Safety of embassies at ‘high risk,’ records reveal
Ottawa yet to approve plan to bolster security investment for embassies, residences
OTTAWA— The Harper government has known for two years that security at foreign embassies and the safety of Canadian diplomats was potentially in jeopardy at more than two dozen missions abroad, a series of internal government records show.
Reports by the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act, outline how officials have been seized with the issue since September 2013, when Al Shabab gunmen stormed the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, in a three-day siege that ended in the deaths of at least 67 people.
Memos, briefings and after-action reports show how the deaths of Canadian diplomat Annemarie Desloges and Vancouver businessman Naguib Damji turned what had been growing concern about the violence and instability of the Arab Spring into alarm.
The pressure mounted even more after the lobby of the Canadian embassy in Kyiv was taken over and occupied for a week by Ukrainian pro-European democracy protesters in February 2014, the briefings show.
Despite the heightened urgency, however, the federal cabinet has not yet approved a security investment plan for embassies and at official residences. Foreign Affairs spokesman Nicolas Doire said the government takes overseas mission security seriously and monitors situations abroad on a case-by-case basis to implement “appropriate measures to protect our personnel.”
A recent CTV News report cited a secret Sept. 9 memo warning deputy ministers that “20 per cent of missions are now categorized as high risk.”
Canada operates more than170 foreign missions, meaning as many as 34 are considered vulnerable. The documents obtained by The Canadian Press show as many as 27 of them have had physical security improvements since 2010, but Foreign Affairs officials warned more work was needed.