Q and A with Vincent Rigby, former NSIA

Trying to get a message across to a Parliamentary committee is a challenging and often frustrating business. Challenging because there is a rigid structure at play and lots of politics and preening. Time at Parliamentary committees is divided into bite size and strictly controlled moments. As a witness, you get a few minutes (nowadays usually five) to make an opening statement. Then the Chair parcels out questions in order to the parties, in rounds of various minutes duration (but no more than six minutes). Bite size moments, questions all over the map, bite size answers, some soap box stuff in between, occasional revelations. It’s easy to come away shaking your head.

I asked Vincent Rigby (bio to follow), whether he might be prepared to play beyond the boundaries of his recent testimony on June 8 to the Standing Committee on Procedures and House Affairs, in order to enlarge on some of the issues he raised.

You can read his testimony here:

https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/PROC/meeting-81/evidence

What follows is an entirely unedited Q and A exchange between us, which I hope readers will find of great interest.

But first, a short bio for Mr. Rigby, whom I have known for some time. His is a quintessential career in national security and intelligence in the Canadian government than spans some 30 years.

Vincent Rigby is currently the McConnell Visiting Professor at the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill University, where he teaches and engages in research. In his last position in government he served as the National Security and Intelligence Adviser to the Prime Minister between January 2020 and June 2021. Prior appointments included service as associate deputy minister of foreign affairs at Global Affairs Canada from August 2019 until January 2020; associate deputy minister of Public Safety Canada from July 2017 until August 2019; and assistant deputy minister of strategic policy at Global Affairs Canada from 2013 to 2017. In all those positions he was a senior consumer of intelligence. He has also been an intelligent producer, serving as executive director of the International Assessment Secretariat from 2008 to 2010, and Afghanistan intelligence lead official at the Privy Council Office (PCO), where he was responsible for coordinating the Canadian intelligence community in support of Canada's Afghanistan mission.

Following his retirement from government, Mr. Rigby co-directed a task force report produced in May 2022 by the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public Policy entitled “A National Security Strategy for the 2020s: How Canada can adapt to a deteriorating security environment.” You can (and should) read the full report here:

https://www.uottawa.ca/faculty-social-sciences/sites/g/files/bhrskd371/files/2022-09/natsec_report_gspia_may2022.pdf

In short, Vincent Rigby knows a thing or two, and it is our good fortune that he is prepared to share that knowledge. That didn't used to be the MO for retired senior officials from the national security and intelligence world, but times they are a’ changing.

Q1.  In your testimony you mentioned that one of the reforms you enacted while NSIA was to create a Deputy Ministers’ Committee on Intelligence. You indicated it had three standard agenda items: strategic intelligence assessments; actionable intelligence; coordination issues across the intelligence community. You said it was still a work in progress when you left.  Can you tell us why?

A1. I can’t remember the exact timing of the creation of the DMIC, but I believe it was in late 2020 or early 2021. So by the time I retired in June 2021, it had only been in existence for about six months. In other words, it was still finding its feet. Deputies had traditionally only discussed strategic assessments in the DM Intelligence Assessment (DMIA) Committee, which I had set up as IAS director in 2009 or 2010. These assessments tended to be more “big picture” in nature and less actionable, at least in the short-term. Addressing more specific and/or operational issues, often based on individual single-source or sigint reporting, while asking the “so what” question (what do we do with this intelligence? does it require a response? who needs to see it?), required a very different mind-set. It wasn’t an easy transition. At the same time, flagging the right topics and the right intelligence for DMs was challenging for the community. The default was still to provide finished or assessed products. That is everyone’s preference, but it takes time to produce those kinds of assessments. I wanted to get ahead of the game and look at other types of intell that required potentially more urgent responses. I was looking for a better mix of the strategic and operational. The process was improving by the time of my retirement but it was still inconsistent.

Q2.  You indicated at least four changes you would like to see to enhance governance and national security transparency:  Creation of a DNI-like office; creation of a Cabinet committee devoted to national security and intelligence issues; the publication of annual threat assessments; the publication of intelligence priorities. Why do you think change in these directions is proving difficult?

A2. I think once again it comes down to the lack of a National Security (NS) culture in Canadian government, including around intelligence. Canadians just don’t take NS seriously, despite the dangerous security environment in which we find ourselves and all the events of the last two years (Afghanistan, Ukraine, the freedom convoy, foreign interference). Our major Allies seem to get it, but we don’t. Producing a strategy, creating a cabinet committee on NS, strengthening intelligence coordination at the centre, or being more transparent through public threat assessments and other similar measures, would put us on the same level as our allies. In other words, these are not outlandish proposals that have never been tried before!! But Canadian governments don’t take the threat seriously enough, tend to wait for crises to develop before responding, and then stumble through them and return to other priorities once they have passed. We need to start changing this culture by conducting a through public review of our NS strategies and tools.  It will be hard work, but it’s more pressing than ever.    

Q3. You mentioned that PCO produces both a daily intelligence brief for wide circulation and a weekly intelligence brief for the Prime Minister. Would you advocate changes to this system of intelligence reporting?

A3. In terms of providing intelligence to the Prime Minister, the weekly written brief is only part of the picture. Don’t forget that the NSIA also regularly briefs the PM, both face-to-face and through formal memos, and the community provides him with National Intelligence Assessments. At the same time, PMO receives the daily brief as well as oral briefings from the IAS. Should there be more intel passed to the PM? I’m not sure the PM needs a daily intelligence brief like the US President unless we were in a state of severe crisis. But I do think he should be chairing a Cabinet Committee on National Security comprised of key ministers that would meet at least every two weeks and receive regular, detailed intelligence briefs. 

Q4.  You were very clear in your view that the person or persons who leaked national security intelligence was “categorically” wrong to do so. Do you have a view as to why the leaker(s) acted as they did?

A4.  I’m a firm advocate of more transparency in NS, but as I said at PROC, leaking highly classified intelligence is NOT the way to go about it. Leaks of this nature undermine our NS, put lives at risk, threaten our standing with allies, and detract from our parliamentary system of accountable government. I’m sure these individuals (my gut feeling is that there’s more than one) believe that this was the right thing to do. The Globe and Mail testimonial drove that point home. The author of that article clearly believed that government did not act on intelligence related to FI and put Canadian democracy at risk as a result. In such circumstances, he or she felt there was no choice but to go to the public.  But that’s not how a parliamentary democracy works. Governments are accountable to Canadians – not public servants. The latter provide information and advice and the former decide what to do with it. There are other ways for public servants to express their frustration within the system. And if that doesn’t do the trick for the individual, then resignation is always an option. Leaking classified documents sets a very bad example, and could lead to others following the same path whenever the government doesn’t act on information or advice provided by public servants, which could result in chaos and a complete breakdown in our system of government.  Were there are other motives at play? Ego?  Politics? Personal grievances? We will likely find out only when the perpetrators are caught.

Q5. You mentioned that the idea of providing security clearances to individuals in the private sector was explored during your time as NSIA.  Did anything come of that idea?

A5 This was certainly discussed during my time as NSIA. I was informed by members of the community that the private sector appreciated receiving intelligence briefings by CSIS and others, but that some companies, universities, and institutions were frustrated with the level of threat detail owing to their lack of security clearances. It’s difficult for these groups to protect their research and other secrets if they can’t access classified information on specific threats. I’m not sure if this has been pursued further since my departure, but I do believe it’s something that we need to consider as part of broader transparency efforts.  This would include providing party leaders with clearances to receive classified threat briefings.

Q6. You stated that you were a little nervous about the new process that has been established to send all intelligence available regarding election-related interference to MPs. Can you explain your concerns?

A6 It’s a slippery slope. Traditionally, the security and intelligence community has been reluctant to share “raw” intelligence with the political level unless it has been fully assessed and corroborated. As I said before, this can take time. But I fear that sending every piece of intelligence regarding election-related interference to the Prime Minister and his Ministers could potentially flood the system and unnecessarily cause alarm. I don’t know the details of how this new system will work -- I assume there will be checks put in place to prevent such occurrences -- but it may still run risks. I’d much prefer these kinds of discussions occurred at regular meetings of a Cabinet Committee on NS.

Q7. In response to a question from an opposition MP, you suggested it might be important to “walk a mile in the shoes of an NSIA.”  Looking back, can you say in general terms what the most challenging aspect of the job was?

A7 Like any DM job, the NSIA role is tremendously challenging. You work long hours, cover an incredible range of issues, and juggle multiple crises at any point in time. The stress of this job is further heightened knowing that lives are often at stake.  I couldn’t identify one specific challenge that stood out during my tenure, but a few memories linger. First, trying to define National Security in an era where the concept is clearly expanding was not easy. This was illustrated with the pandemic, which I would argue did not begin as a NS issue but evolved into one over time. The Government needs to provide clarity to this definition. Second, like my predecessors, I had to coordinate an increasingly complex and growing S&I community with limited authorities and resources. I have argued that the role of the NSIA needs to be fully reviewed to maximize its effectiveness. Third, capturing and sustaining the attention of the political level on NS issues, especially during a pandemic, was no easy task. At the best of times, Canadian governments do not always make NS the priority it should be. This needs to change. And finally, staying on top of the incredible volume of intelligence (thousands of pages a month) produced by our intelligence community and those of our allies is a monstrous task. Improving governance and establishing a better flagging system would ease the burden for senior leaders in this repsect.

Q8. You testified that you are a “strong advocate” for a full-scale national security review.  How would you design such a review?

A8 Conducting a full-scale public review of our national security is long over-due. The last National Security Policy was produced almost 20 years ago. Our last foreign policy statement is almost as old (18 years).  The world has been transformed over this period, but our NS strategies and tools have not kept pace. Such reviews can be challenging and time-consuming, but our allies do them on a regular basis, and so should Canada. In this respect, it is perplexing that the Government has conducted two isolated defence reviews/updates in the last six years but nothing similar for national security or foreign policy.

In designing such a review, I would make four recommendations. First, it should include extensive public consultations. One of the reasons Canada has such a poor NS culture is because the topic is so rarely discussed in public in a holistic, non-crisis fashion. Canadians need to understand the threat environment, and debate the options to respond to it. Second, the review should be as integrated as possible. The recent UK Integrated Review, which included defence, security, development, and foreign policy, is a useful model. A siloed approach cannot adequately respond to the current complex security environment. Third, the need for integration means the review should be driven out of the centre, ie, the NSIA or a special senior coordinator in PCO. And finally, it should be comprehensive. Broad policy strokes will not suffice. It should include an extensive examination of tools, governance, and transparency. 

WW: Thank you, Vincent!