CSIS: A short history of Canada’s spy agency
New law gives security service legal powers of enforcement
OTTAWA — New powers for Canada’s spy agency proposed in Friday’s sweeping anti-terrorism bill would bring the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service closer to the disbanded law-enforcement agency it replaced three decades ago.
At the moment, CSIS is a spy agency with no enforcement powers. When CSIS agents suspect criminal activity, they pass on their findings to the RCMP to investigate, and to lay charges if needed.
The separation between spies and police came about in 1984, after a decade of nefarious activities by the Mounties, who had run a separate intelligence branch since 1936.
When that branch was named the Security Service Directorate in the 1970s, it targeted suspected Front de libération du Québec cell members and possible radicals infiltrating the Parti Québécois. In 1972, Mounties burned down a barn owned by the family of a Quebec separatist because they suspected he would be meeting with U.S. Black Panther activists. They also stole a PQ membership list and opened people’s mail, prompting the 1977- 81 investigation that became known as the McDonald commission.
That commission’s main recommendation was separating security intelligence work from policing by creating a separate agency, leading to the birth of CSIS. CSIS’s mandate has never restricted the location of its operations, and Bill C-44, which should pass shortly in the House of Commons, will clarify that the agency can spy on Canadians abroad.
That has prompted some concern from critics because CSIS is a member of the Five Eyes alliance of western countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. Those agencies all agree to share information, prompting concern that Canadians abroad could be prosecuted or attacked by countries whose justice standards don’t match Canada’s.
With changes proposed in Friday’s anti-terrorism bill, CSIS could now have enforcement powers, though not powers to arrest.
The bill would allow CSIS to “disrupt” threats when there are “reasonable grounds to believe” something was a threat to national security. Meanwhile, the lower standard of a “reasonable suspicion” would remain all that’s needed to surveil.
If Friday’s bill is passed, Federal Court will be able to compel third parties to co-operate with CSIS, such as a cellphone provider being forced to block a website or give its data to the spies.
The government did away with CSIS’s official overseer agency in 2012, but kept an oversight body called the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), which as of Friday contains four of the five members required under the CSIS Act.
Hours before unveiling his new anti-terrorism bill, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced he had appointed Ian Holloway to SIRC. Halifax-born Holloway is dean of the University of Calgary’s law faculty.
Deb Grey, a former Reform and Tory MP, and a member of SIRC since 2003, said Holloway’s appointment will help the busy committee.
“Dr. Holloway has pretty fine credentials and so we’re thrilled that he’s appointed. I look forward to meeting him,” Grey said. “He’s a pretty impressive fellow.”