More Than Meets The Eye

"They want to remove me from the country -- after everything I did? Isn't that a shame? Isn't that a shame?"
"They promised to get me status.  I was a soldier serving this country, putting my own life at risk. I was loyal and honest to the point I was caring about their safety more than my safety."
"Everybody just hang me dry after what I did."
Arab-Israeli citizen, 34, Halifax, Nova Scotia

"CSIS [Canadian Security Intelligence Service] is disposing of him like a 'throwaway' informant who no longer has value to CSIS and whose safety is not a CSIS concern."
"[While I have not confirmed my client worked for CSIS] ... He possesses a considerable amount of detailed information that strongly suggests he worked undercover for [the agency]."
Lee Cohen, immigration lawyer, Halifax

"]It's difficult to discern if these claims are valid; techniques described are in the public domain]."
"You know a good investigator never turns away a good source. What has he done?" 
Michel Juneau-Katsuya, former CSIS intelligence officer

This Halifax, N.S., man claims to be a 34-year-old Arab-Israeli citizen 

who spent four years working as an undercover counterterrorism 

“operative” for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.YouTube

According to the man whose name is withheld and who appeared in full disguise in a ten-minute video posted on YouTube, he worked undercover for four years as a counterterrorism 'operative' for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Canada's spy agency. He created Twitter accounts pretending to be an ISIL sympathizer. He did physical surveillance and online monitoring, translation work and built relationships in the terrorist community whose members have infiltrated Canadian society.

He did all this, using his language proficiency in Arabic, Hebrew and German as well as English, with the understanding that this work and his association with the Canadian spy agency would help his case. His case being that of a rejected refugee claimant. CSIS stated through a spokesman that the agency will not comment publicly on its investigations, methodology or activities.

The failed refugee claimant arrived in 2008 and filed a refugee claim in Toronto. He moved to Halifax in 2010. Having received no response to his claim he sought assistance from a legal-aid clinic only to discover his claim had been classified as abandoned.  He was advised to apply for a pre-removal risk assessment which would enable him to explain risks he could face if removed from Canada.

That application was rejected, along with a request for judicial review by the Federal Court of Canada. In the face of imminent removal he contacted CSIS to inform them he was in possession of information relating to people in Canada with connections to Hezbollah. He offered to help the agency with intelligence gathering as long as the agency would assist him in remaining in Canada.

And for the following four years he collected information on suspected money-laundering networks along with individuals suspected of having ties to groups such as Hezbollah, al-Qaida and Islamic State. Strangely enough, no mention of the sister terrorist group Hamas, known to have affiliates in Canada -- which should have been very familiar to him as an Arab-Israeli.

He was not paid at first for this side interest he engaged in, apart from his working at an ordinary job elsewhere. When he ran up costs incurred while on assignment he was reimbursed.That morphed into a monthly retainer of $2,000 in compensation for his services, he stated. Suddenly, surprisingly, the agency without explanation ended their relationship with him in 2016.

A year later the Canada Border Services Agency sent officers along to advise him another pre-removal risk assessment should be filled out. And this summer officers representing CBSA informed him he was scheduled for removal. According to the website for the federal government, anyone whose pre-removal risk assessment application was denied previously would not receive an automatic stay of removal should a subsequent application be filed.

The man claims to fear that returned to Israel he would be identified as a spy. "I'll be dead, sir". At whose hands? That of a democratic country whose system of justice is the equal of that of any other democratic, liberal Western-oriented nation? Or by agents of Fatah, the group behind the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank; alternately by Hamas, the terrorist group that operates the 'government' of Gaza. Both of which nurture an agenda to destroy Israel.