Vigilance, Prevention

"There are as many, and arguably more, attempts to steal Canadian secrets today -- economic, military, political -- than at any time in our national history. [Canada is seen as a] "highly attractive target for hostile intelligence agencies"; [counterespionage units were operating "in a higher risk environment than ever before."
"In the age of thumb drives, a warehouse of documents can be stolen in the blink of an eye and then carried away in one's pocket."
Michel Coulombe, director, Canadian Security Intelligence Service

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick     A sign for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service building is shown in Ottawa, Tuesday, May 14, 2013. Espionage may be worse than it has ever been, with spies also showing interest in Canada’s aerospace and oil sectors, says the top intelligence officer at CSIS.

"A number of foreign intelligence services continue to gather political, economic and military information in Canada through clandestine means."
"There is significant concern that extremism in Syria will result in a new generation of battle-hardened extremists who may seek to return to their home countries or export terrorism abroad."
"Is it not better to have violent extremists leave Canada rather than stay? The answer is that no country can become an unwitting exporter of terrorism without suffering damage to its international image and relations ... A Canadian who travels to commit terrorism is still very much a Canadian 'problem'."
CSIS report, 2011 to 2013

Foreign spies, we are informed in the newly-released CSIS report, are indulging in more espionage activities within and against Canada than ever before. Their interests in Canada's nuclear, aerospace and oil and gas sectors motivate them to pursue all avenues available through surreptitious cyberspying as they can manage. And it is the job of CSIS to discover where the breaches happen to be, and to confront and shut them down in the interests of protecting Canada.

Jeffrey Delisle, the Canadian naval officer who managed to initiate himself as a Canadian spy willing to offer Russian agents secret data for profit, was a case in point of vigilance arresting a situation which had already got well out of hand. And, as Mr. Coulombe noted, those trusted to help maintain and protect Canada's vital interests sometimes succumb to investing in their personal interests and in so doing aiding the interests of a foreign competitor; a task readily accomplished with the advent of advanced technology spiriting away voluminous data in the magic of a thumb drive.

A month ago the RCMP arrested an Ontario-based employee of Lloyd's shipping firm for attempting to pass sensitive data relating to Royal Canadian Navy vessels to the Chinese embassy in Ottawa. Canada's advanced possession of biotechnology data, aerospace, chemicals, communications, information technology, mining and metallurgy, nuclear energy and oil and gas industries were especially made note of in the report for the interest they provoked in foreign surveillance.

Damage incurred by "covert exploitation" of these sectors represented the loss of jobs, tax revenues and competitive advantage, in the case of industrial espionage. Strategic investments by state-owned enterprises represented another national security concern.

CSIS's focus on al-Qaeda, according to the report, and the radicalization of Canadians drawn to its virulently Islamist martyrdom ideology was also framed in the report, the first since 2012. The Internet as a communication device enticing to those for whom radical Islam becomes a mesmerizing leit motif in their life-values has succeeded in galvanizing young Muslim Canadians to leave the calm of Canada for the violence of jihad as newly-minted mujahedeen.

Though no disclosure is made relating to the numbers of Canadians believed to have taken the challenge to leave Canada for the experience of fighting jihad in the Middle East and North Africa, the numbers are worrying, as much as the prospect of those returning from the missions, trained in weapons use and the manufacture of bombs, to treat Canada to exposure through experience of their newly-gained expertise as mujahedeen.