The Canadian government is making its final preparations to bring the last of our combat troops home from Afghanistan in July. Canadians are beginning to reflect on the decade Canada has spent at war and consider what Canada’s future holds in terms of foreign policy and the role of the Canadian Forces. They should not ignore the consequences Canada’s participation in the war has had beyond the military. Not only did the war change the priorities of the Canadian forces, but also those of Canada’s primary intelligence agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
Prior to the September 11th attacks and the subsequent war in Afghanistan, CSIS carried out few operations abroad. Its enabling legislation limited its international mandate to gathering intelligence about specific threats to Canada, rather than emerging or potential threats. Since 2001, however, the agency’s foreign operations have been significantly expanded. CSIS officers have been especially active in Afghanistan, where they allegedly participated in the interrogation of potential insurgents detained by Canadian troops before they were handed over to Afghan authorities. They have also interrogated Canadians suspected of ties to terrorist organizations throughout the region, including Abousfian Abdelrazik, who was detained and questioned at Canada’s embassy in Sudan.
The expansion of CSIS’ international activities has taken place largely without public debate. This is despite the fact that the question of whether Canada should have a foreign intelligence agency has been periodically discussed since the end of the Second World War, when Canadian officials chose not to follow the American and British model of having a civilian foreign intelligence agency. The incoming Harper government had suggested in 2006 that it would create such an agency, but quickly abandoned the idea when intelligence officials suggested that doing so would be costly and difficult. As a result, the issue has remained largely under the radar of opposition politicians, except in connection to specific cases like Abeldrazik’s.
Canada has increasingly little choice about whether it should gather foreign intelligence. Foreign threats to Canada’s safety are mounting, especially as terrorist groups abroad ally themselves with “homegrown” groups in Canada. Intelligence from friendly countries, such as Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States is plentiful, but limited in that it is not Canada-specific and can suffer from substantial flaws. Instead, the choice that Canadians face is about how Canada will fulfill its foreign intelligence needs. This question is as central to defining Canada’s position in the world after the war in Afghanistan as is the future of the military.
The Harper government’s approach to this question is a hodgepodge of ideas. While CSIS is expanding its own operations abroad (and shows no intention of halting the expansion after Canadian troops leave Afghanistan), it is also cultivating new intelligence-sharing relationships beyond Canada’s traditional allies. The publication of a photo of CSIS director Richard Fadden meeting with the King of Saudi Arabia and the head of his intelligence agency last month underscores the government’s commitment to this approach. Unfortunately, it provides too little assurance about the nature and constraints of CSIS’s operations abroad.
Specifically, it provides no assurances about standards of treatment for Canadians (who are theoretically entitled to consular assistance, but whom the government has hinted might be treated differently if they are suspected terrorists) and non-Canadians abroad. Nor does it provide for any limits on the kinds of intelligence that CSIS might obtain from and share with foreign intelligence agencies, especially those that are known to use torture as an interrogation technique. It also does not clearly define the relationship between CSIS and other parts of the Canadian government, especially the Canadian Forces.
If and when this question is raised for public debate, some will propose revisiting the original proposal of the Harper Government for creating a civilian foreign intelligence agency. Such an agency, modeled on the equivalent Australian and British agencies, is the best solution to the problem because the parameters of its operations and their oversight could be clearly defined in legislation (as are CSIS’s for domestic matters). However, it would be costly to create such an agency and it could not be done quickly. The current federal political climate is likely too unstable for such a proposal to move forward, unless an early consensus could be reached by the Conservatives and the Liberals.
The government should nevertheless work toward creating a foreign intelligence agency. However, in the meantime, it should move quickly to rein in CSIS and ensure that appropriate controls exist for its foreign intelligence operations. It should achieve this by rewriting the sections of the CSIS Act which deal with foreign activities to make them more closely reflect CSIS’s current operations and impose clearer constraints on them. It should also improve the investigative capacity of CSIS’s external oversight body and modify its mandate to ensure that it can effectively review CSIS’ operations overseas.
