Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino says he’s open to discussing changes to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s legal authority after the spy agency’s chief signalled during the Emergencies Act inquiry that his organization needs “critical” reform.
CSIS’s key mandate is to investigate activities suspected of constituting threats to the security of the country, and to report to the Government of Canada. But the definition in law of such threats under the Emergencies Act turned out to be a key point of contention during the inquiry.
During the Public Order Emergency Commission inquiry, CSIS director David Vigneault and deputy director of operations Michelle Tessier sat for an in-camera interview with lawyers representing the inquiry. In the course of that exchange, they were asked about potential reforms of the intelligence service.
According to a summary of that conversation, Vigneault “explained that one critical area for reform was modernization of the definition of a threat to the security of Canada.”
Under CSIS’s enabling law, such threats are defined as espionage or sabotage, foreign influence activities detrimental to Canada’s interest, serious violence against persons or property “for the purpose of achieving a political, religious or ideological objective” in Canada or a foreign state, and activities intended to overthrow a government by violence.
Tessier told the commission that definition is outdated.
CSIS director David Vigneault testifies as deputy director Michelle Tessier looks on during a Public Order Emergency Commission hearing on Monday, Nov. 21, 2022 in Ottawa. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
“In today’s environment, we really need to be looking at the definition of threats to the security of Canada. It’s more threats to Canada’s national interests,” says the summary of that joint interview.
The summary says Tessier called for a change to the definition of a threat to national security “to match the expanding expectations from the government for more information from the intelligence service, for example relating to economic security, research security and pandemic and health intelligence, because the definition in terms of threat currently can be quite narrow.”
In an interview with CBC News, Mendicino said the federal government continues to assess CSIS’s “authorities” to determine whether it needs additional tools to respond to evolving threats.
“That is something that I think we’re all going to continue to reflect on and be laser-like focused on — understanding how ideological or politically extreme ideology can motivate individuals to take up the cause and become potentially violent,” he said.
“How that then relates to revisiting certain laws and statutory authorities is going to be the subject of an ongoing conversation.”
Mandate should be ‘narrow, precise and clear’: CCLA
Wesley Wark, a senior fellow with the Centre for International Governance Innovation, said that conversation is “absolutely necessary.”
“I just don’t think we can live with a 1984 model for this,” he said, referring to the year the CSIS Act was written.
“The Cold War has gone, we’re in a very different geopolitical environment. I think the public discussion around threats posed by intelligence agencies has probably matured and broadened a bit to a greater understanding.”
Wark pointed to the security concerns that emerged during the pandemic and rising fears about economic security — ones that lawmakers in the 1980s couldn’t have predicted.
“CSIS is increasingly being asked to play a major role in providing security advice to the private sector and academia about potential threats to research, potential threats to the control of data and intellectual property — all key economic security issues, again. And there’s nothing in the current CSIS Act that actually allows them to do that,” he said.
But Brenda McPhail, director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s privacy, technology and surveillance program, said she sees any expansion of the legal definition of a “threat to national security” as a power grab.
“If everything is national security, then nothing is off the table,” she said.
“Our national security bodies, reasonably, have extraordinary powers, to do the difficult and important job that they do. For a body with extraordinary powers, it’s important that their mandate be narrow, precise and clear.”
The question of whether section two of the CSIS Act — which defines threats to national security — is broad enough to capture modern threats was a major source of debate during the public hearings phase of the Emergencies Act inquiry.
The inquiry is looking at whether the federal government was justified in invoking emergency powers to combat protests against COVID-19 measures that gridlocked Ottawa for nearly a month.
In an interview with Public Order Emergency Commission lawyers last fall, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested CSIS faced challenges during the convoy protests.
“He noted that CSIS does not necessarily have the right tools, mandate or even mindset to respond to the threat Canada faced at that moment,” says a summary of that interview, released as part of the commission inquiry.
Policy in a time of panic
McPhail said security agencies have in the past used public events to acquire new powers.
“Our national security landscape changed immensely after 9/11 and many of the actions that were put in place at that time were things that security agencies had been advocating to have the power to do for some time. And no one thought it was necessary until there was a really heart-wrenching crisis on North American soil,” she said.
“Times of fear, when we’ve just been through a crisis that has been difficult, are usually not good times to make really significant policy changes.”
Dennis Molinaro, a former security analyst turned professor at Ontario Tech University, sees it differently.
He argues CSIS needs a clearer mandate to hone its investigative powers.
“[You can] leave it up to them to be creative in terms of how they can investigate something, and that has the potential to either fall into the category of risk aversion — because nobody wants to overstep — or overstepping, and we get into abuses,” said Molinaro, whose research focuses on counter-intelligence and foreign interference.
“You don’t want to have to chase down rabbit holes to … make something fit when it doesn’t really fit the mandate, even though you believe it should be something that’s investigated. So more often than not, you’re going to have, unfortunately … things are not going to get looked at.”
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino leaves a caucus meeting on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2022. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
Wark said he doesn’t think serious talk of modernizing the act will happen until after Paul Rouleau, head of the Public Order Emergency Commission, tables his final report in February. Much would depend on whether the Liberal minority government can secure NDP support for any legislative changes, he added.
“I think there’s a long march towards any change,” he said.
Molinaro said recent high-profile stories in the media about intelligence and foreign interference — including claims that China meddled in the last federal election — have sparked Canadians’ interest in national security issues in a way he hasn’t seen before.
“I think I am a little bit more optimistic now than I have been in the past. Because I think a lot of Canadians are seeing why foreign policy is important,” he said.
“And they’re seeing how foreign policy relates to domestic policy, especially security policy.”
McPhail said she doesn’t think Canadians “are going to roll over and play dead” in response to any push to change CSIS’s mandate.
“What we’re really talking about is changing the degree to which our national security spy agency can intervene or interfere in the lives of Canadians,” she said. “And that’s not the kind of decision that should be taken lightly.”
Mendicino said he hopes Rouleau’s final recommendations touch on CSIS’s concerns.
“He believes he’s got the evidence that he needs to make some conclusions about that,” said the minister.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
