On Tuesday night I was in Ottawa to hear guest speaker Ward Elcock, former Director of CSIS, presented by the Pillar Society Speakers Series. The theme of Mr. Elcock’s presentation was ‘Guiding Canada’s Security Service Through Global Transition.’ What he said about Canada establishing a foreign intelligence agency was detailed and interesting. He also said that the idea was “loopy.”
The event was headed up by The Pillar Society‘s member, a former CSIS counterterrorism analyst, and President and CEO Borealis Threat and Risk Consulting, Phil Gurski.
The auditorium at the Shenkman Arts Centre was about 80% full. It was a fascinating lecture. I enjoyed it immensely. Mr. Elcock provided a lot of insight and great anecdotes from his time with CSIS, going back to the Cold War.
At the very end of the lecture, during Q&A, someone asked Mr. Elcock’s opinion about Canada establishing a foreign intelligence agency. His response was detailed and longish; he addressed the cost, budgets, if there was need, the structural planning, etc.. He laid out a lot of arguments and excuses I’ve heard before about why Canada should not bother creating a foreign intel department. He ended his response by apologetically saying to anyone who thinks Canada should have a foreign intel agency, that the idea is “loopy.”
But is it? Or call me loopy.
The opinions expressed herein are my own. I welcome opinions on the matter.
Why should Canada depend on intelligence from our allies? So, while our allies’ foreign intel agencies put their resources and efforts into gathering intel and doing what spies do, risking the lives and safety of agents and other local agents, while they do the legwork, Canada expects allies to provide us the intel we need? It’s freeloading in my opinion, and I think there should be an element of shame for Canadians in this regard.
Additionally, allies only provide intelligence that they wish to share with Canada. Consider that countries tend to work in their own interests, so there is a risk that any intelligence Canada receives from an ally may be manipulated in a way that serves that ally’s interests. An ally might withhold certain bits of information or provide certain bits of info with the intent to influence Canadian policies that would be in an ally’s interests or favour.
Something I’ve been saying a lot lately is that allies spy on allies. There have been cases of people being caught spying for Israel in the US, for example. Again, allies spy on allies. But do you think the US isn’t also spying on Israel? (Heck, the US has been trying to find out what the Israelis do to make their F-16s better than the American F-16s for a long time —but maybe the US now knows what the IAF is doing to the F-16s; I don’t know if the US has worked that out. This is also an example of an ally withholding helpful information from an ally.)
The CIA probably has a Canada desk, which means they are gathering information on Canada. The US might not have actual CIA agents in Canada or the UK, for example, but it gathers information through a multitude of sources and means, including trade offices, departments, companies, entities, politicians, the internet, news outlets, and people. Information is power– remember that. Any information is worth having, even the most seemingly innocuous things are worth knowing and reporting. (I personally know of one specific case of an ally spying on an ally overseas. Maybe one day I will share.)
Meanwhile, Canada does have a department that does carry foreign intel gathering that is economic related. Nice. What about security and defence interests?
When allied military forces do exercises with allies, many of those nations’ troops will debrief on what their foreign counterparts were using and doing. It’s not exactly spying per se, but it’s still information gathering, and this should come as no surprise. This is natural.
One of the arguments for Canada not having a foreign intel agency is that it makes Canada appear less of a problem or threat internationally. Shall we assume that the Iranians, the Russians and the Chinese are thinking, ‘Canada doesn’t have a foreign intel agency, so we won’t send our agents into Canada, it’s embassies and consulates, its military bases, to spy, meddle and to manipulate their defence, security, government and policies’? This is not how this works. (I believe that this Canadian attitude has its roots in the once long-held misguided belief that Canada is a “peacekeeping nation”, a commonly held notion that carried well into the 2000s, and that somehow that made us nicer and different. It was strange for Canadians to think what they did when Canada was and is a member of NATO, a military alliance, and the country had fought every major war in the 20th century and then some.) The Obamaist style belief that if a country is nice to another country, they will mutually and automatically be nice to each other is naive. Niceness is seen as weakness in many cultures, something to be taken advantage of. “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
I believe that the world is on the brink of war, ergo, Canada should set up a foreign intel agency as soon as possible. If war breaks out —and let’s hope it doesn’t —what will Canada do proactively to meet its own requirements in intelligence, espionage, sabotage, etc, against its enemy or enemies? Continue to depend on our allies to do the heavy lifting, and Canada mooches off that?
Regarding the budget issues, these can be addressed as part of the defence budget. Budgets are often politicized matters. We just had a government that spent us into the highest deficit in Canadian history, but they skimped on defence (and as Mr. Elcock said, the previous government didn’t take national security seriously, so even CSIS was tightly budgeted). Simply, Canada needs to spend more on defence and on CSIS; the government can set aside funding for a foreign intelligence agency if there is a desire to do so.
Another point raised by Mr. Elcock, which I’ve heard and read from other anti-Canada foreign intel agency folks, is that it would take at least 10 years to have an agency up and running. Well then, they better get to it! However, I don’t think it needs to, or should, take 10 years. Where there is a will, there’s a way. I believe that an agency could be set up and completed much faster than 10 years, and I think history and reality backs up what I’m saying. Only bureaucracy and red tape would stall and slow the launch of an agency. WWII’s Camp X, the secret spy training facility in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, was set up and running in no time; it certainly didn’t take ten years. Necessity had the camp operational in an instant. (Canada’s wartime Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King didn’t even know about the camp’s existence. The British, Britain’s PM Churchill, the Americans, the Canadian Ambassador to Washington, and Canada’s Minister of Defence, all kept the camp’s existence secret from the Canadian Prime Minister– King was an odd duck who took advice from his dead mother and father, consulted spiritualist mediums and apparently took advice from the ghosts of Sir Wilfrid Laurier and William Gladstone. So, there were reasons no one told Mackenzie King.) Israel’s Mossad and Shin Bet were set up in no time in 1949… At least to me, the theory that it will take 10 years to create a Canadian agency sounds more like someone just made up that number and people are rolling with it just because.
The Americans who trained at Camp X– and this was before the US entered the war by the way– would go on to form the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during WWII. The OSS was the precursor to the CIA.
CIA personnel go to train at the covert CIA training facility referred to as “The Farm,” but officially known as Camp Peary. “The Farm” name and concept harkens back to WWII’s Camp X in Oshawa, which was on a farm and referred to as “The Farm”.
There is a slight irony in that Canada was the home base for Camp X during WWII, a camp that formulated all sorts of training related to covert operations, sabotage, espionage, etc., which helped allied personnel hone their skills for the war effort; yet Canada never created its own foreign intel agency after the war and during the Cold War, and the country still seems reluctant to do so today, and perhaps for the wrong reasons.
–RdM
Addendum: A scene from the 1995 comedy film ‘Canadian Bacon’, the Central Intelligence Canada Desk:
Addendum 2 (31 May): Tim Murphy on LinkedIn had some brilliant insight and viewpoints commentary about creating a Canadian foreign intel agency. He did a repost as well which reads:
Thank you Royce de Melo for posting.
🇨🇦 Should Canada Have a Foreign Intelligence Agency? Only If We Fix What’s Broken First.
Earlier this week, former CSIS Director Ward Elcock called the idea of Canada establishing a foreign intelligence agency “loopy.” That might sound dismissive—but it reveals a deeper concern, one that recent events only reinforce:
We don’t have a capacity problem. We have a trust and governance problem.
Just days ago, the NSIRA report revealed that a political advisor with no statutory authority halted a live CSIS operation, with no documentation or chain-of-command accountability. That’s not just a process gap—it’s a structural breach in how national security decisions are being made at the highest levels.
Now ask: if we can’t enforce clear, legal command and control at home, what would happen if we exported that dysfunction abroad under the banner of foreign intelligence?
Contrast this with what the U.S. just did:
✅ Reorganized JFHQ-DODIN into the Defense Cyber Defense Command (DCDC) under U.S. Cyber Command.
✅ Codified operational sovereignty into law via the 2025 NDAA.
✅ Reinforced clarity in oversight, structure, and authority.
This is the core issue: Canada’s institutions look strong on paper but are increasingly governed by backchannel authority and informal influence. That’s governance by drift, not design.
Before debating expansion, we need reform:
Reestablish statutory discipline
Fix chain-of-command transparency
Build systems where authority aligns with accountability
Because if we don’t fix the core governance model, asking for a foreign intelligence agency is not just premature—it’s dangerous.
See Tim Murphy’s repost here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/timlmurphy_spyagency-foreignintel-canada-activity-7334723733879738369-vAOT?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAALG3h0BmCuAbEV3iAYJNZHCQ1bHqD_qO9k
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Royce, all points well taken…. thanks for the post
Great post Royce, and all true. Given the unauthorized influences by Communist China, Khalistan Radicals, and Mexican Drug Cartels, the Liberal Inaction is no surprise.