By John Gilmour, February 10, 2025
The handling of intelligence – both the need to keep it secure and the need to allow its insights to inform policy – will be one of the most pressing questions for Canada’s next government. The Liberal Party of Canada’s resistance to changing its leadership voting procedures is but one of many signs that the government has failed to hear the essential message that its intelligence, security, and law enforcement agencies are sending up to ministers.
Throughout the government’s Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference, for example, it was obvious that Canada’s intelligence and policy communities lack an understanding of who is supposed to do what and why. Many both in and outside of government are concerned that intelligence assessments of Chinese interference were disregarded and politicized by senior decision-makers. The depth of China’s foreign interference activities in Canada only came to national attention, and only sparked the national inquiry, because of leaks to media, presumably from intelligence officers frustrated that the threats were not taken seriously. The very existence of and need for the public inquiry is evidence of a breakdown of communication between intelligence services and decision-makers. Our system is broken if our political leaders aren’t hearing, or aren’t taking seriously, threats raised by our intelligence outfits.
Be that as it may, intelligence services are not mandated to make policy, but to inform policy-makers. Policy-makers then determine what is actionable. As is commonly referenced in the intelligence community, intelligence provides the “so what,” policy provides the “now what.” Intelligence shouldn’t be leaked to media, but it should be acted upon by our leaders before public servants are tempted to take matters into their own hands. We evidently need new and better ways to integrate intelligence into our political decision-making process. One viable option is to import the successful American model of the National Security Council (NSC) and the various subcommittees, Interagency Policy Committees (IPCs), that allow the American executive branch to benefit from informed and coordinated national security policy recommendations.
The challenges facing the Canadian Intelligence Community
Three meta-issues are currently complicating Canada’s ‘intelligence enterprise’ – the processes for coordinating and executing activities across the intelligence community – and its nexus to the internal policy machinery within the government.
The first is that Canada faces the most complex threat environment it has seen in more than eighty years. One observer recently declared the hybrid warfare strategies of our adversaries amount to total war and a “street fight” – a “strategic systems competition” that seeks to challenge the existing rules-based world order.
The second is an expansion of issues characterized as falling within a security remit. In a post-Covid world, and as a result of current state-on-state conflicts, we see references to “climate security,” “health security,” “economic security,” “migration security,” “food security,” “key supply chain security” and so on. Indeed, in the Canadian government’s first-time public release in September 2024 of its intelligence priorities, security of global health, food, water, and biodiversity, climate change and global sustainability, and migration security and border integrity are all listed. These are legitimate but “non-traditional” threats when compared to more ‘traditional’ threats – war, espionage and interference, terrorism, and ideologically motivated violence, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Thirdly, the challenges noted above with the intelligence-policy-making interface are nothing new (and are not solely based on the political leaders in power). As noted several years ago by Andrew Brunatti, an observer to Canada’s intelligence community, “Canada’s intelligence community and policy-makers have often had to tread a fine line, balancing the need for intelligence to support government operations with a political culture that has traditionally viewed intelligence with at best with apathy, and at worst suspicion.”
These challenges will have an impact on the intelligence and policy communities for years to come. Given “there can be no greater role, no more important obligation for a government, than the protection and safety of its citizens,” one must ask if the government is appropriately organized to both adjust to the expanding, complex threat environment and properly manage or mitigate said threats – both domestically and abroad – in order to promote a constructive and positive intelligence-policy relationship and safeguard Canada’s security and sovereignty.
The expanding role of the National Security and Intelligence Advisor
In late November 2024, the National Security and Intelligence Advisor (NSIA) to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau publicly released the mandate letter she received from the Trudeau that outlines the agenda he has set for her office. As with the public release of the government’s intelligence priorities in September, this is the first time a mandate letter to an NSIA has been released into the public domain – a useful move that should be acknowledged as such.
The letter obliges the NSIA to take on significant responsibility for the government’s national security framework. The NSIA is to “oversee and guide the intelligence process from collection to assessment, through policy development, to our response and operational coordination.”
The role of the NSIA warrants special consideration. Traditionally, the NSIA has had two primary functions that straddle both the intelligence and policy communities:
- To coordinate and combine intelligence assessments from numerous agencies into a single brief for the prime minister, cabinet members and other senior officials, and coordinate the intelligence community in general.
- Provide advice and recommendations on security and intelligence policy matters to the prime minister.
The NSIA’s mandate letter acknowledges the challenges associated with the expanding threat environment. It states, “Our security context is uncertain and evolving, and the associated threats are becoming more acute and complex.” It goes on to say, “Your role as my principal advisor on national security and intelligence is critical to achieving the objectives of a better understanding, managing, and responding to threats.”
The mandate letter specifically references:
- The need to “steer key national security decisions.”
- To provide advice on policy initiatives and gaps, including enhancing the awareness of minsters on both current and emerging strategic threats.
- To evaluate the efficacy of the national security system.
- To coordinate effective operational responses to threats and priorities and “action items” that emerge from the National Security Council (a Cabinet Committee).
- To serve as the Secretariat to the National Security Council with the intelligence and strategic advice that entails.
- To develop a new National Security Strategy (not policy) in 2025.
- To reset the intelligence priority setting process, updating the priorities annually instead of every to two years.
- To improve transparency and stakeholder engagement on national security issues.
- To support federal efforts to coordinate Canada’s federal emergency preparedness (historically the mandate of Public Safety).
This is an expansive and daunting range of responsibilities, requiring a broad range of expertise in several different areas.
On paper, it may be organizationally convenient to centralize the oversight and coordination of the intelligence assessment process and then to ask that individual to take the next step to recommend how intelligence be actioned into policy. However, this has created some confusion regarding the intelligence to policy nexus and that the “the NSIA’s role in decisions regarding the dissemination of CSIS intelligence products is unclear” in this regard. And as Vincent Rigby, a former NSIA has stated, “You’ve got an NSIA who does policy and intelligence – you don’t usually combine those two, you have someone provide the intelligence, and the policy side is the decision-maker working on that intelligence and briefing up to the Prime Minister…. Right now, you have the NSIA wearing both hats. That can be difficult at times, and a lot of other countries have looked at our model and gone, does that work? Because that’s not the way you traditionally do it. You don’t mix policy and intelligence.”
Intelligence assessments from various national security agencies, law enforcement, diplomatic posts and defence sources, as well as from the media and external think-tank and academic experts, are synthesized in the NSIA’s branch of the Privy Council Office (PCO) into comprehensive assessment reports and developed into policy recommendations for the consideration of Cabinet, currently supported in part by three different deputy minister committees (national security, operations, intelligence assessment). Meetings between agency heads and individual ministers are also part of this process. This structure serves to translate intelligence into a narrative that informs recommendations as to what is “actionable” from a policy perspective for senior decision-makers, primarily the government’s “National Security Council” Cabinet committee.
The requirement to reconcile Canadian values and norms with the realities of the intelligence enterprise also exists. Finally, the potential for reputational damage to the government from both domestic communities, who may view the intelligence agencies with suspicion, or foreign partners, looking to protect their intelligence sources and advance their interests, is significant if national security policies result in either inadequate action or inaction.
One can hope the individual in the NSIA seat and those in the supporting committees have some expertise in national security and the capacity to understand the intricacies and challenges. But the question remains: does Canada have a talent pool of senior bureaucrats or elected officials who have the ideal, or even some, national security experience or expertise? It is very small. And the normal rotation of senior officials from other departments into national security roles represents a real challenge. An ability to obtain even a minimum understanding of the intricacies of the file takes time.
At the same time, those few individuals who do possess the requisite national security experience may now be required to become a policy “generalist.” Issues like climate change, economic and supply-chain security, health security, and the complicated dynamics of hybrid warfare that target individuals, critical infrastructure, civil society and the private sector, require a more holistic, whole-of-government approach to national security policy, priority setting and resource allocation. Senior decision-makers will, in turn, have a need for greater reliance on an in-house community of fiscal, economic, environmental, and health experts to inform decision making on these non-traditional security issues. Will they, in turn, have the ability or capacity to translate identified threats and risks in these areas into the language of intelligence assessments and, by extension, into national security policy?
Is this menu of tasks too much for a single official, the NSIA, to effectively deliver, even with a supporting secretariat or advice from the various deputy minister committees? Does the NSIA office have both the capacities to undertake the expanded range of tasks assigned? What will slip off the national security agenda as traditional and new non-traditional priorities are adjusted accordingly? If more resources are to be allocated, where are they coming from in an anticipated period of cost reductions?
Does the range of duties imposed on the NSIA do anything to address the historical disconnect between the policy and intelligence communities through reaffirming, as referenced in the letter, “the need for a stronger more clearly articulated NSIA position”?
At some point, intelligence assessments must be transcribed into some sort of policy document for the consideration of senior decision makers but traditionally, the NSIA was responsible for synthesizing intelligence assessments not direct policy development. This places the NSIA in a difficult position; the expanded mandate simply isn’t feasible.
A better route forward: the American National Security Council (NSC) and Interagency Policy Committees (IPCs)
Canada needs a novel solution, beyond just tasking the NSIA with a broader mandate, to help address the policy-intelligence disconnect. While the introduction of new government bodies is often the default government “solution” to policy challenges, one alternative warrants consideration: creating a dedicated national security agency whose mandate is to filter intelligence into policy recommendations or options for the “executive,” modelled on the US example. In the United Staes, this is the mandate of the National Security Council, not to be confused with the Canadian government’s Cabinet committee of the same name.
As per the US’s National Security Act of 1947, the National Security Council (again, not to be confused with the recently created cabinet committee in Canada) is to:
Advise the President with respect to the integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to the national security so as to enable the military services and other departments and agencies of the Government to co-operate more effectively in matters involving the national security.
Within this mandate, the NSC is “to continue to be the senior interagency forum of policy issues affecting national security.” It serves as the central agency where intelligence from a variety of agencies is assessed and integrated by policy experts into policy recommendations for the consideration and approval of the executive.
Its organizational structure has evolved over the decades, and there are both comparative similarities and differences with the Canadian national security hierarchy. But what is key for the purposes of this discussion is the role of NSC staff, who are regional or functional policy experts, who undertake the range of policy analysis necessary to provide the executive with (ideally) independent views on specific policy issues based on their review of related intelligence assessments.
The various sub-committees within the NSC provide guidance on, and the development of, comprehensive policy reviews and decisions. Staff within the NSC take collated or individual fact-based intelligence assessments from agencies and overlay them with a policy lens to inform policy making. But from a holistic policy development perspective, it is understood that intelligence is only one source of information, and not always the decisive one.
This body of policy experts within the NSC framework, is often referred to as Interagency Policy Committees (IPCs). Within the scope of national security issues, both domestic and foreign, expanding over the years and now requiring a whole-of-government response, IPCs also serve to ensure all requisite agencies and departments have contributed to the development of sound policy. Reconciling competing policy agendas of the respective agencies is probably a key challenge at the IPC level, and indeed these issues can sometimes only be resolved at higher “executive” levels. Once incoming intelligence assessments have been reviewed and evaluated, the appropriate IPC is assigned the task of preparing a policy options paper.
How could an IPC-type committee, or even agency, be imbedded into Canada’s national security organizational framework? Here is one possibility.
In a Canadian context, the role of an IPC will be very similar to that of the US structure. It will serve as an independent entity (i.e. not associated with any specific line department or agency) that provides the initial and primary policy instrument to translate joint or individual intelligence assessments into policy options for the consideration and approval of senior decision makers. While policy options or recommendations would ideally be politically neutral, it is quite possible IPCs could be directed or obliged to consider ‘political’ factors in the construct of policy recommendations.
At least they will be introduced into the policy-development equation as an independent entity not organizationally linked directly to the development of fact-based intelligence assessments. Discussions could be held to examine issues of priority (threat and risk), impacts on broad government agendas, resource considerations, relations with foreign partners, and so on. IPCs could go a long way towards addressing the major challenges facing Canada’s intelligence enterprise.
The NSIA, like the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) in the US, will still be responsible for coordinating intelligence from the intelligence community into (ideally) a single assessment. This assessment will serve to inform the development of policy. However, IPCs will assume responsibility for engaging with the intelligence community and individual agencies and departments with a stake in policy outcomes. In this role, IPCs will do the heavy lifting required to smooth over competing agency agendas.
Policy options would then be tabled with appropriate Assistant Deputy Minister/ Deputy Minister Committees (akin to the “Deputies Committee” in the US NSC system), who would deliberate and recommend policy to the appropriate cabinet committee (equivalent to the “Principles Committee” in the US NSC). Both deputy and Cabinet levels would benefit from the detailed and comprehensive policy work undertaken at the IPC level regardless of their familiarity and comfort, or lack thereof, with the national security environment.
There are obviously several questions as to how the IPC option can best be adapted to Canada’s particularities and national interests. It remains to be determined where it be could located organizationally, what level and sort of senior official will lead the organization, what will be the specific issues or policy portfolios that warrant permanent representation by policy experts in the IPC and whether the IPC will provide the pros and cons in support of a recommended policy approach, or a range of possible policy options for consideration by the ‘executive’.
Conclusion
Merely tinkering with established organizational frameworks is not sufficient to address the challenges facing the intelligence to policy nexus in Canada. Innovative solutions will be required.
Having a single office – the NSIA – mandated to undertake the dual role of both coordinating intelligence and then providing policy advice goes counter to the traditional organizational separation of the intelligence to policy functions at best. At worst, it risks fact-based intelligence becoming politicized and encourage assessments to conform to government agendas, a cardinal sin in the intelligence community. Establishing an agency along the lines of the US’s National Security Council and its Interagency Policy Committee would serve to provide a more structured, expert-based interlocutor between the intelligence community and senior decision makers tasked with actioning national security policy.
Dr. John Gilmour is a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. He is an instructor on terrorism, counterterrorism, and intelligence, with the University of Ottawa’s Professional Development Institute and Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (NPSIA). He served for 37 years in the federal government, with Transport Canada, the Security and Intelligence (Operations) section of the Privy Council Office, and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).
