Reviewing Canada's 2021 Public Intelligence Report
A review, with some personal thoughts
What is CSIS?
When thinking about intelligence agencies that have committed atrocities, war crimes, and violence, our minds think instinctually of agencies like the CIA, the KGB, the M16, Saudi Intelligence, and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
Each intelligence agency has been at the helm of death and destruction somewhere in the world. The CIA’s terrorism in Cuba, the KGB sought to expand within and outside the Soviet Union, the M16’s compliance with CIA operations, including extraordinary rendition, Saudi connections to 9/11, and Pakistan’s support of the Taliban’s insurgency in Afghanistan for the Taliban since the 90s.
Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean that Canadian intelligence gets off the hook. The CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) has had its fair share of involvement with the CIA with criminal behaviour, which is criticized by human rights organizations, news media, and judicial courts.
The purpose of this paper is to serve as a personal review and analysis of CSIS’ 2021 public report. Unfortunately, the existence of CSIS is often overlooked, even within Canada. Canadians aren’t aware of CSIS’ mandate or operations. Some Canadians aren’t even aware of its existence! Heck, they're likely far more aware of the CIA than they are of CSIS. Here’s a thought, if you were to ask the average Canadian to name our intelligence agency, they probably wouldn’t be able to answer you. What gives? Why is CSIS so unknown within and outside Canada?
Some would say that CSIS’s secrecy is largely due to its lack of influence and scale at both global and national levels. Moreover, any insider information through leaks likely doesn’t give leakers much to gain from leaking documents or exposing government secrets because there isn’t much to gain from it. Thus, the secrecy of CSIS and its operations is done well accidentally.
That isn’t to say that the policies and procedures within CSIS are useless. It’s simply a combination of internal and external factors that lead to no such Canadian whistleblower equivalent to Chelsea Manning or leaks equal to the Iraq war logs. Although part of the lack of leaks and coverage from the media is likely a good thing, it may be a sign of the lack of overall influence that CSIS has in Canadian and global life.
Knowing this, I am of the opinion that the federal government has no obligation to increase the influence of CSIS domestically or internationally outside of the preview of its mandate as defined within the Canada Security Intelligence Act. That is:
“To investigate activities suspected of constituting threats to the security of Canada and to report on these to the Government of Canada… [and to] take measures to reduce threats to the security of Canada in accordance with well-defined legal requirements and Ministerial Direction.” (CSIS)
This isn’t a direct reference to the Act, instead, this definition serves better for the average layperson to understand what the role of CSIS is. Furthermore, abiding by this definition is as important for critics within the intelligence community to remind themselves and laypersons to be aware of as well. Therefore, any such deviation from such a statement or mandate as defined by the Act should be scrutinized heavily with the ultimate goal of protecting Canadians and upholding the freedoms and rights ordained by the Charter.
I digress. Frankly, Canadian intelligence and the Canadian military complex, by and large, are not well-resourced compared to other intelligence agencies. And for good reason, CSIS does not operate as a propaganda machine within Canada, nor do they control or have influence in the political sphere in Canada.
On the other hand, as with the ISI, the ISI and the Pakistani military complex have successfully infiltrated and propagandized their population to view the military as a unilateral force above any political party within the country. Often, there is much agreement on the pride, greatness, and necessity of the Pakistani military among citizens. No such propaganda and influence exist in Canada from CSIS. We must look towards the dangers of other countries and recognize the great risk of giving overt powers and influential ability to militaries and intelligence agencies.
Critics who are aware of foreign governments in which military activities are much greater than their mandates (due to corruption or political instability) rightfully fear the influence of such government agencies that potentially can affect Canadians and Canadian life negatively.
An Introduction to the CSIS 2021 Public Report
Although there isn’t much to go off of this report. The simple fact that CSIS releases this report to the public as a way to communicate their internal developments means the public really only has this document available for examination (outside of the NSIRA reports). Canadian intelligence documents are rarely declassified and rarely leaked. Thus, it is imperative that the public reads and reviews whatever reports CSIS is able to provide.
The report starts off with a significant national threat in which the director, David Vigneault, provides his remarks regarding the impact of Covid-19. He states:
“In 2021 and today, we continue to see the spread of misinformation and disinformation propagated by both state and non-state actors. This type of information manipulation can have serious consequences – eroding trust in our democratic institutions, polarizing public opinion, and amplifying conflicting narratives and messaging”
Interestingly, Vigneault specifically mentions the role of “state and non-state actors” in spreading misinformation. Specifically, the notion that state actors are propagators of misinformation tells the public that legislators/politicians are potential sources of misinformation just as non-state actors are.
It isn’t a surprise when we can simply point to the US to see the complete psychosis of the Republican party in being the ultimate misinformation juggernaut in North America. In 2021, Republicans have outright rejected political issues like climate change, vaccinations, and Covid-19.
They’ve successfully destroyed the sanctity of American democratic institutions through extreme and persistent claims of voter fraud and electoral ‘stealing’. Enraged republican supporters fueled by Trump’s anti-democratic rhetoric of the ‘‘stolen election’ and ‘electoral fraud’ led to the January 6th insurrection.
Non-state actors like major political commentators spreading hateful anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and white supremacist dog whistling like Tucker Carson, Ben Shapiro, Steven Crowder, Charlie Kirk, and others have led to the successful propagation of the Republican base.
In Canada, we watch in horror to whatever bombshell the US goes through next. And although Canada is largely far and away from many of the things that Republicans have successfully been able to propagandize in their population. The risk is very real and true here as well, the Freedom Convoy demonstrators in Ottawa showcased the same type of hate, extremism, and anti-democratic rhetoric as the insurrectionists of January 6th.
I’m sure CSIS has a very good understanding of how far misinformation and conspiracy theories can ruin a country’s political landscape (Canada’s got the front seat to it). Therefore, it is CSIS’ responsibility to make sure that legislators are aware of the real risks of spreading rampant misinformation among the citizens they represent. It is also important for CSIS to continuously monitor, assess, and mitigate the spread of misinformation within Canada.
Foreign Interference
The CSIS report mentions foreign interference and espionage. CSIS defines foreign-influenced activities to be “detrimental to the interests of Canada and are clandestine or deceptive, or involve a threat to any person”. In addition, CSIS states that foreign interference is done to further the interest of another state to the “detriment” of Canada. I would assume that countries like China, Russia, India, and Pakistan are among the ‘risk’ countries that interfere in Canada.
The section goes on to further state that foreign interferences are manifested in the following locations: “private sector organizations, civil society groups, and Canadian communities”. Although I’m sure this is true to an extent. The organizations that are at the highest likelihood of being hosts of foreign interference are likely the organizations that have the closest diplomatic connections to those foreign adversaries.
From my observations, it seems to be the case that several professional foreigners that come from “risky” countries may have ulterior motives behind their Canadian postings. I am personally aware of many government professionals who have worked for Pakistani federal agencies only to be transferred to Canada as part of their “work”. These professionals will often work in Pakistani consulates, foreign relational organizations, embassies, or political organizations representing the parties of their home countries. These professionals stay in Canada for a long period of time, anywhere from a couple of years to a decade, and will eventually go back to Pakistan only to serve in their own government agencies.
The extent to which this is clandestine information gathering I cannot say, for there is no way to prove whether or not these individuals came here for such reasons. But it is an ongoing problem that I am sure CSIS has not overlooked but should pay more attention to.
Democratic Confidence
Regarding Election Security in 2021, CSIS has taken steps to:
“inform officials engaged in delivering a free and fair election to Canadians on the threats associated with foreign interference, as well as from IMVE actors who viewed the election as an opportunity to discourage Canadians from democratic participation or to plan acts of violence.
Obviously, the risk of undermining Canadian democratic institutions increases as other countries follow down the same path. Canada is in a unique position to monitor and mitigate foreign interventionists who are interested in reducing democratic confidence.
And CSIS recognizes such a threat, a new report published by former national security advisors has stated that “The United States is and will remain our closest ally, but it could also become a source of threat and instability”. The report also cites Fox News and other conservative media outlets and commentators as a source of “anti-democratic forces”.
As a response, there are 4 policy measures CSIS must take.
(1) CSIS must regularly brief legislators, ministers, and any state actors about the risk of hosting and/or promoting anti-democratic rhetoric in the country for personal gain.
(2) There must also be full investigations on sources of misinformation and steps taken to mitigate such sources (i.e. shadowbanning, warnings, regulatory oversight).
(3) There must be measures to counter such anti-democratic forces by investing in informatics, advertisements, and education to make Canadians fully confident in our democratic processes.
(4) Active countermeasures against anti-democratic forces by “hostile agents” and “proxies” by identifying and mitigating them.
The risk of anti-democratic rhetoric eroding confidence in democratic institutions is still a plausible risk in Canada. And we’ve already seen the manifestation of anti-democratic forces through the freedom convoy. It is up to CSIS to make sure that such anti-democratic threats are mitigated as much as possible.
Cyber Threats
Although cyber threats seem to be the least obvious type of foreign interference in the public eye. Nevertheless, cyber threats remain to be one of the most effective ways to deter, intimidate, influence, and sabotage foreign economies, political systems, and information.
The biggest risk of cyber threats is likely to come from China, the potential of information gathering on users from social media sites like TikTok has raised alarm among many analysts and critics.
To put into scope the risk of Chinese “data harvesting”. Tiktok currently boasts 1.2 billion users as of December 2021. The user count will increase to 1.8 billion by the end of 2022. The sheer amount of user data that China has potential access to either through TikTok or other media applications is not to be underestimated. Other companies that have a significant presence in Canada and other western allies include Tencent, Alibaba, Hoyoverse, Xiaomi, and Huawei.
What is the risk exactly?
The US Federal Communication Commission has gone as far as to write letters to Apple and Google to remove TikTok from Apple and Google app stores under the reasoning that “the company – or more precisely its Chinese parent ByteDance – can’t be trusted with US users’ data”.
The commission points to the fact that ByteDance (the parent company of TikTok) is “an organization that is beholden to the Communist Party of China and required by the Chinese law to comply with the PCR’s [(People’s Republic of China)] surveillance demands”.
Furthermore, former employees of TikTok have claimed that ByteDance has “tight control” over TikTok and has “access to everything” in terms of user data and software. Scarily, these former employees claim that Beijing engineers have access to all user data on TikTok and are heavily involved in the decision-making process of product development.
Applying the risk of Chinese propaganda seeping into our social media is a real possibility and risk to our institutions. As we’ve seen with Covid-related conspiracy theories in the US, it only takes an algorithm and enough social media presence to propagandize such conspiracy theories and harmful beliefs to the mainstream population.
In addition, China’s potential clash against democratic institutions makes logical sense as well, in that eroding democratic confidence in western democracies will serve as fuel to propagandize their own population by pointing to the ineffectiveness of democracies due to the lack of democratic confidence among citizens.
One more major point that I want to highlight in the public report that intrigued my interest is the following:
“Opensource reporting suggests that multiple authoritarian regimes have used such tools [cyber threats] to target lawyers, journalists, politicians, and human rights defenders”.
To expand on this point, foreign countries with a robust military and intelligence capabilities will regularly threaten individuals who write or talk against the said government or military.
Anecdotally, journalists and human rights defenders are among the most common targets foreign adversaries threaten. Especially if said journalist or human rights defender is a citizen of the foreign country, the foreign country may possibly persecute the individual on the basis of their own laws. From my observations, countries partaking in such behaviour include Russia, Pakistan, and China (and more).
General cyber attacks connected to Russia and China are discussed at length in the CSIS public report through concrete examples. I implore the reader to refer to page 22 of the CSIS public report for the cyber risks involved in this specific area.
Counter-Proliferation
I wasn’t initially going to make a section on proliferation but in light of recent news regarding former President Donald Trump’s possession of nuclear documents. The risk of state actors exposing top-secret nuclear documents is now a real risk that has been exposed on the global stage.
According to the Washington Post, the raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home was done specifically for “...information…located at the Mar-a-Lago Club and whether it could fall into the wrong hands”. With new reporting suggesting that top secret nuclear documents were at stake, it is entirely possible that Donald Trump either had or sought to expose this information to foreign adversaries for personal monetary gain.
As to what kinds of nuclear documents Trump possessed, there are 4 broad possibilities according to the Wired:
“(1) nuclear weapon science and design; (2) other countries’ nuclear plans, including of allied nations (UK, France) and adversaries (Russia, China, North Korea, Iran); (3) details on the United States’ own nuclear weapons and deployments; and (4) details on US nuclear command & control procedures, known in Pentagon parlance as NC2”.
It would be no wonder that the FBI had conducted such a raid on Trump’s home. The leakage of these documents could cause serious damage to American/Western national security and could further permanently alter the balance of nuclear power in the world. And as the US “furiously” rewrites their nuclear deterrence plans in the new multi-party nuclear world, internal exposure of top secret nuclear documents will be another factor to consider.
Although Canada does not have any nuclear weapons. It is now apparent that foreign exposure of broad nuclear documents that Canada may have needs to be protected against state and non-state actors at all times. In addition, Canada needs to initiate a new nuclear deterrence plan as a response to the increasing number of nuclear weapons holders like Iran, Pakistan, India, Israel, and China.
Moreover, with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the threat of using small-scale nuclear warheads by Russia to take key targetted regions of Ukraine is a possibility that has been entertained by Putin. Therefore, Canada needs to be at the forefront with the US and its allies to develop a new nuclear deterrence policy to address the current risks of a multi-party nuclear world.
Violent Extremism
The CSIS report cites two major events in 2021 that meet the definition of ideologically motivated violence.
“(1) Most recently, in June 2021, an attack in London, Ontario killed four individuals and injured one. (2) In October 2021, a former Canadian Armed Forces reservist was sentenced to nine years in a US prison for plotting serious violence with members of The Base, a neo-Nazi group that is a listed terrorist entity in Canada.”
Furthermore, CSIS states that ideologically motivated extremism has caused more violence than any other type of extremism. Moreover, CSIS observes an “increase in violent threats to elected officials and government representatives during the past two years”. Some of these include threats to members of parliament like Cabinet Ministers and Canada’s Prime Minister.
Although CSIS is committed to working with government officials to mitigate the risks to parliamentarians. CSIS and government officials must address the root of the cause, factors like the increasingly polarizing political landscape and growing dissatisfaction with the status quo enable individuals to muster their frustrations against a specific enemy. Thus, CSIS has a role in directly mitigating violent extremism; and governments have a responsibility to address the frustrations increasingly faced by Canadians such as the cost of living, healthcare, jobs, climate change, and mental health.
Regarding religiously motivated violent extremism, CSIS states these activities are ongoing and that the primary threat of RMVE in Canada comes from Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) “inspired lone actors”. Some of these actors are prevalent in causing violence in a small targetted fashion against “soft targets”. This essentially means that much of RMVE is similar to conventional crimes but in a religiously-motivated manner.
Disappointingly, CSIS makes no mention of RMVE mobilization or organizing. They do not mention religious gatherings as a source of potential aggravation and propagation of religiously sourced hate. Although without sufficient evidence that such organizing is taking place, the optics of such claims in a public report can potentially be damaging to religious gatherings and may perhaps fuel the fire for polarization between government institutions and freedom of religion. Nevertheless, CSIS must take steps to ensure safety in Canada and its communities by mitigating religious mobilization motivated by hate and/or religious nationalism.
I say such mitigation efforts are necessary because some Canadian religious organizers can perpetuate the same rhetoric that may be seen in countries with extremist religious viewpoints. Namely, the propagation of religious collectivism among people in Canada. Religious organizers in Canada will define an identity that is not based on ethnicity, race, or creed but rather based on the religion of the person.
This is especially the case among recent immigrants who often intermingle and settle in communities that are religiously, nationally, or culturally similar to them. Organizers will recognize this fact and will determine the most efficient method of organizing in these communities as being the commonality of religion among them.
The only real risk to Canada in this regard is the potential of religious nationalism arising in this country. But the likelihood of such a movement is quite low due to the prevalence of secularism and cultural assimilation over generations. The only reason why I point to such a possibility is due to the rise of Christian nationalism in the United States, in which Christian religious beliefs are increasingly becoming intertwined with American life and politics.
Congressional representatives like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert are the biggest proponents of Christian nationalism. They’ve gone as far as declaring “I’m a Christian, and I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists” and “The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church”. Some have even poised Christian nationalism as the “single biggest threat” to religious freedom in the US.
The lesson here is that nationalism in any form, especially the religious kind, can be a real threat to Canada and its institutions. Precautions against such potentiality must be taken as seriously as anything else. CSIS must not be complacent in assuming that ‘all is well’ or ‘it couldn’t happen here’, CSIS must follow up on measures to monitor, assess, and mitigate religious nationalism through indirect precautions against religious collectivism.
Security Screening
CSIS states that they serve as the “first line of defence against violent extremism, espionage, and other threats to national security”. CSIS regularly partakes in screening immigration and citizenship as part of their ICS mandate (immigration and citizens screening). The report states that:
“The CSIS ICS program conducts investigations and provides security advice to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) regarding persons who might represent a threat to national security who are seeking entry to or status in Canada. “
According to this report, CSIS has received nearly 250,000 requests for citizenship screening presumably from Canada’s migration agency. For context, Canada had granted nearly 136,000 citizenships in 2021. Thus, the 250,000 number likely includes screening procedures from 2021 and screening requirements for future grants to citizenship in 2022 and onwards.
In response to the 40,000 Afghan refugees that Canada wants to settle, the report states that “CSIS’s security screening and security advice will remain critical”. Canada already settles refugees at a high level, so establishing security among refugees (especially refugees in terror-ridden countries) is important to ensure safety in Canada.
CSIS should continue to evaluate such screening requests for migrants and government officials to mitigate any potential threat in Canada. In addition, the speed at which these screening measures are taken must be increased in order to meet the current stringent economic demands of Canada. Thus, there must be an increase in personnel within CSIS to make sure security screening does not factor into labour shortage bottlenecks in Canada.
More importantly, security screening must not get in the way of delaying migrants from building a new life in Canada and becoming productive members of Canadian life.
Conclusions
Overall, the CSIS public report has provided sufficient information regarding the status of security in Canada to read and evaluate for the public. I look forward to reviewing the 2022 CSIS public report.