At his surprise return appearance before the Foreign Interference Commission on April 12, the CSIS Director, David Vigneault, made a striking claim. In explaining why he had not used key phrases from briefing notes prepared for him for briefings to the PM and PMO in October 2022 and again for the PMO in February 2023, he stated there was no need because the language would already have been very familiar to government officials. He told the Commission, “I can say with a high degree of confidence that I used these examples in both private briefings but also in public speeches.” He called them “tombstone” phrases.
As I have noted, these “tombstone” phrases recurred in the conclusions to both briefing notes, wherein it was stated that:
“Ultimately, better protecting Canada’s democratic institutions against FI will require a shift in the Government’s perspective and a willingness to take decisive action and impose consequences on perpetrators.”
and
“Until FI is viewed as constituting an existential threat to Canadian democracy and governments forcefully and actively respond, these threats will persist.”
Both briefing notes also contain this identical statement:
“State actors are able to conduct FI successfully in Canada because there are few legal or political consequences. FI is therefore low-risk and high-reward.” [1]
As I have commented previously, these statements constitute very strong warnings; they also represent a clear critique of the government’s policy, something that it is extraordinary for an intelligence service to engage in. [2]
I cannot fact-check this claim with regard to the CSIS Director’s private briefings. That will be a job for the FI Commission. But I can fact-check it with regard to public speeches. Fact-checking speeches is not just about fact-checking, more importantly it provides an opportunity to examine the evolution of CSIS public messaging on national security threats.
David Vigneault became CSIS Director in June 2017. Since that time, he has given four public speeches. I am going to summarise the contents of each one.
The first was delivered in December 2018 to an audience at the Economic Club of Canada in Toronto. [3]
That first speech was an attempt by the Director to change the channel, to turn the public’s attention from the ongoing threat of terrorism that had dominated security outlooks since 9/11, to what he called the “greatest threat to our prosperity and national interest, namely: foreign interference and espionage.” He identified “traditional interference” by foreign spies as the greatest danger, but also talked about the growing concern over cyber interference and the ways in which activities by hostile states “can have a corrosive effect on our democratic systems and institutions.” He promised that the Service would be closely monitoring foreign interference attempts as the 2019 federal election came closer.
Director Vigneault devoted a large part of his speech to economic security threats, as foreign spies sought to steal Canadian commercial secrets and to pillage research. It was an understandable pitch to his particular audience. Foreign interference directed at elections and democratic processes was not exactly centre-stage, and was described as but one aspect of a larger problem. None of the language that appears in the controversial briefings notes of October 2022 and February 2023 figured in this speech.
The Director’s second public speech took place over two years later, on February 9, 2021. It was delivered online, thanks to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, at an event hosted by the Centre for International Governance Innovation. [4] At this time CIGI was engaged on a major project on “Reimagining a Canadian National Security Strategy,” about which it would release a capstone report in December. [5]
The speech discussed the impact of the pandemic, the spread of disinformation about pandemic responses, mobilisation of extremist rhetoric, and exploitation by state actors. But some threat vectors remained constant and the CSIS Director now referred to the combination of espionage and foreign interference as a “one-two punch.” He returned again to threats targeting key Canadian economic sectors.
The CSIS Director had more to say this time on foreign interference than was the case in December 2018. He argued that foreign interference campaigns had accelerated on the backs of technological change, with the objective of interfering in political discourse and creating social tensions. He characterised interference in electoral and democratic processes as “some of the most paramount concerns,” while also noting that “our electoral system has been shown to be resilient.” He mentioned online disinformation campaigns and forms of transnational repression such as China’s Operation Fox Hunt, “which claims to target corruption but is also believed to have been used to target and quiet dissidents to the regime.”
Using heightened threats from foreign interference as a lever, the CSIS Director argued that the Service needed new tools and updated legislation so that it could better protect Canadians and indeed forge partnerships with Canadians.
While this speech reflected a changing threat environment and paid more attention to foreign interference, it contains none of the language of the 2022 and 2023 briefing notes.
Two down.
Just over a year later, in May 2022, the CSIS Director gave his third public speech, this time on the west coast at the University of British Columbia. [6] This speech followed, of course, the second of Canada’s recent federal elections, the one held in September 2021, but it predated media stories and fierce political controversy over Chinese state election interference.
The theme of pandemic-related disruption was repeated, alongside a continuing concern about threats from IMVE actors (‘ideologically motivated violent extremists) riding waves of conspiracy theories and online opportunities for message spread.
David Vigneault again stressed that foreign interference threats were “accelerating” and could have impacts on fundamental institutions and political processes. He said that “Foreign states and individuals acting at their direction engage in cyber espionage, spread disinformation via social media platforms and issues threats to silence those who speak-out publicly against them.”
The CSIS Director ended his speech with a familiar refrain. Tackling a complex threat environment required CSIS to work in partnership with Canadians. It also meant that CSIS had to pay attention to achieving diversity and inclusion goals in its workplace, to better reflect the makeup of Canadian society. He made a special appeal to students in the audience to consider working for CSIS in their future plans.
Attention to foreign interference was again a feature of this speech, but there is nothing in this public speech to mirror the language in the controversial briefing notes.
This leads me to the most recent public speech, the fourth of four the Director has delivered. This one was given on December 11, 2023, at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg. [7] It is the only public speech the CSIS Director has made in the aftermath of media stories about election interference. It was delivered well after David Johnston’s report as independent special rapporteur (May 2023) and after the creation of the Foreign Interference Commission (September 2023).
Foreign interference was, understandably, a clear theme of the speech. But, as he had done before, the CSIS Director positioned foreign interference as one of two great “strategic challenges,” the other being state-sponsored foreign espionage. He said this combination of threats continued to grow. In the setting of the Human Rights Museum the CSIS Director talked about harms done to individuals by foreign state actors, including harms of repression but also impacts on personal economic security.
The People’s Republic of China was singled out as the “leading actor” conducting a wide array of foreign interference operations including espionage and intellectual property theft damaging Canadian enterprises and threatening innovation. The PRC’s transnational repression efforts were described as “vast.”
Director Vigneault also mentioned the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar and the Prime Minister’s statement about credible allegations of a potential role of played by the Government of India in the assassination. He talked about reports of intimidation by Iran, especially of Canadian advocates for women’s rights in the Islamic Republic. Russian information operations to cover its war in Ukraine was another theme.
In a preview of the focus of the Defence Policy Update, just released, the CSIS Director also talked about the need to protect Canada’s Arctic and mentioned the PRC’s “strategic, economic and military interests” in the high North. These, he said “are no longer a secret.”
Other familiar elements recurred in the speech—the IMVE threat; the need for a partnership with Canadians; the need for modernised legislation for CSIS; the need to build a more diverse workforce in the Service; and finally, the importance of the fight to safeguard democracy.
But nowhere is there any mention of foreign interference as an existential threat, of the need for government to dramatically change course and take decisive action, no mention of foreign interference as a low-risk, high-reward enterprise for foreign state actors or that Canada lagged behind its Five Eyes partners.
Huh.
I have no idea why the CSIS Director testified as he did. Perhaps his personal memory, or more likely, the corporate one, failed him on this occasion. What is clear is that the Director’s public speeches have always drawn attention to foreign interference threats. It is also clear that the Director has never seen foreign interference in Canadian elections or democratic processes as a singular threat. He has described it as one part of a strategic challenge twinned with widespread assaults by foreign state-sponsored espionage. Foreign interference in democratic processes has always been described, quite appropriately, as one part of a fast-moving and complex threat environment.
This has been a constant and important message from the CSIS Director over five years from December 2018 to December 2023. Its a message being lost in media coverage, in partisan and emotive political debate, and in the more narrowly focused work of the FI Commission. Maybe it is a message difficult to convey to political officials. Maybe even analysts in his own organization, those putting together the briefing binders, don’t get the bigger picture.
The overriding issue is the fact that in testimony before the Commission the CSIS Director clearly avowed the exaggerated and singular characterization of the foreign interference threat as existential and the direct criticisms of government policy, as not only the Service’s view but his own. That is loyalty. It comes from being between a rock and a hard place. But it obscures the good work done in public speeches. It crosses, as I suggested in a previous post (“CSIS Director David Vigneault puts pen his hockey skates,” April 13, 2024), red lines for an intelligence service.
The controversy over what the Director did or did not convey to officials will continue. Now, it’s the Commission’s turn to do a little fact-finding about the language used in “private” briefings. Did he or did he not…?
[1] The CSIS Director’s briefing note for a meeting with the PM and PMO in October 2022, is CAN015842; The briefing note for PMO in February 2023 is CAN004495. Both are in the FI Commission public database at https://foreigninterferencecommission.ca/documents/exhibits-and-presentations
[2] Wesley Wark, “Pants on Fire? The CSIS Director is recalled to the stand,” April 11, 2024, https://wesleywark.substack.com/p/pants-on-fire
[3] “Remarks by Director David Vigneault at the Economic Club of Canada,” December 2018, https://www.canada.ca/en/security-intelligence-service/news/2018/12/remarks-by-director-david-vigneault-at-the-economic-club-of-canada.html
[4] “Remarks by Director David Vigneault to the Centre for International Governance Innovation,” February 9, 2021, https://www.canada.ca/en/security-intelligence-service/news/2021/02/remarks-by-director-david-vigneault-to-the-centre-for-international-governance-innovation.html
[5] CIGI Special Report, Aaron Shull and Wesley Wark, “Reimagining a Canadian National Security Strategy,” December 2021, https://www.cigionline.org/static/documents/NSS_Special-Report_web_eX1LDtj.pdf
[6] “Remarks by CSIS Director David Vigneault to the University of British Columbia,” May 4, 2022, https://www.canada.ca/en/security-intelligence-service/news/2022/05/remarks-by-director-david-vigneault-to-the-university-of-british-columbia.html
[7] “CSIS Director’s Speech at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights,” December 11, 2023, https://www.canada.ca/en/security-intelligence-service/news/2024/01/remarks-by-csis-director-david-vigneault-at-the-canadian-museum-for-human-rights.html#
Just a personal opinion, but this government especially but most federal governments in the past have been much more interested in being the municipal government of Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver than being the national government of a G7 nation and therefore put national security near the bottom of their focus and priorities. Our defence and foreign affairs sections of the crown have been warning the federal governments for years of the dangers of ignoring their responsibilities, why would the director of CSIS be any different?
Also the time for the establishment of a MI6 type foreign intelligence service is long past due. And no, I am not advocating for a direct action service, but at minimum a service that can operate off our shores to be able to identify threats to Canada long before they become a subject at an inquiry and an embarrassment to the government.
Important observation:
"...in testimony before the (Foreign Interference) Commission, the CSIS Director clearly avowed the exaggerated and singular characterization of the foreign interference threat as existential and the direct criticisms of government policy, as not only the Service’s view but his own."
David Vigneault crossed not one but two lines.