Trudeau Names Privy Council Deputy Clerk as National Security Adviser, Replacing Retiring Jody Thomas

Justice Department Deputy Minister Nathalie Drouin prepares to appear before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights regarding the SNC Lavalin affair, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on March 6, 2019. (The Canadian Press/Justin Tang)

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced that Nathalie Drouin will become his next National Security and Intelligence Adviser (NSIA).

Current NSIA Jody Thomas is retiring and Ms. Drouin will take over the role on Jan. 27, the Prime Minster’s Office (PMO) indicated in a Jan. 12 statement announcing multiple changes to the senior ranks of the public service.

Ms. Drouin currently serves as deputy clerk of the Privy Council, the prime minister’s department, and will remain in that role. Ms. Drouin has diplomas in law and business administration, and she has spent most of her public service career in legal affairs.

Before joining the Privy Council Office, she served as deputy minister of justice and deputy attorney general from 2017 to 2021.

According to a biography provided by the PMO, Ms. Drouin does not appear to have any previous experience in either security or intelligence.

Ms. Drouin replaces Ms. Thomas, who had taken the role in early 2022 after several officials had served as NSIA in an interim capacity.

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Prior to Ms. Thomas’s arrival in the role, officials serving as NSIA had missed or ignored warnings about the Chinese regime targeting MPs.

Ms. Thomas started her functions on Jan. 11, 2022, a few days before the Freedom Convoy descended on Ottawa to protest vaccine mandates and other COVID-19 restrictions. The government invoked the Emergencies Act to clear the protest.

As a result, a public inquiry was held as required by law, and both Ms. Thomas and Ms. Drouin testified in the hearings phase.

The two officials, working out of the same department, had defended the government’s invocation of the act, albeit citing different and seemingly contradictory arguments.

Ms. Thomas said that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Act, used to define threats in the Emergencies Act, was too narrow and that a broader definition of national security should be used to declare a public order emergency.

Meanwhile, Ms. Drouin said the emergency had been declared on the grounds of section 2c of the CSIS Act, which refers to threats or the use of acts of serious violence for ideological reasons. CSIS itself had determined that the cross-country protests had not fallen within that definition.

With another public inquiry ongoing, this time on the matter of foreign interference, Ms. Drouin is likely to be involved again and this time in a more prominent role.

The PMO announced another notable change in the security apparatus on Jan. 12, saying Chief of the Defence Staff General Wayne Eyre will retire this summer.