“In the few minutes between the two attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Centre, the Clerk informed the Prime Minister. The Coordinator, Security and Intelligence, initiated contacts with relevant departments and agencies. A major coordination effort has been ongoing ever since.”
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Today’s post draws from a new exhibit up now at Canada Declassified. Documents include the Cabinet Minutes from September 18, 2001 and September 25, 2001, as well as the slide decks, notes, speaking notes and briefing material for the meetings.
Day of Mourning, and House Motion
There was no full meeting of Cabinet until September 18. On September 13, the Prime Minister met with a small group of ministers to discuss the government’s response.
I requested records from this September 13 meeting and received documents related to the planning of a “Commemorative Ceremony Honouring the Memory of the Victims of the September 11, 2001 Tragedy in the U.S.A.” This ceremony was held on September 14.
The released documents also include an e-mail that explains the considerations behind the wording of a motion in the House. It was a short motion, but one crafted to ensure unanimity and to hit on key words the Prime Minister thought important.
September 18, 2001 - Cabinet Briefing Book and Meeting
Ahead of a Cabinet meeting, the Prime Minister received a “Cabinet Briefing Book” which contained an agenda, a “scenario" for the meeting, and relevant documents, including copies of previous memoranda that had been sent to the PM.
For instance, one of the attachments to the September 18 briefing book was a September 13, 2001 “National Situation Report No. 001” (note the report number!) which provided a list of the federal, provincial, and private sector responses to the attacks.
The briefing book for this meeting was quite robust, and I can’t fit it all in this newsletter. Please do check out the other documents at Canada Declassified.
The “scenario” document served as a sort of backgrounder and script for the Prime Minister. (This does not mean that the Prime Minister read his suggested talking points; indeed the minutes suggest he did not cover all of the points made in the “scenario.”)
The script for the Prime Minister’s remarks described his discussion with President George W. Bush:
Richard Fadden, then the Deputy Clerk, Counsel and Security and Intelligence Coordinator in the Privy Council Office, made a presentation to Cabinet. Ministers received Fadden’s slide deck and speaking notes, with the proviso that they were “Ministers’ Eyes Only, not to be taken from the room.” (This is the document I quoted at the top.)
The Prime Minister then asked Ministers to provide updates.
Minister of National Defence Art Eggleton’s speaking notes are four pages long. They provide a remarkably detailed account of the Department’s activities, but also the fundamental challenges and choices posed by the attacks. I provide some excerpts below, but the full speaking notes, and those from other Ministers, are worth reading in full.
A Canadian Link?
One weeks after the attacks, there remained important questions. Was there a Canadian link to 9/11?
Another document in the package indicates that the FBI supplied names to CSIS and the RCMP, and both organizations followed up with interviews and database checks in Canada. By the date of the meeting, CSIS had a number of active investigations underway, interviewing people across the country. But none of the American or Canadian investigations “has established any evidence of a Canadian connection to the attack of September 11.”
The Cabinet Minutes themselves have also been released, although with some unfortunate sanitization. (For instance, Eggleton’s remarks in Cabinet have been retained, while his far lengthier speaking notes were released almost in full.)
The Prime Minister’s description of his conversation with President Bush touches on a theme that runs throughout these documents: Concern about the extent and prudence of the upcoming, but still as yet unknown, American response.
September 25th - Cabinet Briefing Book and Minutes
The Briefing Book and Cabinet Minutes for the September 25, 2001 meeting follow the same pattern as above, with a background briefing book packed with speaking notes and reference documents.
On the 25th, Clerk of the Privy Council Mel Cappe gave a presentation to Cabinet. (The final presentation was titled “Advancing Public Safety,” while the draft was titled “September 11: Considerations for a Government Approach.”)
This is an interesting and important set of slides and notes. Their purpose was to examine “our options for further action” and outline “some principles that could guide the government’s approach over the medium- and longer-terms.” (Comments about balancing US-Canada bilateral relations with Canada’s preference for multilateral international action were sanitized in the final presentation but were released in the draft. This is another theme in Canadian policymaking in the years after 9/11.)
As the scenario document for the September 25th meeting makes clear, the Prime Minister was keen to ensure that the government’s priorities were not subsumed by the coming war on terror.
A special note: If you know of anyone who might find these documents interesting or useful, please share this post using the link below. In the past, Twitter was the main source of new readers to my newsletter. But because Twitter is in a spat with Substack, Twitter throttles tweets with Substack links. So please help spread the word!
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I was the original requester for all of the background and briefing book material (608 pages). But I was not the original requester for the minutes themselves (32 pages). So thanks very much to whoever requested the minutes, and thanks, too, to the colleague who sent them on to me. It was the references in the minutes to the Deputy Clerk and the Clerk’s presentations that led me to request the background information.