It Is Time to Share Intelligence More Widely in Canada

A sign for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service building in Ottawa, in a file photo. Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

Commentary

Elections in democracies have been quite the focus over the last couple of years. In 2024, for instance, almost half the planet went to the polls in 64 nations. Not all of these were free and fair, but this was a special time in human history.

This year, our country will see a federal election (once the Liberals choose a new leader and “unprorogue” Parliament) and at least one provincial election: in Ontario on Feb. 27.

This is taking place, of course, in the wake of the results from the inquiry into foreign interference in Canadian elections. The Hogue Commission confirmed what intelligence agencies such as the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) have been saying for decades: i.e., foreign states have been trying to influence our votes since at least 2019 (in fact it goes back much further than that).

The inquiry was created after a CSIS report was leaked in 2023 in which it was made clear that the Liberals had ignored, downplayed, or questioned the intelligence it had been receiving for a decade and a half.

Now another report has seen the light of day in which CSIS informed the federal government in 2014 (!) that the People’s Republic of China had a “new strategy” to, in the run-up to various elections, invite as many city, provincial, and federal politicians as possible to an unnamed cultural event organized by the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa. The embassy also tasked diaspora figures with targeting specific Canadian politicians, including a sitting senator and a member of Parliament, and invite them to a high-profile Chinese New Year banquet in 2015.

None of this should strike anyone as new, given what we learned in the Hogue report (as incomplete as it was). Truth be told, foreign interference should not be seen as merely a federal problem. There is, nevertheless, another issue that needs immediate attention in Canada and that concerns the distribution of intelligence.

Normally we in the Canadian security intelligence apparatus share intelligence only at the federal level. This decision was made decades ago I imagine, and was dictated by security clearance issues and the ubiquitous “need to know.” As a consequence, the passing of information of relevance and importance to the other levels of government—provincial, territorial, and municipal—has been largely lacking or “hit and miss” at best.

Part of the challenge is to identify who to contact with such information. To the best of my knowledge, the only provinces with “provincial security advisers” are Ontario and New Brunswick; the former was only established in 2016 and the latter much earlier (I dealt with the one in Fredericton when I was at CSIS). This suggests that the other eight provinces and three territories do not see this function as important or do not wish to fund it. As for the municipalities, I have no idea what systems are in place.

Given, however, that the Beijing regime has clearly made its intention to exert its influence over our elected officials at all levels of government, it is high time for the system to recognize that we cannot afford to keep these local officials in the dark. We can maintain a “need to know” and at the same time bring them in and brief them on intelligence with a direct impact on their areas of jurisdiction. Forewarned is forearmed, as they say.

Doing so would not require onerous resources in my opinion. CSIS already has regional offices in every province (except P.E.I.) and has relationships with provincial and municipal law enforcement agencies across the land. Extending these links to the offices of the premier and/or mayor—with perhaps the provincial security adviser as well where these already exist—makes perfect sense. Rocket science this is not.

Intelligence has been woefully mismanaged at the federal level for decades. Perhaps it is time to invite new clients to the table and give them access. Maybe they will teach their federal counterparts a lesson or two on how this information can be leveraged to make better decisions and protect our collective interests. Heck, it’s at least worth a try.

While it is true that the government did pass Bill C-70 in June 2024 (An Act respecting countering foreign interference), allowing “the government to work with all partners, including provinces, territories, municipalities and Indigenous governments and partners,” it remains to be seen what this will mean. After all, it also passed a law creating a Foreign Influence Registry, and has anyone seen anything come from that?

Foreign interference is not going away. We have no idea what recommendations from the Hogue Commission will be implemented, when that may occur, and what effect they will have. Elections will continue to take place and we need to protect the essence of the process. The more people threatened by these foreign actions who can incorporate knowledge to minimize their impact the better.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.