The secret sessions follow a spate of terrorist attacks in England that underscore the international alliance's concerns about the threat of homegrown extremism.
The federal government broke its own privacy rules this spring when it expanded the Five Eyes intelligence network to automatically share 1.2 million confidential Canadian files a year.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said it was "irresponsible" of a journalist from the web outlet IPolitics to ask about human rights and the jailing of a Canadian, Kevin Garratt.