The validity of the assessment aside, I wonder about where this report fits into overall American "intelligence operations" aimed at Canada. Some of the things that I noticed that may colour the depth of analysis provided:
- Requested by a relatively junior officer (a major) in the J5 (strategy and plans) section of the Joint Staff and judging by the lack of a distribution list (which is usually found on most of the released CIA documents) no distribution other than to Major McHugh.
- Analysis prepared by EURA/WE/BBC (Office of European Analysis, Western European Division, BBC?, perhaps the section that deals with Britain, Canada and somebody else who begins with "B" - other CIA reports about the UK originate from BBC).
- Any questions about the analysis were to be addressed to "John McLaughlin"* whose intelligence credentials included: (according to Wikipedia)
It was a very spot on analysis of the Canadian political situation as it related to defence spending at the time but other than a couple of comments attributing information to "a noted Canadian historian" (describing Trudeau as malevolent) and "senior officials in External Affairs and DND", there was nothing new that a well informed person of the time could have easily gathered by reading the newspaper every day. Well, maybe mentioning former minister Robert Coates as a defence hardliner (or even relevant) came as a surprise to someone who remembers the time.
* As an intelligence product, it is good, and quality wise seems to be consistent with Mr. McLaughlin's other analyses:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/07/03/mclaughlin_as_a_former_kgb_officer_trump_is_an_open_book_for_putin.html
President Trump "Is An Intelligence Recruiter's Dream," "Totally Transparent"{/quote]
I would be particularly interested in what appears to be one or two sentences of redacted info in the paragraph speaking about the late PMPET.