I plan to spend a fair amount of time on the findings and recommendations of the Rouleau Commission (Public Order Emergency Commission) report, released last Friday, examining the events of the Freedom Convoy protests of a year ago.
A great place to start is with the guest expert column you will find below. It is written by Greg Fyffe, a former Assistant Deputy Minister at Immigration and for nine years the head of the Privy Council Office’s Intelligence Assessment Secretariat. Since his retirement from Government, Greg has continued to teach courses on intelligence and strategic leadership at the University of Ottawa. He is an esteemed and astute commentator on intelligence matters, drawing on both his professional experience and his wide reading and study.
I asked Greg to comment on a passage in the Rouleau Commission report that really stood out for me.
Here is his response. Over to Greg.
In his report Commissioner Rouleau states:
"A related concern is the seemingly limited amount of “raw” information that is passed up through the chain of command, as opposed to delivered in synthesized reports. I was surprised to hear, for instance, that the National Security and Intelligence Advisor (NSIA) does not receive reports provided to the RCMP by other intelligence agencies. I appreciate that high-ranking officials and Cabinet ministers generally have neither the time nor the inclination to pore through extensive materials, but particularly in an emergent situation, there is value in providing more information, and filtering it less." (vol. 1, p. 172)
The contention behind this statement is valid. In a well-coordinated intelligence system both intelligence reports and intelligence assessments reach those who need them—regardless of whether the recipients are politicians or senior officials; employees of intelligence agencies or police forces; or federal, provincial, or municipal leaders.
This is a difficult challenge and national intelligence systems are frequently reviewed and modernized to meet it.
Unfortunately, Commissioner Rouleau’s statement contains some misleading language which could lead to a misunderstanding of what is needed to upgrade the Canadian intelligence system.
First, “raw intelligence” is almost never circulated because this phrase describes reporting which has not been evaluated for distribution. When an item of intelligence reporting is circulated it must include a judgment on its reliability, significance, and security level. Senior leaders do receive processed intelligence reports, but they are so voluminous that senior officials rely on expert staff to select those that are must-read. Even so, individual intelligence reports may conflict with other sources, or be of transitory value. Some are of dubious accuracy, requiring collaboration from other sources. Although social media and other open source material does not go through the same process, someone with expertise has to find and extract the material which is of high value.
It is an intelligence assessment report that weighs all the available evidence from secret and open sources. An assessment must make a judgment on which individual intelligence reports are reliable and which are doubtful. There is certainly an element of synthesis. What is happening now? How did this situation develop? However, the core purpose of an intelligence assessment is to come to judgments which are of direct value to decision-makers. A synthesis is not what senior readers need from intelligence analysts. They are looking for insight into what the intelligence tells them about the dynamics of an emerging crisis. What are the plans of crisis actors? What beliefs motivate them? What could happen as the crisis moves forward and what does this mean for decisions that must be made and actions that must be taken? The synthesis is prologue; useful insight is the product. The important assessment question is “so what?”
What does the coordinated system that Canada must build look like? The answer is complex, and our allies have reached their conclusions after intensive review. Established processes must ensure that critical intelligence is widely shared and inevitably reaches those who need it, when they need it. There is not only a central intelligence assessment agency, but also a process on major assessment questions for the integration of all available information, regardless of source. Assessments are produced quickly by subject experts who provide the insight decision-makers need. Senior leaders have experienced staff who can prepare a file of must-read intelligence documents. As the convoy experience demonstrates, the senior heads of all the organizations in the crisis-response network, whatever their agency or jurisdiction, must be able to directly share their conclusions about what is happening and what the response should be.
Stating this as the goal is not to underestimate the difficulty of building such a system. Nor does it underestimate the important advances that have already been made in improving coordination in the Canadian system. The position of National Security and Intelligence Advisor was established in 2005, and holders of the position have steadily improved the committee structures that are the foundation for community coordination.
Updating intelligence coordinating mechanisms is a constant process, and one which is essential if the response to crises is going to be both anticipatory and effective. Every new crisis invites conclusions on what worked and what didn’t. Responding effectively to the system elements which failed means fewer future crises which explode out of control.
Three commission recommendations are directly focused on intelligence organization at the national level. Recommendation 1 advocates the development of protocols for sharing information during a major event and defines this to include “risk-based assessments.” Recommendation 2 proposes that for a major event a “single national intelligence coordinator” be created. Recommendation 29 advocates a more general federal inquiry into the coordination of the collection and analysis of security information.
If the first two recommendations are to achieve their purpose, then recommendation 29 is essential. For crisis coordination to work the necessary process pathways should be in place and operable before there is an emergency.
The natural person to be the single national intelligence coordinator in a national crisis is the National Security and Intelligence Advisor, the one person already situated at the centre of the community and backed by the authority of the Prime Minister.
Any review of intelligence structures should include a review of whether the NSIA has the necessary mandate and tools, and whether the position should have a statutory base.
Looking at the Canadian security and intelligence community beyond domestic security entities, coordination should be characteristic of the entire system, including foreign and military intelligence. Overlap is less the issue than effective communication, information sharing, and community-wide input into intelligence assessments. Different agencies collect and analyze information for different mandate functions, even if they sometimes utilize the same information base.
The essential capability is to achieve agreement amongst all collection and analytical agencies on the intelligence conclusions to be passed to decision-makers. This standard applies to the whole system, all the time, not just during a crisis.