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By their very nature, organizations like the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) are required to keep secret much of what they do. Routine publication of names, methods and cases would simply prevent CSIS from doing its job: protecting the lives of Canadians and the interests of their country.
Nevertheless, that enduring reality should not prevent a wider discussion of the purpose and priorities of CSIS. Certainly, it does not preclude a close review of the activities of the Service. From its inception in 1984, CSIS has been subject to a most comprehensive system of review and control involving the executive, judicial and legislative components of government, as it discharges its mandate under the CSIS Act.
In rapidly changing times an additional benefit can be had from greater public understanding of the nature of, and the country's need for, CSIS. More particularly, it is important to build a national consensus with respect to the nature of activities required to protect the interests, rights and lives of the citizens of Canada.
To that end, CSIS has issued a series of Public Reports, highlighting the role played by CSIS in countering the intelligence-gathering activities of foreign governments directed against Canada, as well as other issues of direct concern.
The 1991 Public Report provided an overview of the Service's operations and explained how security information is conveyed to the Prime Minister, the Solicitor General and others responsible for decisions in this area.
The 1992 Public Report built on that base to describe how the security environment was changing, and how CSIS was adapting to those changes, operationally and administratively.
Although this 1993 report begins with a broad overview of the current security intelligence environment, its primary purpose is to outline the nature of the threat to the public safety of Canadians, by which is meant, essentially, the threat of terrorism, the Service's foremost concern at the present time. This report, therefore, details the risk posed by terrorism to Canada and Canadians; it also describes how the Government, and in particular CSIS, address and counter that risk.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service fulfils its purpose of safeguarding the Canadian public and Canada's security interests by collecting and analyzing information and advising the Government of national security and public safety concerns.
Ongoing analyses of global and regional trends and issues that could have an impact on the security of Canada and the safety of Canadians are central to the Service's mandate.
While the end of the Cold War appeared to herald an end to instability and risk - and certainly, the diminution of the bipolar strategic nuclear threat and the accompanying East-West rivalry is welcome - it is nevertheless clear that there is little ground for complacency. Ironically, the nuclear threat today may be as great as ever. Current global trends are both diverse and challenging. Amongst those of security interest to Canada are the following:
In general, the world has become a less predictable place, where power is more diffuse. The nature of power is also changing. The sources and types of threats facing Canada and other countries are less susceptible to prediction and, therefore, to prevention or deterrence. Just as in previous decades, in the 1990s Canada cannot isolate itself from the world.
There are particular challenges posed by the very nature of Canadian society. Our evident prosperity and open society make Canada an inviting venue. Our technology and what we share with close allies attract espionage; and, beyond any acts they may commit in this country, terrorists are known to plan and raise funds for acts of terrorism elsewhere, to use Canada as a safe haven or as an entry point to the United States, or to procure weapons or components. Canada has, on occasion, also served as a proxy battlefield for a very small number of immigrants to continue "homeland" conflicts brought from their lands of origin. While the overwhelming majority of immigrants in Canada pursue peaceful and prosperous lives here, a small number do become directly or indirectly involved in such conflicts. Governments in their countries of origin sometimes view their emigrants to Canada as potential sources of opposition or as resources to be exploited and manipulated. In addition, ethnic communities can, on racial grounds, become targets of extremist groups.
The end of the Cold War forced Canada to re-evaluate what had long been considered the primary threats to Canadian national security. While the activities of former Cold War adversaries against Canada and Canadian interests abroad have generally been reduced, they have by no means been eliminated. Although some old threats have diminished, others, where major intelligence services are involved, have changed only cosmetically. Some have remained the same.
More importantly, as the number of independent global power-centres grows, so does the potential number of sources of threat. Alliances of power tend to shift with the issues of the day and a new level of complexity emerges. Predictability, one of the few relatively constant aspects of the Cold War, gives way to a far greater degree of unpredictability.
The following provides a summary of the various areas of CSIS activity as they relate to specific types of threats to Canadians and their country.
The Service's main preoccupation is the risk terrorism poses to the public safety of Canadians.
In 1984, when CSIS was created, the combined resources dedicated to the counter terrorism and counter intelligence functions were distributed in the ratio of 20% to 80% in favour of counter intelligence. This ratio in 1993 was 56% to 44% in favour of counter-terrorism. This indicates that public safety is now the highest priority of CSIS.
With the growth abroad of extremist groups and incidents in the 1970s, international terrorism had become a significant concern from which Canada was clearly not immune. The 1982 assassination of a Turkish diplomat in Ottawa confirmed the point. So too did the attempted take-over of the Turkish Embassy in 1985. The greatest tragedy took place in June of that same year when an Air India aircraft, having departed Toronto, exploded in flight off the coast of Ireland, killing 329 people.
Events of the past year give no grounds for complacency about public safety. Addressing the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, R. James Woolsey, Director of Central Intelligence, warned recently that "terrorism has not abated". He reported that the 1993 total of international terrorist incidents had climbed to 427 world-wide, compared to 362 in 1992. Woolsey warned that incidents could increase due to growing ethnic, religious and regional conflicts throughout the world.
In December 1993, three of five individuals arrested in October 1991 were convicted of conspiring to commit mischief endangering life by bombing a Hindu temple and an Indian theatre in Toronto. Incidents such as these and the bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York in February 1993 drive home the reality that terrorists from abroad can directly affect the public safety of North Americans as easily as they have touched the lives of people living in Europe and the Middle East.
Terrorists group and regroup frequently to meet their own needs or those of the movements or, sometimes, governments which sponsor them. Their activities and targets are difficult to predict. Their methods are by definition extreme. Their reach is global and the consequences of failure to detect them are severe.
Paul Wilkinson, a British expert on terrorism, compares fighting terrorism with playing goal: "You can make a hundred brilliant saves but the only shot that the people actually remember is the one that gets past you."
The terrorist threat is not diminishing. The technology of terrorism has become more accessible. The sources of terrorism remain strong: nationalism, separatism, religious and ideological extremism. It is also the resort of a few desperate governments otherwise bereft of foreign policy alternatives. There is, not surprisingly, a correlation between terrorism and regional conflicts, and between terrorism and ethnic unrest.
The following trends suggest that terrorism is not likely to wane in the foreseeable future:
Canada will always be exposed to terrorism. Our borders and coastlines are long and we have many points of entry. A wealthy industrial society like ours is an attractive target for extremists and for those who wish to secure technology and funds.
The personal and communal links that tie many Canadians to other societies abroad suggest there is always the danger of a spill-over of homeland conflicts into Canada's ethnic communities.
CSIS aims to ensure that Canada is not exploited as a venue for terrorist actions, planning or fund-raising, nor as a source of material for terrorist activity. As well, the Service works to ensure that terrorists do not use Canada as a safe-haven after committing acts of terrorism elsewhere.
CSIS accomplishes the above in several ways. One way is by developing close communications with various ethnic communities in Canada to identify emerging threats to Canadians or Canadian residents. The relevant trends and issues in this program are primarily those related to homeland situations. The voluntary interviews conducted by the Service provide community members with a forum to make their concerns and opinions known, to assist the Service in determining whether there are threats to particular communities, and to sensitize the communities to the role and mandate of CSIS in relation to protecting Canadian democracy and the lives of Canadians.
The Service advises Canadian law enforcement officials in the event it learns of terrorist plans, thus enabling the RCMP or other law enforcement agencies to arrest perpetrators of terrorist activity or to take preventive action to avoid tragedies. CSIS also works closely with the Department of Citizenship and Immigration to block the entry of terrorists to Canada and to remove those who have managed to evade detection during the screening process. During the past year, CSIS cooperated with the Department in the removal from Canada of four known terrorists.
Much of what CSIS accomplishes in its counter-terrorist role is to dampen concerns, rather than raise them - to take preventive and corrective actions. Occasionally, circumstances may prompt government ministers or officials to fear that specific terrorist groups or individuals constitute a threat to Canada. The assessments CSIS provides often alleviate those fears, thereby reducing costs to the Canadian taxpayer and minimizing dislocation and inconvenience to the public. On other occasions, a forewarning from CSIS can serve to deter violent acts from occurring.
Echoing trends evident in Europe and elsewhere, and capitalizing on the stress associated with economic or political dislocation by focusing on targets such as newly arrived refugees and immigrants, small numbers of right-wing extremists and white supremacists continue to strive for notoriety in the hope of garnering public support. In the past year, concerns were heightened as a result of strident exchanges and violent clashes between racist and anti-racist organizations. The potential for violence remains significant. The views and methods of such extremists are often not only illegal but totally unacceptable to the vast majority of Canadians. Nevertheless, despite recent setbacks, small, loosely knit groups of such individuals remain active across Canada, mostly concentrated in the main urban centres. They are capable of politically motivated, hate-related and criminal violence.
CSIS provides comprehensive threat assessments related to high-profile events in Canada, such as meetings of Heads of Government, high-level state visitors, or major international athletic events like the Calgary Winter Olympics. The 1994 Commonwealth Games in Victoria and the visits of high-risk dignitaries which the Games will attract merit special attention.
The 1984 legislation that created Canada's current national security system clearly delineates the distinction between security intelligence - the responsibility of CSIS - and law enforcement work - the responsibility of the RCMP. Unlike the latter, whose responsibility it is to enforce the law, CSIS gathers information and provides operational or tactical intelligence about individuals, groups or events which may constitute threats to the security of Canada. The intelligence is provided so that government and police authorities may take action.
During the Cold War, the Canadian security intelligence community concentrated its efforts on the traditional espionage and interference activities conducted by the Soviet Union, its Warsaw Pact allies and other potentially hostile governments. During the Cold War decades, some 100 individuals were declared to be unwelcome in Canada for conducting intelligence activities deemed to threaten Canadian security.
With the end of the Cold War that threat changed but, as recent arrests in the United States and expulsions from Australia demonstrate, did not disappear. The People's Republic of China's intelligence service still operates in Canada, as does that of Russia, although the latter with reduced numbers. The focus of their activity is increasingly economic in nature, but traditional activities designed to gain access to military and dual-purpose technology continue. For instance, while the successor intelligence service to the KGB - the SVR - is known to have reduced its establishment in Canada, the GRU (or military intelligence organization), has maintained its activities here.
Approximately two dozen countries operate against Canadian interests in Canada or abroad. However, those which operate in this country do so with fewer resources and greater focus. CSIS has identified "undeclared" intelligence officers from several countries operating in Canada. Their activities include monitoring their own citizens who may be temporarily residing in Canada, penetrating and coercing their respective Canadian ethnic communities and/or collecting military, economic and technical intelligence.
On the more positive side, CSIS, like the intelligence services of other NATO members, is now developing cooperative liaison relations with intelligence services from the emerging democracies of Central and Eastern Europe. These relations are especially useful in ascertaining the extent to which former adversaries worked against our interests, and are providing channels through which to exchange information on issues of common concern, such as terrorism. They also provide a vehicle with which to assist these countries in situating their security and intelligence organizations within a democratic framework.
Many foreign intelligence services attempt to influence, interfere with or intimidate Canadian ethnic communities. Their purposes vary, but include attempts to ensure that opposition to their governments' policies does not develop in Canada, to recruit agents to operate in Canada and to endeavour covertly to influence Canadian government policy.
Such activities on the part of foreign governments are of concern in that they impinge upon the legitimate rights of Canadians and immigrants to free expression, advocacy, protest and dissent. CSIS, as directed by government, monitors, analyzes and reports upon such activities, particularly when issues of national security or public safety may be involved.
In an era more preoccupied with economic decline than military might, economic espionage is taking on a higher profile. Governments around the world find themselves under pressure to use whatever means are available to improve their countries' productivity and ensure their economic security. Some, uneasy with leaving the outcome to the market, are resorting to the short cut of economic espionage and technology theft.
Economic espionage is defined as clandestine or illicit attempts by foreign governments to obtain proprietary or classified economic information or technology. More than two dozen countries are known to engage in economic espionage. In the past decade, several have conducted economic espionage against Canadian interests, including some countries considered "friendly" to Canada.
Studies conducted by CSIS in 1990-91 led to the observation that a small group of leading-edge companies in Canada had been targeted by foreign intelligence services between 1980 and 1990. Economic espionage is not, however, just about complex leading-edge technology. It also concerns subjects seemingly as mundane as efficient plant lay-outs, client lists and bid information. In fact, in a more recent case of economic espionage which involved support from a foreign government, a Canadian company lost a major contract after precise information contained in the company's tender was passed to an offshore competitor.
Clearly, this type of behaviour by foreign governments, with all the resources they can bring to bear in pursuit of these goals, unduly disrupts the proverbial "level playing field" sought by most businesses and our government. It is this disruption by foreign intelligence services or their surrogates that justifies the intervention of a domestic intelligence service in this area.
The protection of Canada's economic security, through countering economic espionage, is not a new role for CSIS. This responsibility is set out in the Service's legislative mandate, its policy, and reflected in its practice.
Beyond that, there are some crucial distinctions. The Service counters economic espionage but not industrial espionage (the efforts mounted by some individual companies to acquire technology or know-how illicitly from their competitors). CSIS will enter an investigation only when it believes that foreign intelligence services or a surrogate for foreign governments may be involved.
There is another distinction: countries and companies regularly collect what can be called economic intelligence from open sources: this is not a concern of the Service. The free and voluntary exchange and dissemination of information is an essential ingredient of prosperity and freedom. CSIS is only concerned with protecting information or technology of a proprietary nature that a company chooses not to share with another company believed to be a surrogate of a foreign government or its intelligence service.
The Service's mandate relative to economic espionage is to collect information, investigate where necessary and report to government on the threat posed by this type of activity. Again, the goal is to help keep the playing field as level as possible for both Canada and its companies, thus protecting our economic interests, and contributing to the prosperity of all Canadians.
In recent years, CSIS has begun to take new steps to meet the evolving threat from economic espionage. The Service has instituted an awareness program concerned with economic espionage, which has been in operation since January 1992. The awareness program has led to voluntary contacts with more than 500 organizations or companies across Canada. Based on these contacts, CSIS obtained information of direct relevance to Canadian business and its level of security concern. In this respect, in over one-third of these contacts, security concerns were identified. In turn, the majority of these concerns related to perceived threats or actual incidents of economic espionage activities which could directly or indirectly involve the support of foreign governments. Virtually all of the commercial organizations contacted by CSIS have indicated their strong support for what the Service is doing in response to this problem.
Closely related to economic espionage is the issue of weapons proliferation. CSIS is very much concerned with attempts by intelligence services and others to gain access to technology or expertise that might be of use in the development of nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction, as well as missile-related means of their delivery.
The risk of the proliferation of this technology - frequently through the use of international technology brokers - is increasing, not decreasing. The availability of experts from the former Soviet Union and the potential for loss of control over nuclear materials in former Soviet republics are matters o concern.
Highly advanced Canadian nuclear, chemical, electronics, pharmaceutical and other sectors are attractive targets for illicit international transfer. In addition to potential losses of Canadian military or dual-use technology and equipment, Canada is attractive as a transshipment point for illegal weapons transfers from the USA.
Events of recent years have confirmed that terrorism is a truly global problem in terms both of its origins and the location of its targets. Compared to other countries, Canada has been spared much of the horror associated with modern terrorism. But it has not been immune. As the Air India disaster and the more recent World Trade Centre bombing indicate, there is no sure sanctuary from terrorists. Only a vigilant and constant watch can ensure that Canada and Canadians are protected.
CSIS carries out its counter-terrorist activities on three fronts. The first involves ongoing cooperation and liaison with intelligence partners abroad, together with constant analysis of global trends and incidents. The second involves efforts in conjunction with other government departments and agencies to deny entry to Canada to known or suspected terrorists. The third flows from the Service's continuous efforts to forewarn and advise the Government of specific terrorist concerns.
Professionalism and partnership are key to these efforts. Without a workable, coordinated approach among various government players, the risks would rise for Canadians. CSIS believes that the system now in place provides a sound basis for an approach in which Canadians can have confidence and be prepared, in turn, to extend to the Service the benefit of their understanding and cooperation. In this context, this Public Report is intended to contribute to an understanding of the key role CSIS plays in protecting and promoting the public safety of Canadians and their country.¤
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