(Dear Readers: It might be helpful to read my previous column on the NSIRA review of GSRP before tackling this piece)
See: “GSRP Dissected,” December 20, 2023. https://wesleywark.substack.com/p/gsrp-dissected
Why am I going on about the Global Security Reporting Program (or GSRP)? Because I think it is a valuable, if small, part of the knowledge enterprise, call it the intelligence community, that the government must rely on to better understand the dynamics and threats contained in the international system. Recall that the Indo-Pacific strategy, among its promises, pledged to increase the ability of Canada to monitor the region. Diplomats, including those posted as GSRP officers, have an important role to play in the Indo-Pacific, as well as elsewhere around the world.
The GSRP has been bashed about in the media and subjected to scrutiny in the recently released report from the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA).
The NSIRA report is here:
The Globe and Mail’s headline regarding the NSIRA report read:
“Global Affairs unit ran afoul of Vienna Convention…”
That attention grabber was not actually established by the report.
A follow-on Op Ed contributed by a trio of Carleton University professors, Stephanie Carvin, Leah West and Jessica Davis, described the NSIRA report as “damning.” I don’t share that assessment. They go on to say that “the problems with GSRP are the consequence of engaging in foreign human intelligence on the cheap,” even though the report does not actually say that. The authors are clearly taken by the most quotable phrase from the NSIRA report:
“GSRP operates in a distinctly grey zone.”
They argue that “the program cannot live in a halfway house between diplomatic reporting and intelligence-gathering: the risks are simply too high.”
I want to interrogate this concept of a “distinctly grey zone.” It is important to ask what it means exactly, if anything; and also to consider what it reflects about Canada’s approach to the conduct of diplomatic reporting, especially from within authoritarian states.
The first thing that strikes one on reading the NSIRA report is that the meaning it ascribes to “distinctly grey zone” is never really defined. The phrase is not cited in the executive summary of the report.
It is mentioned only once in the text of the report, where NSIRA suggests that because GSRP reporting has been aligned with government intelligence priorities (since 2009) and because it is managed from within GAC’s intelligence bureau that it therefore operates in a grey zone. This makes no sense to me.
Surely you would not want a diplomatic reporting program focused on global security issues not to align with government intelligence priorities, which, when set at the Cabinet level, are typically very broad. Nor is there anything remarkable or ‘greyish’ about the GSRP being managed by officials in GAC’s intelligence bureau. That bureaucratic home simply allows for GSRP overt, single-source reporting to be better integrated into intelligence assessments and allows GSRP reporting to be shared with clients in the federal government and with Five Eyes partners. It is hard for me to imagine where else GSRP could be placed and still be effective. Nor do I see this, as the NSIRA report suggests, as indicating any kind of “dichotomy.” In the NSIRA usage, the grey zone concept is distinctly incoherent.
Evidence provided in the NSIRA report of “grey zone” activity by GSRP officers is largely missing in action.
At one place the NSIRA report states that “the review observed instances in which Canada’s allies misidentified GSRP officers as Canadian intelligence representatives.” One wonders where the blame lies here?
The NSIRA report does call attention to relations between CSIS and GSRP at missions abroad. While the report notes that “multiple GSRP officers…generally found CSIS partners at missions collegial and forthcoming with security advice,” the potential for coordination problems is clear and not all is smooth sailing between GAC and CSIS. The report goes on to state that “NSIRA also observed numerous cases where it did not appear that GSRP officers had adequately productive relationships with CSIS at missions.” The indication in the report is that this may have been due to a tendency by CSIS officers to keep “to themselves.” Better deconfliction and a sustained effort at good relations between the CSIS and GAC team are clearly needed. Both should be partners to this improvement.
Where else does the NSIRA report find examples of grey zone activity? Two cases are cited where GSRP officers may have requested or received classified information from a contact. Some of the details are redacted. One case refers to an instance where “a GSRP officer received what appeared to be classified [redacted] from a contact.” A footnote indicated that the GSRP officer did not request this information and handled it carefully, requesting guidance from headquarters on whether to report it. The other case involves an instance where a “GSRP officer [redacted] requested and received what was likely classified information from a contact. The information received included [redacted].”
Neither of these cases seem to me to provide much reason to hang a “grey zone” hat on the GSRP program as a whole or its 30 officers operating around the world.
Where “grey zone” activities might conceivably emerge would be in clandestine efforts to protect the GSRP’s sources of information, which would come close to common intelligence agency precautions around protecting sources and assets. While the GSRP must pay attention to risks to its contacts, there is no evidence provided by NSIRA that it mimics intelligence agency practices in that regard. In fact, the NSIRA report notes that GSRP officers often follow the lead of their contacts in assessing any risk around meetings and information exchanges. The NSIRA report also notes that “in many respects, GSRP management’s contention that a contact cannot be perceived in the same manner as an intelligence source is accurate.” The NSIRA report also notes that “certainly, most GSRP officers’ interactions with contacts are innocuous.”
The NSIRA report does note a lack of a consistent approach by GSRP officers in explaining “assurances” that could be offered to contacts about how their information would be handled and used. That does seem a policy gap that should be closed. But it does not reflect anything specific to GSRP reporting as opposed to normal diplomatic reporting or further the case that the GSRP operates in some nominal “grey zone.”
And so we come to the conclusion of the report, where for the first time we see the statement that “GSRP operates in a distinctly grey zone.” It supports this statement by reference to a GSRP presentation which described the Program’s desire for “greater integration of intelligence community standards and best practices into the GSRP, while maintaining its diplomatic ethos.” There is no further explanation provided about what “standards and best practices” are being referenced. The inference is simply that the GSRP is somehow being pulled away from its “diplomatic ethos.” This view is further exemplified by what must be considered as pure speculation from NSIRA about the “creation of a foreign intelligence entity within GAC” or the “allowance of mission creep.”
I don’t want to be sniffy about composition rules, but the general standard for any piece of writing is that you don’t introduce new and untested ideas into a conclusion. If NSIRA thought that GAC was somehow set on creating a foreign intelligence entity, with GSRP as a possible stalking horse, then it needs to explain the evidence for this. If it thought that GSRP was being captured by mission creep, say how.
There is something else perturbing in the report’s conclusion. This concerns its floating of the idea of “reciprocity” as an important restraining principle for the conduct of Canadian diplomats abroad. NSIRA’s evident fear is that if a foreign state has concerns about the conduct of GSRP officers it may encourage them to conduct their own “grey zone” activities against Canada. All one can say about that is—really?
A degree of geopolitical naivete often seems at play in the NSIRA report, especially with regard to how authoritarian states, like China, function. For example:
“NSIRA emphasizes that GSRIP officers should be wary of placing a receiving state in the position to seek remedy.”
But, in reality, a “receiving” state, such as China, will “seek remedy” (e.g. take measures against a diplomat) as and when it chooses. As the NSIRA report indicates, there is no requirement under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations for a host government to explain or defend any hostile actions it may take.
At another place the NSIRA report states, “where GSRP activity takes on the perceived attributes of espionage, there is an increased risk of exceeding the GSRP mandate, violating the receiving state’s domestic law, and exceeding the GSRP officer’s legal diplomatic functions.” But the key word here is “perceived.” Again, authoritarian states that practice intensive and repressive domestic surveillance will always be inclined to “perceive” espionage in the activity of a foreign state’s diplomatic representatives, especially, it must be said, when a diplomat tries to report on human rights abuses, which are not in the core mandate of the GSRP. Perceived is in the eye of the authoritarian beholder.
NSIRA would like there to be some neat legal or policy ribbon tied around the GSRP program, but again this seems to avoid the geopolitical reality of hostile state responses, unless risk is to be avoided simply by not collecting certain categories of information and reporting back. This would cede the game to repressive states, like China, which create very broad legal definitions of espionage and impose commitments on citizens and corporations to assist the state in countering alleged foreign threats.
The NSIRA report also suggests that the GSRP lacks any “governance framework” that articulates internal policies and provides guidance to GSRP officers on how to perform their diplomatic reporting functions. One thing puzzles me about this finding. There is no mention of the manual prepared for GSRP officials in 2012 to guide their work, and no mention of a series of internal evaluations of the program which would have addressed governance issues. These elements of the program were expressly mentioned in the study conducted by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) of GAC’s conduct of intelligence broadly, which makes their exclusion from the NSIRA report all the more strange.
For the NSICOP special report, see:
https://www.nsicop-cpsnr.ca/reports/rp-2022-11-04/special-report-global-affairs.pdf
There wouldn’t be a need for a GSRP if GAC did more political reporting from missions abroad as a matter of course. Ideally all political affairs officers at missions abroad would do GSRP-like work and what one former GSRP officer described to me as the uncomfortable “magic hat” of the GSRP function could be set aside. But that isn‘t in the cards, and having a “fenced” resource devoted to diplomatic reporting on global security issues is the next best thing.
I hate to be critical of NSIRA, which has a valuable role to play as an independent review body devoted to scrutinising the elements of Canada’s intelligence system for compliance with the law and with its authorities. The NSIRA report does, to its credit, make some important recommendations on how the GSRP function could be better managed. I find it overly legalistic at times and geopolitically naive. But the main problem with the report is that in raising doubts about the nature of the GSRP, ascribing hidden dimensions to it, without much evidence, and casting it into some alleged “grey zone” it has done harm, while at the same time failing to evaluate the benefits of the GSRP.
If a notion that the GSRP operates in a “grey zone” takes hold without sufficient thought, this will represent a real victory for risk aversion, and a ‘holier than though’ Canadian approach, at a time when Canada needs all the different streams of information and intelligence it can gather about the global system and its perils.
As has generally been the case with your commentaries, Professor Wark, this blistering (and well-founded) critique of NSIRA’s assessment was thoughtful and succinct. I strongly concur in particular with your observation regarding the circumstances that led to the Government of Canada’s decision to establish the GSRP program: namely, the GoC’s long-standing failure to accord the proper degree of priority to—and the allocation of dedicated human resources needed for—a sustained and comprehensive program of political and strategic analysis produced by trained diplomats “in the field”.
You were, however, a little too kind, I think, to those who wrote the NSIRA report (and senior Canadian government bureaucrats more generally).
As a rule, the senior ranks of the public service are filled with those who have secured their positions on the basis of their perceived effectiveness as managers capable of navigating the too-complex world of the Ottawa bureaucracy.
Expertise of a more technical nature—and in particular a thorough grounding in foreign affairs, together with a well-rounded / well-informed understanding of the history and politics of China, Russia and other adversaries—has seldom helped ambitious officials to advance their careers.
As for those who have lived experience in those places—and solid academic grounding in their study. Well, let’s just say these assets are deeply undervalued in Ottawa.
Ah, a (not very) diplomatic bun fight in which we, the observers, are effectively being asked to take sides with incomplete and [redacted] information. The method of bringing about the "correct" emPHAsis - note, not the Emphasis - is leaking to and using/misusing the Grope and Flail.
My point is pretty much what I perceive to be your point, Professor Wark, that is, that this whole thing is based on smears that are not obviously supported by the body of the report. You, Sir, are much more qualified than I, a simple Canadian who reads the newspapers, etc. in an effort to understand what my government and it's various minions are or are not doing. These characters are sure trying to get us worked up with little (apparent) documentation to back them up.
I very much try to pay attention to the reportage of Messrs. Fife and Chase but one must always remember that a) the reporters/columnists do not write the headlines; and b) while the reporters/columnists invariably have more background and sources than I or any member of the general public, those same reporters/columnists can be taken advantage of by their sources.
As always, caveat emptor!