CSIS director stepping down
OTTAWA — Michel Coulombe, a career spy who joined the Canadian Security Intelligence Service more than 30 years ago before rising through the ranks to its top job, is retiring.
Coulombe told CSIS employees Monday that he will leave as director of the country’s spy agency at the end of May in order to spend more time with his family.
Coulombe, an engineering graduate from École Polytechnique in Montreal, joined the agency in 1986, two years after it was created.
In 2013, he became its eighth director, the first time the top job had been filled from inside the service.
“After 36 years with the federal government, including more than 30 years with CSIS, I feel it is time for me to move on to the next stage of my life with my family,” Coulombe said in a statement.
Coulombe’s departure marks the second high-profile retirement this month: RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson announced last week he would step down from his role as top Mountie at the end of June.