Jody Thomas spills some beans on intelligence

Or, another Important Learning Moment (caps deliberate)

First , I am sure you are dying to know where the phrase “spilling the beans” comes from. According to Dr. Google, it (probably) derives from the ancient Greek practice of placing black or white beans in a jar to case votes. If someone spilled the beans, the results of elections might be known prematurely.

Mention of election interference in this word derivation sent a shiver down my spine.  Your’s?

We are learning a lot recently in public about the Canadian intelligence system and how it functions.  Some of the secrecy that typically shrouds Canadian intelligence practices has been pierced and the picture isn’t always pretty.

The process began with the public hearings conducted by Justice Rouleau during his Public Order Emergency Commission. The Commission was mandated by the Emergencies Act and was held in response to the events of the Freedom Convoy protests in January and February 2022.  

The picture that emerged of intelligence monitoring of the Freedom Convoy displayed siloes at work, multiple streams of reporting, a system that struggled to pull together a coherent intelligence picture, the overlooking of some non-traditional sources of reporting, especially intelligence reports from the Ontario Provincial Police, gaps in the picture owing to restrictions on the use of open source intelligence, and ultimately action taken on the basis of uncertainty and fear about what the future might hold if strong measures through invocation of the Emergencies Act were delayed.

Justice Rouleau presented his final report on February 17, 2023.  It now stands almost forgotten—less than four months later.

Coincidentally on that day—February 17--the Globe and Mail published a sensation-tinged story about Chinese election interference in the 2021 federal election, based on access to leaked classified records provided to it by an anonymous source(s).   Attention shifted dramatically to the question of intelligence failures around the handling of foreign interference threats by the Chinese state.

A House of Commons standing committee, Procedures and House Affairs (PROC) that had been exploring issues of foreign interference in Canadian elections since November 2022, was inspired by the Globe and Mail story of February 17 to extend and ramp up its study.   What I have described as a chain reaction linking anonymous sources with unknown agendas, to selective media reporting based on access to a small range of classified material, to high political drama and partisan attacks, has unfolded.  

The drama is now centred on the work of the independent special rapporteur, David Johnston, appointed by the Government in March 2023 to hopefully shed light in a less partisan manner on election interference threats.  Creating a special rapporteur was one of a number of steps the Prime Minister announced on March 6, including reports into the matter by the review bodies, the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA) and the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP).  Both review bodies have formulated terms of reference for their studies, but reporting will take time, likely at least a year. The special rapporteur has been denounced as a “fake job” by the Conservative party leader and his independence and integrity called into question. Mr. Johnston’s first report, issued on May 23, did nothing to calm the political storm, especially after he decided against recommending a judicial inquiry. Opposition parties in Parliament banded together to pass a motion calling on him to step down.  Mr. Johnston declined to do so.

He is now set to testify before PROC for three hours on Tuesday, June 6. That will be a bruising moment, and perhaps a make-or-break occasion for the Government’s plan to rely on the work of the special rapporteur to come up with timely ideas to better address foreign interference threats in the future.

In the midst of all this, a moment of illumination about problems with intelligence and fixes already under way was offered by the National Security and Intelligence Adviser, Jody Thomas, in testimony before PROC on June 1. 

Yes, she spilled some beans.

For anyone who wants a deep dive I encourage you to watch the proceedings over the two hours on June 1 (or read the transcript when it is posted to the committee website).

https://www.ourcommons.ca/Committees/en/PROC/Meetings

Here, I want to offer my takeaways.

The two key stories that emerged from Ms. Thomas’ testimony involved new approaches to national security transparency and to making better use of intelligence. Both reforms have been propelled by the controversy over Chinese election interference but also represent efforts to address some long-standing legacy problems with the Canadian system.

In her testimony, Jody Thomas stressed that the government had to do a much better job of communicating with Canadians about the nature of national security threats and responses. She acknowledged this as a deep-rooted problem—something that successive governments were just not very good at. How exactly they will tackle this problem is as yet unclear. Whether the government will go whole-hog (derivation forthcoming in a future newsletter) and produce a public national security strategy remains to be seen. But here, at least, is a clear opening.

Transparency with Canadians is the broad objective, but Ms. Thomas understood that the Parliamentary committee was more interested in its own precinct (formally known in Parliament Hill jargon as “this place”)—what is to be done about communication of national security threats, and especially election interference threats, to Parliamentarians.

More beans were spilled.  Ms. Thomas, riffing off the Public Safety Minister’s May 16 directive, told MPs on the committee that in the future all intelligence warnings available to the agencies about interference threats to MPs would be communicated to the PM and Ministers and that individual MPs known to be targeted would be briefed directly by CSIS.  These briefings would not be the generic (what Ms. Thomas called “anodyne”)  “defensive” briefings provided in the past, but more detailed briefings about the available intelligence.

Makes sense you say. But there is a big catch. The new determination is to provide briefings to MPs on all threat intelligence, whether or not the intelligence has been rated as credible, has been verified, or corroborated.  In effect, all intelligence means intelligence that may be true, or may be false, may be partial or may be full, may be part of an ongoing investigation, or determined not to be worth an ongoing investigation.

This seems extraordinary. Why are they doing this? Partly for cover--to avoid any repeat of the current situation in which MPs were not provided with timely or substantive warnings, and the political fallout became huge. Partly, because it is deemed the right thing to do.  As Ms. Thomas stated, the lesson learned from the current controversy over election interference is that “early warning is better” (than no warning). Partly because, at least Ms. Thomas as NSIA believes, it can be safely done. There are risks to security of course, and risks of creating alarm and anxiety where none is warranted. But Ms. Thomas believes that a formula can be found for such briefings so that experience will hone the delivery by CSIS and the process of making Parliamentarians aware will become routinized. She is looking, as she explained, for a sweet spot between defensive briefings, often regarded as of limited value, and the use by CSIS of its lawful threat reduction powers, which sets a whole internal process in motion and may, in some circumstances, require a Federal Court warrant.  To their credit, MPs on the committee, especially from the Liberals and NDP, probed the delicate balance sought with some insightful questions.

More transparency for Canadians on national security.  Delivery TBD. More transparency for Parliamentarians about election or pre-election interference threats, delivery already underway.  Let’s hope the immediate fix (getting briefings going for MPs) does not ultimately bury the more important, longer-term fix, improving national security literacy in Canada. (Sorry MPs).

The second important reveal from the NSIA concerned how to better use intelligence for policy-making. I referred to this in my own testimony to PROC on May 30 as part of the ‘culture of intelligence’ problem. But Ms. Thomas put it succinctly.  She told the committee that Canada’s intelligence agencies collect lots of intelligence; analysts in the agencies analyse lots of intelligence and produce lots of assessments. The real problem comes when questions are asked and decisions have to be made about how to use all this busy intelligence activity. The NSIA called this the “advice” problem. And it obviously goes well beyond the question of who receives what reports in what format  (the machinery of intelligence flows). It is a genuine culture of intelligence problem.

For a very long time in the history of the Canadian post-World War Two intelligence system the challenge presented for the reception to intelligence could be boiled down to this reaction by senior readers—‘that’s an interesting report, but what am I supposed to do about it.’ Don’t misread this. The question that was being asked repeatedly was: how is this intelligence relevant to Canadian national interests? In what way does it require action by Canada? These questions reflected an age when Canada’s geopolitical strategic interests were largely taken care of by greater-power allies and when direct threats to Canadian national security in the domestic arena were relatively easy to manage (over over-manage in the case of RCMP security service witch hunts about subversive threats). Sometimes they boiled over (1970 October crisis), but rarely.

All that began to change after the 9/11 attacks and the formulation of a new national security threat environment focused on terrorism. The direct relevancy of at least one stream of intelligence was suddenly clear.

Over the past several years (and coincident with the decline of the terrorism threat)  we have entered a very different age of national security threats, often borderless, some non-traditional, and many directly affecting Canada and Canadians and requiring specific decision-making responses.  I could rhyme off the new threats—cyber aggression, digitally enabled espionage, climate change impacts, pandemics, threats to economic security, geopolitical threats requiring Canadian engagement (Ukraine, Indo-Pacific), domestic extremism and polarization, rampant technological change.  The idea of a truly sovereign Canadian intelligence need has been born, but it is not clear that the thinking about intelligence has shifted in commensurate ways. The old questions about the real relevance of intelligence to policy-making linger.

In spilling the beans about the need for better advice on intelligence, I think the NSIA is operating to try to change mindsets. She wants the Deputy Minister community better engaged in reading intelligence, consulting on it, and doing their job, which is to provide advice to Ministers (providing advice is not the job of intelligence). She wants better dissemination of intelligence by the agencies and better tracking of how intelligence moves through the system.  All this is good, but individually, or in combination, may not be enough to shake a deep-rooted system. There may need to be changes to Ms. Thomas’ own function and resources. 

She owned that she might not be the best person to opine on how to change the office of the NSIA but did at least advance the view that it would be helpful for the NSIA to have “more authority” to direct the national security and intelligence agencies.

There may need to be changes to how the Cabinet deals with intelligence issues.  There may need to be changes to how intelligence analysis is handled across government. There may need to be changes to how intelligence is collected, especially in regard to open source intelligence, and how tasks are prioritized. Maybe there is a need to think through all of this with more attention to long-term strategic needs as opposed to short-term operational fixes.  Maybe there should be Canada’s first ever intelligence system review (the system is only coming up to 80 years old, so why not have a go?)

All this to say, Ms. Thomas’s spilled beans are an important indicator and sign of real movement. But there is much more that needs to be done and lots of room for Mr. Johnston as special rapporteur to hear ideas through public hearings, and to propose his own reforms and changes without fear of duplication.

I’ll leave this column with three vignettes from the Committee hearings on June 1. (I’ll try to be equal opportunity).  One was a comment from a Bloc MP about “how is it we are learning so many things this morning!”   As an aside, this was said in a spirit of exasperation rather than learning, I thought. One comment was from an NDP member who asked whether she was expected to believe that the system was suddenly fixed. Rhetorical question alert!  A third I will give to Ms. Thomas, who can be feisty.  As a Conservative MP got into fist-banging mode, she reminded him that this was not question period. I don’t think he looked abashed.

All this will pale, I suspect, compared to the atmosphere that will descend on the Committee rooms in the West Block tomorrow, when David Johnston is set to testify for three hours.

But, please, let beans continue to be spilled and intelligent and necessary changes to the intelligence system continue.