Section 4 Key Federal Government Agencies in the National Security Domain and Their Respective Mandates and Functions
Canadian federal government agencies with major responsibilities for national security are described collectively as the "security and intelligence community" (S&I community).
The Canadian S&I community is a longstanding one. Its origins date from the Second World War. Its history remains little known to Canadians.
The end of the Cold War brought significant changes to the Canadian S&I community. The Department of External Af fairs relinquished its leadership role over the intelligence community, a role that fell increasingly to the Privy Council Office. The key collection agencies—the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS), which replaced the RCMP Security Service in 1984, and the Communications Security Establishment, or CSE (previously the CBNRC [Communications Branch of the National Research Council] in 1970)—had to focus on new and substantially different targets. It would not be unfair to say that the Canadian intelligence community was a community in search of a mission in the decade-long post-Cold War period. It added new core missions such as international organized crime, illegal immigration, environmental issues and economic espionage to its portfolio. CSE came to focus on its military mission, under the term "support to military operations" (SMO). CSIS came slowly to focus on Sunni Muslim terrorism, an evolution highlighted by the case of Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian refugee claimant arrested at the Canada-US border in December 1999 while engaged in a mission to attack Los Angeles airport. The RCMP became a peripheral member of the intelligence community, with a function restricted essentially to law enforcement response.
The S&I community that existed prior to the 9/11 attacks was described in a 24-page booklet produced by the Privy Council Office and entitled The Canadian Security and Intelligence Community. This booklet described the functions of the S&I community and included an organization chart indicating that eight departments and central agencies collectively made up the Canadian intelligence system.51
While drawing on its historical foundations, the security and intelligence community underwent some significant organizational changes to confront the new, post-9/11 security environment.
Some of these changes occurred quickly after 9/11 and were signalled in the passage of Canada’s first anti-terrorism legislation, Bill C-36, in December 2001. The Anti-Terrorism Act incorporated enabling legislation for the Communications Security Establishment, which found itself with a new, and top-priority, anti-terrorism mission. A unit called the Financial Transactions Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) was given anti-terrorist financial tracking responsibilities under C-36. The new criminal definitions of terrorist activity in C-36 effectively meant a renewed role for the RCMP as a national security agency.
The focus on air transport security after 9/11 resulted in the creation of a new Crown corporation, the Canadian Air Transport Security Agency (CATSA), to ensure operational security at Canadian airports.52 CATSA was established on April 1, 2002. Its enabling legislation, Bill C-49, also required a five-year review, which is now under way. The teams of pre-board screeners deployed at all major Canadian airports are its most public and familiar face.
Deeper structural changes occurred in December 2003. The new Liberal leader, Paul Martin announced some sweeping changes to national security organizations in Canada, including the creation of a new federal government department, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness (PSEPC), the establishment of the position of National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister in the Privy Council Office, and the inauguration of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), which took on board legacy functions from Citizenship and Immigration Canada, the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. At the same time the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness (OCIPEP), originally created to tackle concerns about computer system failures at the turn of the millennium, was moved from the Department of National Defence to the new department, PSEPC. These changes collectively signalled a new and unprecedented priority for national security in the Canadian federal government.
The most significant of these changes was the creation of the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada (PSEPC). This senior federal department was meant to be more than the sum of its parts. Its legacy agencies from the old Department of the Solicitor General, including CSIS and the RCMP, gave Public Safety a lead role in intelligence and law enforcement. The creation of the CBSA within Public Safety gave the new department a lead role in border security issues. Above all, PSEPC was meant to be about power. As a large department headed by a senior Cabinet Minister, the creation of PSEPC signalled a desire to place leadership and coordination of national security issues in one set of ministerial hands.53
More overt changes to structure and authority were matched, post-September 11, by more invisible changes to government practice. At the Cabinet level, a new committee was established in the wake of 9/11. At first of an ad hoc nature (known as the Cabinet Committee on Public Safety and Terrorism), it came to be a standing Cabinet committee with a revised name, "Cabinet Committee on Security, Public Health and Emergencies," chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister.54 Since the election of a new Conservative government, this committee has gone through a further evolution and is now the Cabinet Committee on Foreign Affairs and National Security, the new name indicating its broader mandate.
The power and effectiveness of the Canadian S&I community, which are crucial to the achievement of Canadian national security, arguably lie in its ability to function as a community. The extent to which the S&I community is a community is also of crucial importance for understanding the capacity of the Canadian intelligence system to protect and promote human rights. An integrated community is less likely to suffer abuses of human rights, for several reasons. It has a greater degree of leadership, is more subject to policy direction and coordinated priority setting, makes accountability and review easier, and is more open to moderating checks and balances, including whistle-blowing, within a system of security and human rights protections.
Key recommendation:
Knowledge of the functioning of the security and intelligence community is critical to understanding the landscape of both security policy and human rights protections. To this end, the CHRC should consider monitoring legislative changes in the mandate of national security agencies.