Politics and intelligence analysis: the Canadian experience

ABSTRACT

Academic debate on the interplay between politics and intelligence is dominated by the U.S. experience. Our research, based on interviews with over sixty individuals in the Canadian intelligence and national security community and including political staffers, provides a new case study: that of Canada, a middle power with considerable access to intelligence through the Five Eyes partnership. We found that cases of hard politicization of intelligence analysis are virtually non-existent in Canada. The most important factor explaining this finding is Canada’s structural position in the world, or how its geography shapes the broader context of interactions between intelligence and politics. Beyond this, six more specific factors at the domestic level also matter: the relative unimportance of foreign and security policy as political issues, few opportunities, a lack of political benefits, low intelligence literacy generally among policy makers, poor transparency in national security decision making, and a tradition of non-partisanship in the civil service. The paper concludes by reflecting on this assessment: while hard politicization remains a rarity in Canada, the shields that have prevented the emergence of politicization will likely be increasingly tested in the future.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The authors obtained approval from the ethics review boards in their respective universities to conduct the research associated with this project. At the University of Ottawa, the Office of Ethics and Research Integrity approved request 11-17-08; at Carleton University, the Office of Research Ethics and Compliance approved project 108,633. The authors would like to thank Philippe Lagassé for his assistance as well as three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. They also thank Basile Jammal for his research assistance.

2. J. Rovner, Fixing the Facts; G. Treverton, ‘Intelligence Analysis’.

3. J. Rovner, ‘Is Politicization Ever a Good Thing?’ 55. Hänni offers a similar definition: ‘an intervention in any stage of the intelligence cycle – but particularly in the production of intelligence analyses – by producers or consumers of intelligence, such as politicians, military officers and diplomats, to bring intelligence products in line with policy preferences or political interests’. A. Hänni, ‘When Casey’s blood pressure rose’.

4. See also G. Hastedt, ‘The Politics of Intelligence and the Politicization of Intelligence’..

5. As one of our interviewees said: ‘It would be naïve to say that politics don’t play a role, but it is also appropriate that politics plays a role. We live in a democracy, elected leaders should be the ones making decisions about stances, geopolitical approaches, relationships and priorities that we have. So just because something is national security, it doesn’t mean that the elected political leaders shouldn’t be the ones making decisions about how we approach those issues’.

6. R. Betts, Enemies of Intelligence, 75.

7. R. Betts, ‘Politicization of Intelligence: Costs and Benefits’.

8. J. Rovner, ‘Is Politicization Ever a Good Thing?’.

9. G. Treverton, ‘Intelligence Analysis’.

10. We are grateful to one of the anonymous reviewers of this article, who suggested this categorization.

11. U. Bar-Joseph, ‘The Politicization of Intelligence’.

12. U. Bar-Joseph, ‘The Politicization of Intelligence’, 350.

13. Hänni, ‘When Casey’s blood pressure rose’.

14. S. Lucas, ‘Recognising Politicization’.

15. M. Rubin, ‘The Temptation of Intelligence Politicization’.

16. J. McPhee, Spinning the Secrets of State.

17. H. Seo, ‘Intelligence Politicization in the Republic of Korea’.

18. U. Bar-Joseph, ‘The Politicization of Intelligence’.

19. Interviews usually lasted approximately 60–90 minutes and, in addition to the question on politicization, the discussions covered a range of topics related to intelligence analysis and policy making, such as the impact of government structure on intelligence-policy interactions.

20. S. Hewitt, ‘Spying 101’; S. Hewitt, ‘Reforming the Canadian Security State’; R. Whitaker, G. Kealey, and A. Parnaby, Secret Service.

21. Kinsman, ‘Constructing Gay Men and Lesbians’.

22. British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, Backgrounder; A. Crosby and J. Monaghan, Policing Indigenous Movements; J. Monaghan and K. Walby, ‘Surveillance of Environmental Movements’.

23. M. Bastarache, Broken Dreams, Broken Lives. See also concerns raised about the impact of bias in police assessments regarding the so-called Freedom 2022 Convoy: L. Lebrun, ‘Ottawa Police Intelligence Unit Relied on Dubious and Politically-Biased Information About Convoy’.

24. On issues related to bias in national security affecting intelligence assessments in Canada, see R. Schmidt, ‘Investigating implicit biases around race and gender in Canadian counterterrorism’.

25. On Canada’s system of government, see P. Malcolmson, R. Myers, G. Baier, and T. Bateman, The Canadian Regime; and A. Marland and J. Wesley, The Public Servant’s Guide.

26. On this deal and the controversy surrounding it, see Juneau, ‘A Surprising Spat’.

27. We cannot absolutely discount the possibility that our interviewees did not wish to speak out about known instances of politicization because they felt these were too sensitive or they feared professional consequences. However, our survey included a large number of interviewees (60) and featured individuals who had left government. Moreover, interviewees answered our questions about politicization with a high degree of definitiveness. In turning to other sources of information that may contradict our findings, we also note that there are few stories in the media which suggest that politicization in terms of the way we define it here. As noted above, concerns about institutional bias, racism, and toxic cultures – separate but key pathologies that may impact intelligence analysis – are more common. See for example, E. Dyer, ‘Bias at the Border’, B. Forrester, ‘Activists, advocates criticize CSIS’ and N. Boisvert, ‘National Muslim charity launching legal challenge’.

28. K. Jensen, Cautious Beginnings; C. Leuprecht and J. Sokolsky, ‘Defense Policy “Walmart Style”’.

29. That said, a growing number of experts have been calling in recent years on Canada – both the government and the general population – to move away from their traditionally complacent approach and take national security issues more seriously, given the country’s deteriorating threat environment. See for example Carvin, Stand on Guard; Rigby and Juneau, A National Security Strategy for the 2020s; A. Shull and W. Wark, Reimagining a Canadian National Security Strategy.

30. A Podcast Called Intrepid, ‘Ep. 152’; A. Defty, ‘Coming in from the cold’; P. Lagassé and S. Saideman, ‘When civilian control is civil’. One anonymous reviewer noted that this process may not always be straightforward and committees in the United States, for example, may struggle to get the information they request. However, while this remains a challenge in an absolute sense, relative to other countries it is far less difficult. For example, Canadian legislators did not have regular access to any classified information until 2017. Thanks to discussions with Philippe Lagassé on this point.

31. This is, notably, the conclusion of the first report of the National Security Transparency Advisory Group (NS-TAG), an independent, external body set up by the minister of public safety in 2019 to advise the deputy minister of public safety on measures to enhance transparency in the national security community (one of the authors, Juneau, was the co-chair of the NS-TAG from 2019 to 2022). The report is available at: https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/2020-nstag-irwwh/index-en.aspx.

32. This trend has been accelerated by the pandemic; see Carvin, ‘Canadian National Security Operations’.

33. This is a conclusion reached in multiple reports by NSIRA, NSICOP, and NS-TAG, both in general and on specific issues. The NS-TAG assessed in ITS 2022 report that the national security and intelligence community was not sufficiently transparent in its relations with racialized communities. The report is available at: https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/2022-nstag-nsiirc-isnrccr/index-en.aspx.

34. There have been some limited concerns recently about the politicization of the public service more broadly. Nevertheless, the absence of any case of hard politicization of intelligence analysis is consistent with the well-established values of non-partisanship and professionalism of the public service in Canada. See P. Aucoin, ‘New Political Governance’ and M. Jarvis, Creating a High-Performing Canadian Civil Service.

35. A. Barnes, ‘Getting it right’.

36. For background, see Fyffe, ‘The Privy Council Office’.

37. A. Barnes, ‘Getting it right’, 939.

38. Ibid., 940.

39. For an overview of the evolution of threats to Canada’s national security, see Carvin, Stand on Guard.

40. J. Ling, ‘Was it really about vaccine mandates’.

41. The growing awareness of the threat of ideologically-motivated violent extremism can clearly be seen in recent Public Reports by CSIS; for the most recent, 2021 version, see https://www.canada.ca/en/security-intelligence-service/corporate/publications/csis-2021-public-report.html.

42. I. Wells, ‘Labelling the Proud Boys Terrorists’.

43. International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, ‘Expanding and Entrenching’.

44. C. Forcese and L. West, National Security Law; L. West, ‘Review and Oversight’.

45. West, Carvin, and Juneau, ‘National Security Can’t Become a Tool of Partisan Feuding’. Conservative politicians ended their boycott in February 2022, and remain on the Committee as of the summer of 2022 when this article was completed.

46. B. Robinson, ‘The Communications Security Establishment’.

47. C. Forcese and L. West, National Security Law, 615–635.

48. Juneau and Carvin, Intelligence Analysis and Policy Making.

49. West, Juneau, and Amarasingam, Stress Tested.

50. Canadian Security Intelligence Service, ‘Protect Your Research’; Government of Canada, ‘CSIS and Research Security’.

51. Public Order Emergency Commission, 2022.

52. NSIRA 2020.

53. On whistleblowing, see K. Mistry and H. Gurman, Whistleblowing Nation.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Thomas Juneau

Thomas Juneau is an associate professor at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, and a former analyst with Canada’s Department of National Defence.

Stephanie Carvin

Stephanie Carvin is an Associate Professor at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University and a former national security analyst with the Government of Canada