with greater timeliness.

NSICOP had faced a May 3 deadline to complete its report in order for it to be mandatory that a version of the review is tabled in Parliament and made public before the election.

The Prime Minister’s Office, Department of Justice or the government’s security agencies are provided 30 sitting days to redact any sensitive information from the report before an unclassified version is tabled in Parliament.

At the very least, the report can be provided to the prime minister in the next few months.

Concerns over the threat of foreign interference in Canadian elections and its institutions have grown since the 2016 United States presidential election was targeted by Russian agents.

The probe into that election by former FBI director Robert Mueller concluded in March, with the subsequent report finding that Russia had interfered in “sweeping and systematic fashion.”

Last month’s annual report from NSICOP had also identified Russia, China and other countries running foreign influence campaigns in Canada. The committee’s original announcement on its first annual report also stated that Canada “is vulnerable to foreign actors seeking to illegitimately influence or interfere in our political and economic processes.”

The Communications Security Establishment, the agency responsible for defending Canadians from online threats, also expects Canadian voters to encounter some degree of foreign cyber interference in the upcoming election.

Throughout today’s House committee meeting, McGuinty said NSICOP was still learning about how to work within its provided scope and navigating the redactions process with government organizations.

The committee, created in 2017, is made up of parliamentarians from all parties and members are required to have the highest level of security clearance.

It is entitled to any information from Canada’s various security organizations that are relevant to its reviews, except for that which is covered by cabinet confidences, related to protecting witnesses or is connected to ongoing criminal investigations. NSICOP reports directly to the prime minister, who receives its classified reviews first.

Asked by NDP public safety critic Matthew Dube whether the timeline for review is an issue, McGuinty said it was something to consider looking at when the NSICOP’s constituting act is reviewed in 2022.

“There might be, when we come to review our constituting act …. to review that timeline and change it,” he said.