The work of the Global Security Reporting Program run by GAC continues to draw media attention and commentary.
As I indicated in an earlier column, there is little information in the public domain about the GSRP.
But there is one very useful resource that I want to bring interested readers’ attention to. It is to be found in a section of a recently published book by Thomas Juneau and Stephanie Calvin, entitled Intelligence Analysis and Policy Making: The Canadian Experience (Stanford University Press, 2022). At chapter three, the authors provide a succinct account of the GSRP, its early history, tensions with CSIS, its development, professionalisation, and accomplishments. Their account is rooted in interviews the authors conducted with Canadian federal government officials from the security and intelligence community.
I encourage you to read this account, which strikes me as fair-minded and balanced. Among the conclusions it draws are that:
“GSRP reporting is one of the greatest assets for Canada within the Five Eyes community and other intelligence partners.”
The authors report that one interviewee commented:
“I am not sure there is any better bang for the buck in the Canadian intelligence community.”
The apparent success of the GSRP and the value attached to its reporting both within Canada and among international partners can only raise questions about what more could be accomplished were Canada to have a dedicated foreign intelligence (HUMINT) collection agency, an issue batted around in government circles since the end of World War Two.
A model Canadian FIS could draw on the lessons learned from the GSRP experiment since its inception in 2002. These include lessons on relatively low cost, value-added reporting, and geographic focus, concerns that have always been raised against the idea of a Canadian mini-CIA or MI6.
Prof Wark alludes to the longstanding discussions of a Canadian foreign intelligence service. As a onetime member of the community who has had the opportunity to both work with allies and study them academically - I must admit to being torn:
The benefits to Canada of such an entity intrigue me, and yet the bloat in our bureaucracy mitigates against efficiency. Before putting a single intelligence officer in the field - even the smallest new GoC agency requires hundreds of “support” staff to be hired, housed and paid for: pay, HR and admin clerks; policy wonks; IT and IM professionals - lots of them; acquisitions staff, auditors, librarians and more. In order to obtain both effectiveness and efficiency we are talking about a significant sized entity with a (classified?) budget to match.
Are their compromise options? Maybe. Could a hybrid be built that provides a degree of foreign intelligence gathering capacity while leveraging CSIS’ existing - and extensive - infrastructure? Probably - but how different would that be from today’s status quo ante?
My thanks to Prof Wark - my teacher from more than a few years back - for being one of the few Canadian academics to focus on intelligence studies!
Thanks for this useful post. I would like to see a fuller public debate about the merits and drawbacks of establishing a Canadian foreign intelligence service.