CSIS failed to warn minister of ‘high-risk’ ops
Spy agency repeatedly broke rules by authorizing activities without cabinet knowledge
OTTAWA— Canada’s domestic intelligence agency repeatedly broke rules by authorizing “high-risk” spy operations without the knowledge of its political masters.
Documents obtained by the Star show then public safety minister Ralph Goodale was informed in June 2018 that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service failed to inform him of “human source operations assessed as posing a high … risk.”
Details about those operations are censored from the documents, released under access to information law, because of national security concerns. A spokesperson for CSIS said the unredacted contents of the memo “would be injurious to national security if released.”
Under long-standing rules known as
“ministerial direction” on CSIS operations, the agency is required to inform the public safety minister before undertaking any operation that could risk human life, damage Canada’s international relations or discredit Ottawa if uncovered. “When CSIS became aware that some operational activities — carried out in support of its mandate — were noncompliant with the requirements to inform the minister, it took steps to rectify the situation,” John Townsend, the head of CSIS media relations, said in a written statement to the Star.
It’s not clear how many high-risk operations were approved without Goodale’s knowledge, but CSIS said the operations in question were approved by the director.
David Vigneault, who wrote to Goodale in June 2018 to inform him of the violations, was appointed director of CSIS in June 2017.
It’s not clear when the operations in question were authorized.
A request by the Star to interview Vigneault was turned down by CSIS.
The fact that a CSIS director personally approved the operations suggests that the stakes were high; one of the core principles in the ministerial directive on operations is that the higher the risk associated with an operation, the higher authority required to sign off on them.
Wesley Wark, one of Canada’s leading experts on national security and intelligence matters, said “high-risk” operations typically fall into two broad categories. The first of those involve attempts by CSIS to infiltrate groups believed to be a security threat to Canada.
“Those are always high risk in terms of the operation going wrong in a variety of ways, even endangering the life of the informant themselves. There’s all kinds of blowback that can come from those operations,” Wark said.
The second type of “high-risk” operations involve “walk-in” sources — people who volunteer to inform on a group or a country for Canadian intelligence. Running those sources involves a variety of risks for CSIS and for the Canadian government, Wark said.
The ministerial direction in force in 2018, published by University of Ottawa law professor Craig Forcese, lays out the requirements for the agency to “notify” the public safety minister and seek her or his approval. The document, obtained under access to information law, almost completely censors that section.
An older version of the direction obtained by the Star details a broad variety of activities that require the agency to loop in its minister, including any with the potential to:
discredit the service or the government; give rise to public controversy; risk human life; damage Canadian domestic or international relations;
contravene any guidelines for CSIS management.
CSIS says that while it failed to inform Goodale of the high-risk activities, those operations did not require the minister’s approval to proceed.
“The decision to approve the operations was made, appropriately, by the director in line with his accountabilities,” Townsend wrote. “The issue that was brought to the minister’s attention referred to the service having failed to notify the minister of certain highrisk operations, per ministerial direction.”
But Wark said the issue is more than just one of notification.
“The point of advance notice (of high-risk operations) is clearly to provide the minister with an opportunity to either request CSIS to rethink the operation or to order CSIS to abandon the operation,” he said. “That would be very much be within the minister’s power, and it would be part of the minister’s responsibility as the minister responsible to Parliament.”