American intelligence agencies struggled with “inconsistencies” in their analysis and “a lack of consensus” on the nature of the threat in the weeks prior to the Jan. 6, 2021 riot on Capitol Hill, says an internal Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) report.
That July 2021 briefing note — obtained by CBC News through an access to information request — also says that as CSIS pursues the threat of ideologically motivated violent extremism (IMVE) in Canada, it’s dealing with many of the same challenges its U.S. counterparts faced prior to the riot.
The July 2021 briefing note includes summaries drafted by CSIS officials of the U.S. Senate’s report on the attack on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021 and the U.S. national strategy for countering domestic terrorism.
The report also includes CSIS’s observations on the event, which were meant to be shared with senior officials in the public safety, defence, immigration and justice departments.
Reacting to reports from the FBI and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to American lawmakers, CSIS said there were “inconsistencies between and within intelligence products that led to a lack of consensus about the gravity of the threat posed on January 6.”
The CSIS summaries flagged problems the FBI and the DHS experienced in trying to prepare for what became an assault on the Capitol by a mob of outgoing president Donald Trump’s supporters.
CSIS said those problems included discerning the intent of potential threat actors, distinguishing protected free speech from credible threats of violence, obtaining lawful access to private or closed social media platforms and gaining access to encrypted channels used by IMVE individuals threatening violence.
“CSIS faces many of the same investigative challenges as its American counterparts in this space,” says the document.
“These considerations reinforce the importance of CSIS’s efforts to modernize and maximize its authorities, as part of Canadian and allied efforts to counter violent extremism.”
A trucker is pepper-sprayed while police enforce an injunction against protesters near Parliament Hill on Feb. 19, 2022. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
CSIS defines IMVE as extremism motivated by “a range of grievances and ideas from across the traditional ideological spectrum.”
“The resulting worldview consists of a personalized narrative which centres on an extremist’s willingness to incite, enable and/or mobilize to violence,” says the CSIS website.
The challenges raised in the briefing note have one national security expert questioning how seriously the intelligence community and law enforcement took the Freedom Convoy event before protesters opposed to vaccine mandates occupied downtown Ottawa for weeks in February.
“Where they seem to have fallen down in the U.S. seems to be the contradictory and inconsistent advice,” said Stephanie Carvin, a former federal government national security analyst who now teaches at Carleton University.
“I don’t know about CSIS but was that a community problem we had here in Canada that some agencies recognized and some didn’t, and was [the Ottawa Police Service] getting consistent advice? That would be something I’d be interested in knowing.”
Gaps in intelligence-sharing
What the spy agency saw and passed on to police, and how police responded to that information, are likely to come in for close scrutiny through the recently announced public inquiry and special joint committee looking into the federal government’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act to clear the convoy occupation.
The 2021 briefing note flags one angle the inquiry and the committee might want to examine: ongoing gaps in intelligence-sharing between CSIS and the police.
“CSIS continues to wrestle with the challenges of sharing classified intelligence to inform law enforcement action, while protecting against injurious disclosure,” says the briefing note.
Carvin said the real question might be whether authorities failed to turn CSIS’s warnings and advice into action.
“It seems fairly clear that our intelligence services did seem to understand what was coming. That’s the major difference I think between [the] convoy and January 6,” she said.
“It seems that the service was briefing downtown before this happened, so why did that intelligence not turn into better preparation and advice?”
CSIS Director David Vigneault holds a press conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday, July 16, 2020. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
A spokesperson for CSIS said they cannot confirm or deny the specifics of its investigations, operational interests, methodologies or activities.
“With that said, I would like to emphasize is that the definition of threats, as outlined in the CSIS Act, specifically excludes lawful protest and dissent,” said Brandon Champagne.
“CSIS works closely with its security and intelligence partners, including by sharing the necessary information with law enforcement to ensure public safety.”
In the briefing note, CSIS says that, in order to better monitor IMVE, it’s seeking an update to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act.
“To fulfil our mandate of investigating IMVE, advising government and taking measures to reduce the threat, CSIS must have the tools to identify and disrupt threat actors within this data-rich and fast-paced threat environment, while meeting Canadians’ expectations of privacy,” says the document.
Chris Parsons, senior research associate at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, said it’s almost impossible to determine whether CSIS has adequate powers now, or how it’s deploying them.
“I don’t think that CSIS is sufficiently transparent for us to know the answer to that,” he said.
“But I think that there should be a culture of when we provide these powers to national security, and law enforcement agents as well, they should be required to provide some kind of an annual report as to how they’re using them and the efficacy of their use.”
He also said he wonders why CSIS didn’t raise concerns about investigating ideologically motivated violent extremism when the government passed updated national security legislation in 2019.
“That’s a little shocking, given that it suggests that CSIS didn’t understand what it wanted, or ultimately it decided it wanted to take the first bite at the apple and then take another bite,” he said.
Earlier this week, CSIS director David Vigneault told a committee of MPs and senators his resources are increasingly going to investigate IMVE.
“We are constantly looking at the movement of ideologically motivated violent extremists so we have a fairly good understanding of the dynamics at play,” he said.
Sharing information with banks
The CSIS officials who wrote the briefing note also said the section of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act that prevents it from sharing classified threat information with non-government partners is undermining its work.
“… Section 19 of the CSIS Act prevents CSIS from sharing classified threat information with non-government partners, including financial institutions, which poses challenges in how the Service can support efforts to curb terrorist financing,” says the briefing note.
Parsons said there’s a risk of CSIS inappropriately classifying people as terrorists, or claiming they engage in activities counter to Canadian interests, and then passing that information on to banks and other institutions.
“This might be one thing if you’re going to be hunting down people who are going to drive to the prime minister’s home and try and shoot him. But there’s a whole lot of other groups that have been on the receiving end of CSIS’s attention that probably don’t deserve it, or certainly don’t believe they do,” he said.
Outside of cracking open its legislation, there are a number of policy changes that could change how CSIS responds to IMVE.
Police enforce an injunction against protesters encamped in downtown Ottawa on Feb. 19, 2022. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
In the briefing note, CSIS says it’s also watching the ongoing CLOUD Act negotiations between Ottawa and the United States. The U.S. legislation allows law enforcement to compel U.S.-based technology companies (through a warrant or subpoena) to produce requested data stored on their servers regardless of whether the data are stored in the U.S. or on foreign soil.
If Canada signed on, CSIS could in theory get faster access to data held by Google, Apple, Facebook and other major online players.
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The agency also said that it’s closely following the government’s efforts to pass online harm legislation that could require regulated online entities like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok to flag content posing national security concerns to CSIS.
“CSIS will continue working with Government of Canada partners on government policy initiatives and seize every opportunity to bolster the toolkit to respond to this dynamic threat,” says the briefing note.
Carvin said Canada, like some of its allies, should be regularly updating the powers and authority given to security agencies like CSIS to keep them in line with both emerging technologies and privacy concerns.
“How do we want our security services engaging online? Because I think if you ask most Canadians, ‘Do you just want CSIS randomly surfing the internet looking for bad things,’ the answer is no and I think that’s probably the right answer,” she said.
BATHURST, N.B. – RCMP in New Brunswick say a weekend ground search for evidence related to the disappearance of a teenage girl in 2021 didn’t reveal any new information.
In an emailed statement, the RCMP said 20 people participated in the search for evidence in the case of Madison Roy-Boudreau of Bathurst.
The release said the search occurred in the Middle River area, just south of the girl’s hometown.
Police have said the 14-year-old’s disappearance is being treated as a homicide investigation.
The RCMP said the search “did not reveal any new information regarding the circumstances of her disappearance.”
There are no plans for another search until police receive a tip or a lead pointing to a new search area.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
VICTORIA – A middle school in Victoria was forced into a lockdown after a man entered the building without permission, and police say they had to use a stun gun to make an arrest.
Victoria police say officers received multiple calls around noon on Monday of an unknown male entering Central Middle School, leading staff to set off emergency procedures that put the building under lockdown.
Police say its emergency response team arrived within minutes and found the suspect, who “appeared to be in a drug-induced state,” in the school’s library.
A statement from police says the suspect resisted arrest, and officers had to use a Taser to subdue the man.
He’s being held by police and has been assessed by emergency medical staff.
Police say the man was not armed and there were no continuing safety concerns for students and staff following the arrest.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Former B.C. Green leader Andrew Weaver knows what it’s like to form a minority government with the NDP, but says such a deal to create the province’s next administration is less likely this time than seven years ago.
Weaver struck a power-sharing agreement that resulted in John Horgan’s NDP minority government in 2017, but said in an interview Monday there is now more animosity between the two parties.
Neither the NDP nor the B.C. Conservatives secured a majority in Saturday’s election, raising the prospect of a minority NDP government if Leader David Eby can get the support of two Green legislators.
Manual recounts in two ridings could also play an important role in the outcome, which will not be known for about a week.
Weaver, who is no longer a member of the Greens, endorsed a Conservative candidate in his home riding.
He said Eby would be in a better position to negotiate if Furstenau, who lost her seat, stepped aside as party leader.
“I think Mr. Eby would be able to have fresh discussions with fresh new faces around the table, (after) four years of political sniping … between Sonia and the NDP in the B.C. legislature,” he said.
He said Furstenau’s loss put the two elected Greens in an awkward position because parties “need the leader in the legislature.”
Furstenau could resign as leader or one of the elected Greens could step down and let her run in a byelection in their riding, he said.
“They need to resolve that issue sooner rather than later,” he said.
The Green victories went to Rob Botterell in Saanich North and the Islands and Jeremy Valeriote in West Vancouver-Sea to Sky.
Neither Botterell nor Valeriote have held seats in the legislature before, Weaver noted.
“It’s not like in 2017 when, you know, I had been in the (legislature) for four years already,” Weaver said, adding that “the learning curve is steep.”
Sanjay Jeram, chair of undergraduate studies in political science at Simon Fraser University, said he doesn’t think it’ll be an “easygoing relationship between (the NDP and Greens) this time around.”
“I don’t know if Eby and Furstenau have the same relationship — or the potential to have the same relationship — as Horgan and Weaver did,” he said. “I think their demands will be a little more strict and it’ll be a little more of a cold alliance than it was in 2017 if they do form an alliance.”
Horgan and Weaver shook hands on a confidence-and-supply agreement before attending a rugby match, where they were spotted sitting together before the deal became public knowledge.
Eby said in his election-night speech that he had already reached out to Furstenau and suggested common “progressive values” between their parties.
Furstenau said in her concession speech that her party was poised to play a “pivotal role” in the legislature.
Botterell said in an election-night interview that he was “totally supportive of Sonia” and he would “do everything I can to support her and the path forward that she chooses to take because that’s her decision.”
The Green Party of Canada issued a news release Monday, congratulating the candidates on their victories, noting Valeriote’s win is the first time that a Green MLA has been elected outside of Vancouver Island.
“Now, like all British Columbians we await the final seat count to know which party will have the best chance to form government. Let’s hope that the Green caucus has a pivotal role,” the release said, echoing Furstenau’s turn of phrase.
The final results of the election won’t be known until at least next week.
Elections BC says manual recounts will be held on Oct. 26 to 28 in two ridings where NDP candidates led B.C. Conservatives by fewer than 100 votes after the initial count ended on Sunday.
The outcomes in Surrey City Centre and Juan de Fuca-Malahat could determine who forms government.
The election’s initial results have the NDP elected or leading in 46 ridings, and the B.C. Conservatives in 45, both short of the 47 majority mark in B.C.’s 93-seat legislature.
If the Conservatives win both of the recount ridings and win all other ridings where they lead, Rustad will win with a one-seat majority.
If the NDP holds onto at least one of the ridings where there are recounts, wins the other races it leads, and strikes a deal with the Greens, they would have enough numbers to form a minority government.
But another election could also be on the cards, since the winner will have to nominate a Speaker, reducing the government’s numbers in the legislature by one vote.
Elections BC says it will also be counting about 49,000 absentee and mail-in ballots from Oct. 26 to 28.
The NDP went into the election with 55 ridings, representing a comfortable majority in what was then an 87-seat legislature.
Jeram, with Simon Fraser University, said though the counts aren’t finalized, the Conservatives were the big winners in the election.
“They weren’t really a not much of a formal party until not that long ago, and to go from two per cent of the vote to winning 45 or more seats in the B.C. provincial election is just incredible,” he said in an interview Monday.
Jeram said people had expected Eby to call an election after he took over from John Horgan in 2022, and if he had, he doesn’t think there would have been the same result.
He said the B.C. Conservative’s popularity grew as a result of the decision of the BC Liberals to rebrand as BC United and later drop out.
“Had Eby called an election before that really shook out, and maybe especially before (Pierre) Poilievre, kind of really had the wind in his sails and started to grow, I think he could have won the majority for sure.”
He said he wasn’t surprised by the results of the election, saying polls were fairly accurate.
“Ultimately, it really was a result that we saw coming for a while, since the moment that BC United withdrew and put their support behind the conservatives, I think this was the outcome that was expected.”
— With files from Darryl Greer
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
