Findings
Special Report on the National Security and Intelligence Activities of Global Affairs Canada

F1.

Global Affairs Canada (or the Department) is an integral part of the security and intelligence community. The Department advances Canada's national security interests abroad, provides critical support to its intelligence partners in the collection of foreign intelligence within Canada, and has an overarching role in ensuring the activities of its security and intelligence partners are coherent with the government's foreign policy interests and objectives. (Paragraphs 53, 37 and 19)

F2.

Global Affairs Canada ensures the foreign policy coherence of the security and intelligence community through a number of formal consultation mechanisms. The Department has established effective consultation mechanisms with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) to ensure the foreign policy coherence of their activities. Consultation between GAC and the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces remains largely informal and ad hoc, and both organizations have been slow to respond to ministerial direction in this area. (Paragraphs 48-57, 59-64 and 66-8)

F3.

The internal governance of the Department's national security and intelligence activities is inconsistent, and in some areas completely absent. For its international security programs, the Department has strong governance mechanisms, including detailed policies, procedures and oversight committee structures. For its most sensitive intelligence activities, the opposite is true: the Department lacks policies, procedures or guidance documents, including for its role in requesting the collection of foreign intelligence within Canada *** or providing foreign policy risk assessments for CSIS and CSE activities. (Paragraphs 142-4, 149-50, 156-8, 94, 101-3 and 117)

F4.

The absence of governance for the Department's most sensitive intelligence activities creates an important gap in ministerial accountability. The Department has no requirements to report regularly to the Minister of Foreign Affairs on the full spectrum of its national security and intelligence activities. This gap raises concerns about the Minister's awareness of the risk associated with the Department's most sensitive activities on an ongoing basis, and undermines the Minister's accountability for those activities. (Paragraphs 94, 101, 112, 121 and 128)

F5.

The Department's role in responding to terrorist hostage-takings abroad is neither leadership nor coordination, but facilitation and information sharing. At best, GAC convenes implicated departments with much greater operational roles and specific a ccountabilities, and works to build a coherent approach without authority to direct a whole-of-government response. Part of the challenge is one of the Department's own making: over the past 10 years, it has not developed the necessary policy, operational and training mechanisms for implicated government organizations to respond to such events coherently. Notwithstanding these gaps, the most significant problem is political: successive governments have failed to provide direction for a framework to address such critical incidents or provide specific direction on individual cases. Together, these challenges undermine the ability of the Department and its security and intelligence partners to respond effectively to terrorist hostage-takings.(Paragraphs 169-198)