The Canadian government is aware that non-traditional espionage poses a security threat to Canada, and that the threat from China and Russia is particularly serious. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) recently released its annual public report for 2020, saying that espionage intelligence and infiltration activities against Canada increased dramatically last year, the most extensive and wide-ranging year since the Cold War.
The report singled out China and Russia as “the main culprits” in undermining Canada’s national security through espionage, cyberattacks, intelligence gathering, and harassment of dissidents. “
The report says hostile governments seek to covertly spy on and intimidate Canadian communities and individuals in order to achieve their strategic and economic goals, while exploiting Canada’s “cooperative, transparent and open” nature to steal political, economic, and military intelligence through “non-traditional intelligence gatherers. and military intelligence through “non-traditional intelligence collectors.
Meanwhile, the Canadian Parliament’s National Security and Intelligence Committee (NSICOP) has issued a report mirroring the SIS analysis.
Rob Gordon, a professor of social criminology at Simon Fraser University (SFU) who has long called for attention to be paid to espionage from China, said in an interview with the Voice of America, “This is very, very worrying for Canada, and things are coming to a boiling point. It fuels the concerns that have been raised over the last few years about what China is doing in Canada, and we have to be very careful. “
In the analysis of Stephanie Carvin, a former Canadian security intelligence analyst and professor at Carleton University, Canada’s relationship with China took a 180-degree turn after the incident involving Meng and the two Macs two years ago, and the Trudeau government does not seem to have developed a strategy to deal with it.
She told Voice of America that Canada needs a holistic national security response strategy that requires multiple departments to act in concert, such as coordination between International Affairs, CSIS, police, STI, etc. It needs to be divided up, how to prevent certain threats, how to minimize the damage of some disruptions, and what threats could become a constant.
Professor Stephanie Carvin analyzes that Chinese interference in Canada is more often seen as suppressing certain critical voices and dissidents than in Russia. This type of interference and disruption is mostly focused on personal activities, harassment and threats, and is therefore much more difficult to monitor and track.
Ideally, she believes, there should be a coordinating body that collects information that people report and better understands its scope and scale. Hopefully, people will become more aware of China’s behavior and then see what we can do about it.
Lie Guoyuan concluded by saying that members of her concern group will be more aware of safety in the future, but will not be intimidated. If we ban our voices because we’re worried, she said, haven’t they achieved their goal? If we are banned in Canada, is it still a civilized society? Is it still Canada?
“Targets of “non-traditional intelligence gatherers
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s annual public report mentions that foreign governments use “non-traditional intelligence gatherers,” that is, people who are not formally trained as spies, such as researchers, ordinary individuals, and other third parties, to steal valuable information and expertise from Canada
In a report released by Canada’s Parliamentary Committee on National Security and Intelligence, China’s “Thousand Talents Program” was directly named.
The committee’s report states that the Chinese talent program and the academic exchanges it supports take advantage of Canadian experts, often resulting in “the transfer of Canadian intellectual property to China.
According to Professor Rob Gorden, Canadian research institutions are still not sufficiently alert to the malicious theft of Canadian intelligence and intellectual property.
For example, he said, the Justice Institute of B.C. has been training police cadets sent from China for the past seven years. It wasn’t until the end of last year, when the media exposed the program, that the provincial government suspended it for a re-examination.
Even in February, it was revealed that Canada’s federal National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) had invested $4.8 million in a partnership with Huawei Canada to fund “cutting-edge computer and electrical engineering research projects” at universities across Canada.
When this came to light, there was a public outcry. People wondered why the federal government was still spending so much money to cooperate with Huawei. Moreover, the cutting-edge projects studied in this program involve many sensitive areas. Currently, Canada is the only member of the Five Eyes Alliance that has not yet made a formal decision on whether to use Huawei’s 5G network.
In an interview last week, Paul Davidson, head of the Universities Agency of Canada, which represents nearly 100 universities, said he expects the federal government to issue a “national security guideline” for universities and research institutions, which will be used when Paul Davidson, head of the Canadian Universities Agency, said in an interview that he expects the federal government to have a “national security framework” for universities and research institutions to evaluate projects that could potentially jeopardize national security.
He also said that the international situation has changed dramatically in the past two years and that university presidents need “help from all levels of government and all security departments.
According to Professor Stephanie Carvin, Canadian universities do worry about government interference in the tradition of academic freedom and its impact on a free academic environment.
But she acknowledges that Canada still lacks a guiding agenda to help researchers determine what their research means and who they are working with. Who are they working with? For example, when it comes to facial recognition, surveillance systems, or large-scale data collection techniques, project decision-makers need “guidelines” to assess the potential dangers.
Response
Last November, the Canadian Parliament passed a motion by Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong calling on the federal government to look to Australia to develop an effective plan to combat Chinese government interference, infiltration, and intimidation of Canadian citizens in Canada.
Australia is part of the “Five Eyes Alliance” with Canada and is also a middle power country that has been politically and economically infiltrated and interfered with by the Chinese government. Back in 2018, the Australian government passed two anti-foreign interference bills, giving the judiciary greater powers to combat foreign interference and introducing special bills to require the registration of lobbyists who lobby for foreign governments, among other things.
Liberal MP David McGuinty, who chairs Canada’s parliamentary security and intelligence committee, has also said the federal government needs to work across departments to develop a new strategy to address the threat.
However, intelligence sources have criticized the Canadian government for being slow to act, some police officers are not even sure what “foreign influence” means, and individuals and government agencies have varying degrees of awareness about the seriousness of foreign interference.
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