The Canadian national intelligence culture: A minimalist and defensive national intelligence apparatus
| Date | 01 September 2021 |
| Published date | 01 September 2021 |
| Author | Marco Munier |
| DOI | 10.1177/00207020211048430 |
| Subject Matter | Scholarly Essay |
Scholarly Essay
International Journal
2021, Vol. 76(3) 427–445
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/00207020211048430
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The Canadian national
intelligence culture: A
minimalist and defensive
national intelligence
apparatus
Marco Munier
Science politique, Universit´
eduQu
´
ebec `
a Montr´
eal, Montr´
eal, Qu´
ebec, Canada
Abstract
This paper seeks to understand the nature and characteristics of Canadian national
intelligence culture post–Cold War using the analytical insights of the strategic culture
and intelligence culture literature. Previous studies have focused on an organizational
description or historical studies of Canadian intelligence during the Cold War or after
9/11. Yet, no studies have examined the characterization of a national intelligence
culture in Canada and proposed to contextualize the Canadian intelligence system in
light of its national intelligence culture. Building on a culturalist approach of national
intelligence systems, this paper proposes an operationalization of the national intel-
ligence culture concept drawn on the strategic and intelligence culture literature. The
paper concludes that Canada’s national intelligence culture is mostly defensive and
minimalist. However, we note that recent changes in the Canadian intelligence ap-
paratus have led to a gradual evolution of Canadian intelligence from defensive to
offensive.
Keywords
Canada, intelligence studies, intelligence culture, strategic culture, culturalist approach
Corresponding author:
Marco Munier, Science politique, Universit´
eduQu
´
ebec `
a Montr´
eal, 400, rue Sainte-Catherine Est, Pavillon
Hubert Aquin, Local A-1490, Montr´
eal, Qu´
ebec H2L 2C5, Canada.
Email: munier.marco_bruno@courrier.uqam.ca
Canada is unique among its Western allies in that it does not have a dedicated foreign
human intelligence agency and does not carry out or participate in violent intelligence
operations like France, the United Kingdom, the United States, or Australia. Never-
theless, Canada has a long tradition in domestic intelligence, from military intelligence
at the border in the 19th century to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Security
Service and the creation of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). But, like
the US and the UK, Canada has a dedicated agency for signals intelligence. 9/11 pushed
Canadian intelligence to the forefront and made it one of the most important actors in
national security, forcing a transformation of the Canadian intelligence community.
1
In
2004, the Ottawa policy statement “Securing an Open Society: Canada’s National
Security Policy,”put intelligence at the center of government policy for the first time to
reinforce and better coordinate security intelligence collection activities. This new
intelligence position in the Canadian government security policies was also reflected in
the 2015 anti-terrorism legislation, Bill C-51, which strengthened the intelligence
gathering and sharing powers of Canadian intelligence agencies and the new Bill C-59.
This paper offers to move beyond the universalism of existing theories stating that
intelligence provides a decision-making advantage over adversaries or that intelligence
can reduce risk
2
and embrace a culturalist approach in which there is a variety of
national intelligence systems depending on each country’s political and cultural
systems.
3
In intelligence studies, the culturalist approach leads in particular to de-
termining specific intelligence cultures by identifying the specific norms, ideas, rules,
and practices of certain intelligence systems. The core of the culturalist approach is the
idea that actors are oriented by general dispositions to act in certain ways in sets of
situations.
4
While there are several studies on the history of Canadian intelligence and
the organizational structure and evolution of the intelligence community,
5
there are no
1. Martin Rudner, “Challenge and response: Canada’s intelligence community and the war on terrorism,”
Canadian Foreign Policy Journal 11, no. 2 (2004): 17.
2. SeeJenniferSims,“Defending adaptive realism: Intelligence theorycomes of age,”in Peter Gill, Stephen Marrin,
and Mark Phythian, eds., IntelligenceTheory: Key Questions and Debates (London: Routledge, 2009), 151–165;
Michael Warner, “Intelligence as risk shifting,”in Gill, Marrin, and Phythian, Intelligence Theory,16–32.
3. See Adda Bozeman, “Political intelligence in non-Western societies: Suggestion for comparative re-
search,”in Roy Godson, ed., Comparing Foreign Intelligence: The US, the USSR, the UK & the Third
World(Washington: Pergamon-Brassey’s,1988), 149–150. For more considerations on aculturalist turn in
Intelligence Studies, see Simon Willmetts, “The cultural turn in intelligence studies,”Intelligence and
National Security 34, no. 6 (2019): 800–817.
4. Harry Eckstein, “A culturalist theory of political change,”American Political Science Review 82, no. 3
(1988): 790.
5. See, inter alia, WesleyK. Wark, “Cryptographic innocence: The origins of signals intelligence in Canada in
the Second World War,”Journal of Contemporary History 22, no. 4 (1987): 639–665; Martin Rudner,
“The historical evolution of Canada’s foreign intelligence capability: Cold War SIGINT strategy and its
legacy,”Journal of Intelligence History 6, no. 1 (2006): 67–83; Reg Whitaker, Gregory S. Kealey, and
Andrew Parnaby, Secret Service: Political Policing in Canada from the Fenians to Fortress America
(Toronto: Universityof Toronto Press, 2012); Stephanie Carvin, Thomas Juneau, and Craig Forcese, eds.,
Top Secret Canada: Understanding the Canadian Intelligence and National Security Community
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020).
428 International Journal 76(3)
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