The Canadian Spywatchers

"I think we need a serious review of the security standards and practices as they relate to decision-making in the Privy Council Office and the PMO, stemming from episodes like these." Former CSIS intelligence operative David Harris

Point well taken. Actually, become obvious, due to recent revelations in the National Post about the operation of Canada's Security and Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), where an appointed body has been tasked with the vetting and oversight of Canada's spy agency activities. These carefully considered, hand-picked individuals, recognized for their positions of influence in various fields of endeavour, are given a sensitive mandate.

SIRC members work part-time for this agency. They generally have an assortment of professional connections, many sitting on various high-profile boards, and many have personal social and business and political connections in high places. They receive top-secret clearance to enable them to have access to sensitive government security intelligence data.

Because they become familiar with secret government files it is of utmost importance that they take their position seriously. They are initially security-screened. They divulge a list of their responsibilities and board memberships. And they make available for scrutiny some of their financial holdings. Scrutiny into their personal affairs, however, appears relatively slight; the background checks not onerous.

SIRC represents the external agency whose task it is to ensure that Canada's spy agency adheres to legal activities, in an appropriate manner. It is a five-member board that also sits to hear CSIS-related complaints. Yet, despite this agency's importance, it appears fairly lax scrutiny is given to the activities and connections of its members.

A former head of SIRC, Paule Gauthier, is revealed to have acted as honorary consul to Sweden.
Another, more recent head of SIRC, Arthur Porter, was ambassador plenipotentiary of Sierra Leone. And he had rather questionable business dealings with an individual whose past activities have been on the wonky side of the law, highly suspect for the company he keeps.

And now again, a SIRC appointee, Dr. Phillipe Couillard, is an international advisory board member for Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health. An activity that takes him out-of-country on occasion in pursuit of his responsibilities to Saudi Arabia. A country, just incidentally, whose laws are greatly at variance with that of most Western countries, including Canada's.

These details are no mere details, they represent a clear conflict of interest on the part of the SIRC members who are privy to top secret data, and who perform additional functions on behalf of foreign governments. They deny any hint of potential conflict of interest, but it should be abundantly clear that a dedicated servant cannot serve two masters.

The potential for something going awry, a slip of the tongue, an unguarded moment, cannot be undone. In such an obviously intelligence-sensitive position, no one should be permitted to be a member of SIRC when they exercise such poor judgement as to become involved with a foreign government.

It is obvious that government has dropped the ball here with its far too-casual treatment of the appointment of high-profile individuals with their fingers dipped in too many pies.