Jim Bronskill, Ottawa (Canadian Press) – Canada’s security agencies made a point Thursday of stressing how well they co-operated in the investigation of terror suspects arrested in Ontario — an apparent attempt to dispel persistent criticism that the RCMP and CSIS don’t play well together when it comes to national security.
CSIS assistant director Raymond Boisvert was quick to note that intelligence leads concerning the alleged terror plotters were provided to the RCMP, who picked up the ball and completed an exhaustive criminal investigation.
“This case is an excellent example of the strong relationship which exists between CSIS and the RCMP.”
Ensuing court cases will put Boisvert’s words to the test — one the agencies have often failed miserably in the past.
The federal government has set up integrated national security enforcement teams that comprise members of the RCMP, CSIS, the Canada Border Services Agency and provincial and municipal police.
However, former Supreme Court justice John Major’s probe of the 1985 Air India disaster found the turf wars that plagued the investigation of the terrorist bombing had not gone away.
“There is a lack of institutionalized co-ordination and direction in national security matters,” Major said in his key findings, issued in June.
“Canadian agencies have developed a culture of managing information in a manner designed to protect their individual institutional interests.”
In 1999, many years after the Air India attack, the watchdog over CSIS noted “residual friction” between some intelligence officers and their RCMP counterparts over difficult cases — particularly ones involving international crime.
The next year, a secret internal review cited “institutional tensions” between the spy agency and the Mounties related to the sharing of information, an issue at the heart of the organization’s historical difficulties.
CSIS’s role is to warn other government agencies of security threats, while the RCMP must gather sufficient evidence to help prosecutors win convictions. The spy service, relying on a network of confidential informants and crucial data from allied agencies abroad, remains highly wary of its methods being laid bare in the courts.
Major had little patience for the conflict.
“The current practice of attempting to limit the information CSIS provides to the RCMP in order to prevent its disclosure in potential criminal proceedings is misguided, as disclosure obligations at trial are engaged by potential relevance, not by which agency has seen the information,” said his findings.
“The result of such efforts to deny intelligence to the police is an impoverished response to terrorist threats.”
The latest terror-related arrests follow a difficult period for both the RCMP and CSIS above and beyond the public pasting from Major.
The Mounties have been criticized for not catching serial killer Robert Pickton sooner. RCMP Commissioner William Elliott’s authority has been challenged by senior officers who have complained about his intimidating management style. And a B.C. inquiry took the police force to task for mishandling the case of Robert Dziekanski, who died after being hit with an RCMP stun gun.
CSIS director Dick Fadden, meantime, has enraged many Canadians by suggesting some provincial and municipal politicians are under the influence of Beijing. He also accused a French aid worker taken hostage in Africa of being a “secret agent” — even though the man denied any such ties.
The terror charges, with more arrests possible, might take the focus off those controversies as the cases proceed through the courts.
While Major allowed there was no “silver bullet” to reconciling the needs of intelligence officials and police, he said “neither interest is absolute.”
He proposed a raft of recommendations aimed at making the relationship work better.
Among them was a suggestion that CSIS try to adhere to the laws relating to evidence and disclosure when conducting counter terrorism investigations in order to smooth the way for use of intelligence during trials.
More than two months after the report was tabled, the government has said nothing about how it intends to address Major’s prescription.
All this may help explain the concerted public-relations offensive Thursday.
“I would like to acknowledge the tremendous support and co-operation of all policing and intelligence partners, with whom we have collaborated from the beginning of this criminal investigation,” RCMP Asst. Commissioner Francois Bidal told a roomful of media.
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