As the Harper government prepares to re-introduce the anti-terrorism measures that were allowed to lapse because of opposition concerns about privacy and Charter rights, there are whispers Conservative plans to expand the role of Canada’s spy service to operate overseas are being dusted off.Currently, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service is largely concerned with domestic intelligence and is able to conduct covert operations overseas only if there is a direct threat to Canada.
In their 2006 election platform, the Tories promised to overturn this arrangement and set up a separate foreign intelligence service. Once elected, they were persuaded by the bureaucracy that it would be quicker and cheaper to allow CSIS to take on the role.
When Stockwell Day was Public Safety Minister, from 2006 to 2008, progress was made on expanding CSIS’ role and the plan was to reform the 1985 CSIS Act by removing the words “within Canada” from its mandate, allowing the agency to replicate its domestic operations overseas. Negotiations were held with U.S. and U.K. spy agencies on how to go about foreign operations.
But sources said the number of controversial national security cases, ranging from Omar Khadr to Adil Charkaoui, forced the government to back away from the proposal during a minority parliament. “It would have been a political hot potato,” said one person familiar with the plan.
Now, having secured a majority, there is enthusiasm in some quarters for CSIS to be taken off the leash. The Department of Justice refused to comment, but Prime Minister Stephen Harper is on record as saying Canada needs better tools to combat the threat of terrorism and Islamist violence. If it’s not back on the agenda, it should be.
“This would give CSIS a modernized mandate, a new orientation reflecting new challenges and threats,” said one security insider. “Take the issue of Arctic sovereignty – what are the interests and designs of the Russians and Chinese in the Arctic? We don’t know.”
There is no doubt that Canada has shown a certain naiveté when it comes to the spy game.
As Charles Burton, a former diplomat who spent years in China, noted in a paper for the Canadian International Council, Chinese spying on Canada is so unrestrained, there are suspicions that local employees in the Canadian embassy in Beijing are in the employ of the Chinese security services.
There are also clear practical implications to cutting the constraints on CSIS internationally. A court ruling in 2008 suggested counter-terrorism agents have no legal means of listening to Canadian targets operating outside the country. CSIS tried to get a judge to sign off on attempts to wiretap 10 suspected terrorists. While he endorsed domestic surveillance, he refused the request for wiretaps abroad.
The expanded mandate would mirror what is happening in other countries. New Zealand and the Netherlands have merged their foreign and domestic intelligence operations and even in the U.S. and U.K., which have separate operations with different mandates and, often, competing interests, there has been increased co-operation in recent years.
If the government does reform the CSIS Act, there will be a great wailing and gnashing of teeth from the opposition parties and, in all likelihood, from the spy service’s watchdog, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, which has already expressed its concerns that CSIS has moved beyond its role as a strictly domestic operator.
But perhaps the greatest concerns should be those raised by one intelligence community veteran — that CSIS will repeat a string of embarrassing operational failures, such as its performance in the Maher Arar case or the Air India bombing, on the international stage. “I have great and grave doubts about giving CSIS an extended mandate without a significant improvement in competency at the organization and oversight. If they do this, I fear it will be a disaster down the road,” he said.
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Source: National Post
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