Gurski: Canadas spies were right about the Freedom Convoy – Ottawa Citizen

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CSIS did warn the Trudeau government of the presence of 'extremist elements' within the trucker protest in January. Whether the report on this was read and absorbed is another matter.

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Pity Canadas intelligence agencies!

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Yes, I just wrote that. As a 32-year veteran of both CSE and CSIS, I must admit to a little sensitivity when I come across accusations of intelligence failure hurled at our protectors. Not that I am trying to claim that we are perfect: no one is. It is just that this notion that every bad turn of events originated in lousy intelligence-gathering wears a little thin after a while. And is usually wrong.

Intelligence agencies, however, are their own worst enemies. They say little, if anything, to the general public about what they do and why they do it. As a consequence, when things go south and they remain tight-lipped, the door is open for all and sundry to point fingers in their direction and blame them for all kinds of bad things.

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Take the Freedom Convoy and its dogs breakfast of hangers-on in Ottawa and elsewhere in Canada. Some national security experts immediately labelled this an intelligence failure, pointing in the specific direction of CSIS.

It turns out that these experts were wrong. Completely wrong.

Canadians should realize two things about intelligence in our country. One is that as soon as you leave the inner sanctum of spydom, you lose access to what is being collected and what is being shared. I left CSIS in 2015 and even though I have a current Top Secret security clearance I have absolutely no idea what CSIS is currently up to. As a consequence, for me or anyone to call what transpired in Ottawa a failure by CSIS is arrogance and hubris of the highest order.

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The other is that intelligence agencies are highly constrained by what they can and cannot collect. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees a high level of protection from intrusion into our thoughts and activities as it should. If CSIS had been investigating the actions of a legitimate protest movement without due cause (reasonable suspicion), it would have been acting illegally.

In the end, however, CSIS did warn the Trudeau government of the presence of extremist elements in the Freedom Convoy in January through a report issued by ITAC the Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre (which gets most of its intelligence from CSIS). In other words, the government did receive the best intelligence available before the proverbial hit the fan. How in heavens name does this constitute a failure? Quite the contrary; the women and men at CSIS did exactly what Canadians expect from them.

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As an aside, some think CSIS is not taking far-right extremism seriously enough. Again, wrong. In my days there (2001-2015) the Number One terrorism threat we monitored was, no surprise, the Islamist variety. I do know, however, that the Service has devoted significant resources to the far right, a move in the correct direction (although the jihadis still constitute the greatest global threat).

What may have happened in January was something that occurs all too frequently in our land: the intelligence was ignored or not given enough credence. I saw this on far too many occasions in my career and this speaks to Canadas poor intelligence culture (unlike that of our allies, the United Kingdom, U.S. and even Australia). To mix metaphors, you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him read your intelligence. We at uOttawa PDI National/Cyber security are trying to change this mindset through our courses and events.

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The lessons here? CSIS and other agencies are hard at work trying to collect, process, analyze and disseminate intelligence on current issues to senior government clients. Some clients get it and are avid users, others not so much. While CSIS is not perfect, the notion that it was asleep at the wheel is as of yet unfounded and any claims it was need to be backed up by concrete data (likely not forthcoming anytime soon) not speculation by national security experts.

Phil Gurski is a Distinguished Fellow in National Security at uOttawa. He worked as a foreign intelligence analyst at CSE from 1983 to 2001 and as a strategic terrorism analyst at CSIS from 2001 to 2015.

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Gurski: Canadas spies were right about the Freedom Convoy - Ottawa Citizen