first reading: what canada actually contributes to the 'five eyes' intelligence alliance
after weeks of canada-bashing, the trump white house was strangely quick to denounce reports they would kick canada out of the alliance
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after a financial times report said that the u.s. was looking to push canada out of the so-called five eyes intelligence alliance, the white house rushed to immediately debunk the claim.
peter navarro, the u.s. official cited by the financial times story, held an impromptu press conference in a white house driveway to say the claim was “nonsense” and “crazy stuff.” “we would never, ever jeopardize our national security with allies like canada,” said navarro.
it was an extremely rare instance of the u.s. administration actually citing canada as an ally, rather than as an illegitimate nation it intends to annex.
the five eyes is an intelligence-sharing alliance between the world’s five developed english-speaking countries; the u.s., canada, australia, new zealand and the u.k. and while canada has always been the junior partner in the arrangement, navarro’s reaction would hint that there’s apparently something to our contribution that the americans would miss if we were gone.
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below, a cursory summary of what canada actually does for the five eyes.
our contribution is mostly signals intelligence
the term “five eyes” didn’t really appear in the media until 2013, when u.s. intelligence analyst edward snowden leaked a trove of national security agency documents revealing previously unknown intelligence links between western countries.
up until that point, canadian politicians would usually deny any kind of formal intelligence sharing agreement with the likes of the u.s., preferring to keep the whole arrangement in the shadows. “there is exchange of information with our friends and allies on intelligence and security matters,” was prime minister pierre trudeau’s cagy acknowledgement of the alliance in the 1970s. he then refused any additional questions, saying “the danger is that you will drag out confidences from me.”
the five eyes grew up in the wake of the second world war as a way to coordinate what is arguably the least glamourous kind of intelligence: sigint, or signals intelligence. as the united states and britain teamed up to spy on radio communications from the communist bloc, canada was deputized to keep an eye on the arctic, bermuda and some corners of europe.
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and sigint continues to be canada’s primary contribution to the alliance. canadian forces station alert remains the most northerly permanently inhabited settlement on earth, and its main job remains as a signals intelligence listening post. similar listening posts are also based in haida gwaii, b.c., and gander, newfoundland. canada’s official sigint agency – the communications security establishment — has even been known to refer to itself as “canada’s most secret intelligence agency.”
it helps that a lot of criminal and terrorist organizations operate in canada
arguably canada’s greatest intelligence coup was also one of its easiest: in the days immediately following the end of the second world war, a cipher clerk named igor gouzenko left his post at the soviet union’s ottawa embassy and defected to canada bearing reams of evidence showing that moscow was operating spy rings throughout the west. this event was effectively the beginning of the cold war.
there’s a value to maintaining an intelligence-sharing relationship with a country where random foreigners sometimes turn up carrying briefcases of intercepts – or find themselves in front of a police interrogator. so one of canada’s more ironic assets for the five eyes is that so many shady international bodies have canadian operations. this includes drug cartels, khalistani terrorist groups, tamil terror groups, palestinian terror groups, and large swaths of the mafia.
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ottawa also remains one of the premier postings for foreign diplomats, and the last 70 years have yielded plenty of other high-ranking nationals from nominally unfriendly countries who have done like gouzenko and chosen canada as their place to defect.
what canada doesn’t provide is good foreign espionage
csis — canada’s rough equivalent of the cia — does have a bit of a foreign presence. the agency says only that it has “foreign stations in key locations abroad.” in a 2013 associated press profile of the five eyes, it noted that canadian spies can be of use to the alliance because they “don’t come under the same scrutiny as their british and american counterparts.”
canadian academic wesley wark, a frequent commentator on five eyes issues, told the canadian press this week that canada is mostly assigned “niche missions” by the other members of the alliance.
some of this is because the canadian court system has actively handicapped the ability of intelligence agencies to do effective overseas spycraft through decisions extending charter protections even to overseas interrogations by csis agents — with guantanamo bay detainee omar khadr being the most notable example. in 2008, outgoing csis head jim judd called this the “judicialization of intelligence.”
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last year, an op-ed by five intelligence veterans published in the magazine foreign policy outlined how canadian espionage was a “disaster.” the piece cited the case of the “two michaels”; the two canadian nationals detained by china on espionage charges in apparent retaliation for canada’s arrest of huawei cfo meng wanzhou. only after their release did one of the michaels, michael spavor, accuse canada of ham-handedly using him as an unwitting intelligence agent, lending credence to chinese claims.
“canada’s inchoate approach to clandestine human intelligence is not fit for purpose and is underdeveloped in comparison to the united states or european powers,” the op-ed says.
canada, by far, is a net beneficiary of the arrangement
as a 2020 paper out of the canadian forces college put it, “generally speaking, within the five eyes context, canada is deemed to be a junior partner and a net recipient of intelligence products.”
and this is basically true of all the non-u.s. members of the alliance. the u.s. intelligence establishment is so mammoth that it utterly dwarfs anything being done by the other five eyes. the various intelligence agencies of the united states spend about us$100 billion per year. even the united kingdom — home of the famous mi6 — spends the annual equivalent of only about us$5 billion on intelligence. csis spends about $700 million per year.
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the natural outcome of this imbalance is that the canadian intelligence system mostly consists of bureaucrats reading whatever the americans have sent them. as wesley wark told the canadian press, “the entire foundational philosophy of the canadian intelligence system, in terms of its capabilities, in terms of its focus, is based on reliable, ongoing, massive access to five eyes intelligence, primarily these days from the united states.”
however, there are reasons why the united states wouldn’t necessarily object to an arrangement that mostly consists of them giving away free intelligence.
a good example would be canada’s ongoing national controversy over the issue of foreign interference. the national security intelligence committee of parliamentarians relied in part on five eyes data when it released its bombshell report last year alleging that parliament contained “semi-witting or witting” conspirators with foreign governments such as china. it’s generally in the u.s. national interest not to have their northern neighbour shot through with chinese foreign interference. and it’s entirely possible that the five eyes arrangement was able to alert canada to a situation that otherwise would have gone undetected.
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in other news
the liberal leadership candidates had their second debate on tuesday night, this time in english, and it was essentially the same as the first: the debaters all generally agreed with one another, and strenuously avoided criticism of the incumbent trudeau government. unaffordability and health care shortages were certainly mentioned, but only as unavoidable problems that had arisen organically. conservative critics noted that the debate never once mentioned crime, immigration or fentanyl.
last week, this newsletter detailed how the trudeau government is feverishly making appointments and greenlighting new policy despite the approaching end of their term of office. the head of the catholic church appears to be doing similar, albeit under very different circumstances. pope francis is suffering from a series of health complications that have led to rumours that he may not survive into next week. despite this, just this week the ailing pope appointed a new archbishop for vancouver; richard smith, who coordinated francis’ 2022 visit to canada.
senator leo housakos – one of the only conservative appointees left in the upper chamber – wrote this letter on tuesday to public safety minister david mcguinty. it concerns samidoun founder charlotte kates. despite heading up a group that the government of canada now recognizes as a terror entity, the vancouver-based kates has suffered no real legal consequences, and had no problem flying to lebanon last week for the funeral of hezbollah leader hassan nasrallah.
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