Annual Reports

SIRC Report 2002-2003
An Operational Review of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service

Security Intelligence Review Committee
P. O. Box 2430, Station "D"
Ottawa ON
K1P 5W5

Tel: (613) 990-8441
Fax: (613) 990-5230
Web Site: http://www.sirc-csars.gc.ca
Collect calls are accepted between 8: 00 a. m. and 5: 00 p. m. Eastern Standard Time.
© Public Works and Government Services Canada 2003
Cat. No. JS71-1/ 2003
ISBN 0-662-67626-2

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September 30, 2003

The Honourable Wayne Easter, P. C., M. P.
Solicitor General of Canada
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6

Dear Mr. Easter:

As required by section 53 of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act, we transmit to you the Report of the Security Intelligence Review Committee for the fiscal year 2002-2003, for your submission to Parliament.

Yours sincerely,

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Statement from the Committee

Canada's security intelligence and public security apparatus continues to absorb the repercussions of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. For the security intelligence community generally, and for the Review Committee in particular, some of the most important of these are only now being fully realized.

SIRC's Annual Report for 2002-2003 encompasses the first year in which significant new laws, the Anti-terrorism Act among others, were in force. It was also the first complete fiscal year in which Canadian citizens fully felt in their lives measures announced in the Government's public safety and security initiative of December 2001. These measures have affected everything from passing through an airport or working in one, to applying for a passport and holding a job in a nuclear power facility. Dramatic political and military events abroad - some involving serious risk to the lives of Canadian citizens and to Canada's soldiers overseas - could not help but have consequences within our borders.

In this dynamic domestic and international environment, the Review Committee must reconcile two distinct imperatives. Parliament has every right to expect, and simple professional prudence requires, that the Committee understands as best it can the changes at work and the impact they are having or may have on CSIS's activities. To this end, the Members of the Committee devote considerable effort.

At the same time, however, the Committee is convinced that continuity of principle and of practice is central to our task. Adherence to the law, sober judgement and serious inquiry - irrespective of the political and social undercurrents of the moment - are the Committee's main assets in fulfilling its core function: ensuring Parliament, and through it the people of Canada, that in conducting its security intelligence activities CSIS acts within the law and does not undermine the rights and freedoms of Canadians.

The period encompassed in this, the Committee's 19th Annual Report, was the first complete fiscal year in which CSIS had at its disposal the 30-percent increase in funding given to it by the Government following September 11. Although the Service was given no new legal authorities, the tempo of activity in many operational areas has risen - in some cases significantly.

CSIS reorganized its operational structure and began to deploy resources in novel ways. For example, Service personnel and resources are devoted both to new government efforts to coordinate its anti-terrorist and public safety programs such as the public - private CBRN Research and Technology Initiative that addresses threats from chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons, and to the RCMP's regionally based Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams (INSETs).

Almost all this heightened level of activity can be attributed to the Government's concern to meet evident threats to the safety of its citizens, to Canada's national security and to that of its allies. However, with higher levels of activity there is an inescapable reality - as the Service's investigations become more numerous and complex, there is more for the Committee to review.

In the spring of 2002, we undertook to assess the implications of the rise in CSIS activities for SIRC's own operations. We asked for and received two classified briefings from the Service about how it intended to use the additional funds. Accordingly, in July 2002 SIRC made a formal request to Treasury Board for an increase in budget of 16 percent. If granted, this increment would provide the Committee with the financial resources commensurate with CSIS's expanded activities so that we might continue to fulfill our obligations to Parliament.

An additional challenge the Committee faces is that the Service is stepping up its co-operation and information exchanges both with old partners in new ways and with entirely new entities. As the Service moves into new and unfamiliar territory, so must the Committee. An example of the potential challenges to be found in such relationships are the RCMP-led INSETs created in 2002, and the reciprocal secondments of officers initiated between CSIS and the RCMP. Under this structure - one that replaces the long-standing mutual exchange of "liaison officers" - investigative personnel from each agency will work within the chain of command of the host body.

The Committee has some misgivings about the impact of this new structure on our ability to determine whether the Service and its employees have acted in compliance with current law and policy. As the Service expands its operational relationships with organizations not subject to the Committee's review, the Committee will remain alert to the compliance issues this and other such novel arrangements might raise.

One prediction the Committee made based on an analysis of the post-September 11 changes in legislation - notably the Anti-terrorism Act, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and the Charities Registration Act - has not been borne out. In recent SIRC Annual Reports, and in representations to Parliament, the Committee forecast that complaints about CSIS would increase discernibly, especially in areas of security screening and charities. However, the anticipated rise in the number of complaints has not occurred.

No doubt one factor at work is the relative caution with which the Government has implemented the new legal and administrative measures. There has been no significant increase in the number of arrests or detentions on terrorism or immigration-related charges. The "listing" of terrorist entities has proceeded largely without controversy. And to date, no charities have been denied status or had it withdrawn because of ties to known terrorist organizations.

Findings in two of the Committee's in-depth reviews summarized in this report tend to support this observation. In its investigation of certain potentially violent domestic threats the Service took care not to impede legitimate political activity. In its investigations of Islamic extremist terrorism in Canada, the Service restricted its activities to the threats posed by persons and organizations disposed to employ violence and did not investigate the Islamic community as a whole. The broadly positive findings of these two reviews notwithstanding, the Committee will continue to pay its closest attention to any Service investigation that holds the potential to damage civil liberties or to impact negatively on fundamental social institutions such as religious organizations, universities, the media and trade unions.

It is this latter task which the Committee sees as its chief function. For CSIS to be effective in advising government about threats to the security of Canada and its citizens, Parliament and the people of Canada must have confidence that it is acting within the law. The Review Committee is the essential component in ensuring that vital democratic accountability. Within the boundaries set by law on the public discussion of security intelligence issues, the Members of the Review Committee undertake, as always, to be as open and transparent with Parliament and the public as we are able.