The question of whether Canada needs a foreign intelligence service is not a new one. It’s been bandied about almost as long as Canada has had a domestic intelligence service. Created by an Act of Parliament in 1984, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) was mandated only to include the collection of data and information which posed a domestic threat to Canada. In other words, while CSIS was to monitor threats to Canada, including those from abroad, it was to do so domestically, or, on an “in-coming” basis of intel. Unlike the American CIA or the British MI6, CSIS’s purview wasn’t to spy on other nations for military or industrial secrets, or carry out missions abroad à la fictional characters like James Bond.
However, Canada is regularly spied on for just such reasons. Former CSIS director Richard Fadden made waves when, during a sit-down interview with the CBC’s Peter Mansbridge, he tacitly nodded towards reports that there were over 1000 Chinese (CCP) spies in Canada. Yet that was 2010. Fast forward fourteen years, and not only does industrial and academic espionage still abound, but the Government of Canada has been embroiled in its handling of national security information on foreign interference in the 2021 and 2019 federal elections. Traditional boots-on-the-ground espionage has been supplemented and advanced in the digital era; foreign actors misinform, disinform, steal intel, sow social discord through the echo chambers of social media, and attempt to directly compromise Members of Parliament. Moreover, Canada’s civilian diasporas have come under target, especially via India and China. Last summer, for instance, Sikh-Canadian activist, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, was killed on Canadian soil, with the Prime Minister pointing towards the upper echelons of the Indian government for culpability. Chinese “police stations” have popped up in Canada as well, acting as conduits of pressure on Chinese-Canadians via threats to their family members still residing in China.
Of course, these are still domestic threats to Canada; threats that currently remain under the purview of CSIS. What CSIS doesn’t do (under that very purview) is carry out counter-espionage or counter-terrorism activities; it merely passes on what information it collects to the government and to the RCMP. That it did successfully in 2006 in the case of the infamous “Toronto 18,” in which, on the basis of its intelligence information, the RCMP was able to thwart an attempt by eighteen young jihadists to buy three metric tonnes (6600 lbs) of ammonium nitrate to execute large-scale terror events in downtown Toronto and Ottawa. In any case, it is entirely up to the government and/or the RCMP to decide what to do with the information CSIS provides. This is why any allegation of the government neglecting that information (as in the recent foreign interference scandal) can be so disconcerting.
While there have been some domestic intelligence successes, there are those who feel Canada could be doing more if it was proactively collecting foreign intelligence. One reason is sheerly for Canada’s own autonomy. Indeed, at present, Canada is heavily reliant on receiving shared intelligence from its Five Eyes alliance with the USA, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand (all other members having a foreign service). Thus, it could be perceived as merely a net “taker” of intel, rather than an active participant or supplier. This perspective may already be manifesting in “snubs” to certain joint ventures amongst allies, such as Canada’s omission from the AUKUS discussions. Moreover, the sense of entitlement to security and intel that Canada has long-enjoyed (being bedfellows with the USA) shouldn’t be taken for granted; conventions and agreements can be broken. For instance, former President Trump made no bones about his disdain for NATO and multilateralism in general. While his threats to pull out of the organization were chalked up to a grievance over the imbalance in funding, it’s a reminder that what’s given can be taken away, and any alliance is only as strong as its loadstone. The USA can flex its autonomy and power tomorrow, but Canada certainly cannot. A foreign intelligence service might go a long way, not only in bolstering Canada’s reputation as a global (and team) player in intelligence, but in allowing Canada to pursue its own independent interests and shoring up any gaps in its intelligence field, so it doesn’t need to be quite as reliant on others.
Yet, this is somewhat abstract. Perhaps the question to ask first is: What exactly is Canada currently not getting, intelligence-wise? CSIS and the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) are already engaged in international signals monitoring, and it’s an open secret that CSIS has had some agents abroad on occasion to assist (e.g. in Afghanistan). At the time of Fadden’s interview with Mansbridge in 2010, he suggested that Canada was “by and large getting what it needed.” So what, if anything, is slipping through the cracks? Moreover, where would a designated foreign service be drawn from, and what would the cost be? Would it be a department within CSIS, or its own standalone agency? How might Canada’s other international relations (beyond its closest allies) feel about Canada spying on them? How would Canadians themselves feel about their country taking on a more hawkish position (as opposed to its “good guy”/peacekeeper self-perception)? And finally, what of civil liberties and departmental oversight?
Although these concerns have been discussed by academics and former security experts for decades, on Parliament Hill they’ve taken the form of a veritable political football, being punted further and further downfield. In a recent interview on whether Canada should move forward (or not) with a foreign service, former National Security & Intelligence Advisor (NSIA), Vincent Rigby, said it was high time for the government to do a proper assessment on “what the foreign intelligence needs are, what we’re doing right now in Canada, and then what the gap is,” as ultimately, it will be the government that has to create the service and answer to the concerns of Canadians. Thus, before a decision on a foreign service can even be made, the government has to do the heavy lifting on assessing its value. Indeed, when it comes to intelligence, one doesn’t want to rush to judgment before all the facts are in.
Photo: Spy (2020) by Lenzatic via Pixabay Content License
Disclaimer: Any views or opinions expressed in articles are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the NATO Association of Canada.
