Former Canadian spies rattled by what they see south of the border

Canada’s spies have to be watching the news from south of the border with growing alarm, say former intelligence officials.

The government of Donald Trump is taking dramatic action that looks threatening to Canadian security:

• Tulsi Gabbard was recently sworn in as director of national intelligence. Her nomination has horrified America’s NATO allies, in part because of her record of defending Russian President Vladimir Putin and former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
• Kash Patel, a former federal prosecutor, is likely to be confirmed as FBI director. Critics fear Patel, who has called for a purge of the “deep state,” will turn the agency against domestic enemies and neglect real threats to public safety.
• An aide to CIA Director John Ratcliffe has said the agency is likely to target countries in the Western hemisphere not traditionally considered adversaries of the U.S., which could include Canada.
• The new government has offered buyouts to the entire CIA workforce, which former officials decried as an attempt to politicize it.
• A purge of Justice Department officials seems likely to weaken the traditional controls lawyers exercised over intelligence agencies.
• Trump is regularly saying he wants to forcibly annex Canada, and warming up to Russia, which is looking increasingly threatening.

Former Canadian intelligence officials say the people doing their old jobs are having to cope with a suddenly uncertain relationship with our most important ally.

Canada and the United States both belong to the Five Eyes intelligence alliance — along with Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom — but the U.S. is the key player for Canada.

The first concern is the degradation of U.S. capacity. Since their intelligence agencies are being cut, purged and taken over by Trump loyalists of questionable ability and judgment, they are not going to be as good at their jobs.

Political interference by Trump’s people is going to “make them unable to carry out their mandate to make Americans, and by extension, Canadians, safe,” says Dan Stanton, a former executive manager at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

Veteran officials will be alarmed by the politicization of the agencies and will find ways to resist through strategic leaks, for instance.

“Kash Patel can go in and do a lot of damage, but at the same time, it's not like this will be taken lightly or taken lying down,” says Stephanie Carvin, a former CSIS officer who is now an associate professor at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs.

“So the concern is that the intelligence community in the United States becomes embroiled in its own conflicts. And if that happens, then the concern is that they're not really paying attention to the mission.”

If the United States has worse intelligence, it could make the world more dangerous for Canada since we rely on them so heavily. They could also cut us off, as Vincent Rigby, former national security and intelligence adviser to Justin Trudeau, recently warned.

“If Trump, as a part of his trade negotiations and determination to make Canada the 51st state, decides to turn off the intelligence, we are very vulnerable, because the U.S. is responsible for many of the intelligence needs that Canada gets,” Carvin says.

“There's no question in my mind.”

Stanton, who worked closely with American and U.K. intelligence officials for decades, thinks it’s unlikely that the working relationship will be blown up in the near future.

“They're not robots,” he says.

“The machinery of intelligence collection and assessment of all those agencies — let's say FBI, CIA and NSA in particular — they're not overnight turning into followers of Putin or enablers of Trump, and going out and targeting Canada. Now the question is, how long can those agencies maintain some independence from that political influence? And that's probably what a lot of the Five Eyes countries are watching closely right now.”

But François Lavigne, a former senior intelligence official, thinks it would be unwise to assume the Americans will keep playing nice.

“The U.S. intelligence community in general — and I'm talking about all the way up to NSA — has never treated Canada as if it was a sovereign nation. It's always treated Canada as if it was just an appendage of the U.S.”

The Americans have agreed not to run operations in Canada without letting Ottawa know, but occasionally get caught doing so. He says that is more likely going forward.

“The fact that now that you have Trump in power, and that he's putting people who are die-hard loyalists to him, means that whatever his agenda is … it's going to affect the intelligence community, which means it's going to embolden both the CIA and the FBI to collect information about Canadians, to go in and carry out operations, to do whatever they want, and essentially treat Canada as a 51st state.”

Lavigne says Canadian intelligence officials will already be trying to figure out how they are exposed, as the Americans may not respect the third-party rule, which limits how their agencies can use any Canadian intelligence.

If trust erodes to the point where Americans abuse Canadian intelligence, there is not much we can do, says Aaron Shull, general counsel at the Centre for International Governance Innovation.

“I don't even know where you would litigate it.”

The United Kingdom—United States of America Agreement that governs intelligence cooperation and transfers between the Five Eyes countries depends on trust, and there is no clear avenue for redress if the Americans violate it.  

“It comes down to sovereignty,” Shull says.

“So, there wouldn't really be a good court where you could litigate something like that. It's not like you could bring a case against the U.S. government in a Canadian court. That's not the way it works.”

Artur Wilczynski, a former senior intelligence official, says Canadian officials will be getting ready for that and for increased snooping on Canada.

“If they want to come after us, they can, which changes the dynamic. And if there is a perception that Canada will become an intelligence target, I think we can't be pollyannas about that. We're going to have to beef up our counterintelligence capability. That's an important responsibility for CSIS to undertake.”

That could be difficult because American spying technology is so much better.

“I had contacts in the very highest intelligence levels in the U.S.,” Lavigne says. “There is nothing, no technology we have in Canada that the U.S. has not broken.”

They will not be motivated to negotiate for access to our intel if they can just take it.

“If they've already got a back door into our intelligence at the (Communications Security Establishment Canada), it's like they're getting this stuff raw,” he says.

“So they can already tell whether or not we're withholding from them, which is one of the reasons why … they don't have to work too hard on a relationship.”

Canada can’t afford to assume that the relationship will continue as before.

“I don't worry about becoming the 51st state,” says Carvin.

“I think that idea is still in the realm of science fiction, thankfully. What I worry about is Trump trying. I worry that Trump is going to be willing to inflict economic damage and potentially other forms of damage, like cutting off intelligence and things like that, to pressure Canada. I worry that Trump is increasingly willing to use the instruments of U.S. power against us.”

And while it may be tense for Canada, Lavigne says it’s worse for the United States.

“I don't think I've ever lived in a time that's been as weird as this or as strange. Strange, because on the one hand, you've got Putin and the Russians, and then on the other hand, you've got Trump and his megalomaniac ideas about taking over Canada, Greenland, whatever,” he says.

“It's a scary time, but I don't think that anything's really gonna be as bad as we think. I think in the intelligence community, they've already pretty well covered themselves. It'll be a loss, mainly for the Americans. The American intelligence community will probably take quite a while to recover.”