This post originally appeared on the Dogwood Initiative blog.

I should confess: I talk to lamp fixtures.

I wink at ceiling vents, sing to the dashboard in my car, apologize to the people eavesdropping on my phone calls for how boring my conversations are.

I can’t pinpoint when this running joke began, but it was sometime after I left television journalism and began to publicly criticize the government. Now that I work at Dogwood Initiative — where we’ve actually been the target of homeland surveillance — the joke is less funny.

Last week Dogwood organizers testified at a secret hearing of the Security Intelligence Review Committee — the “watchdog” tasked with keeping CSIS on a leash. We allege not only that Canada’s spy service broke the law by gathering information on peaceful civilians inside Canada, but that government spying has put a chill on democratic participation.

Do you know that feeling, that you’re being watched? It’s like when you park your vehicle in a bad spot and have to walk there after dark. Or you come home after a trip and the door is unlocked. Or you peer into the webcam on your phone or computer and wonder, is anyone there?

This spring I couldn’t shake that creepy sensation. I told myself I was being silly, that I had nothing to hide, that all my interesting consumer data is swept up by marketers already. But the feeling wouldn’t go away, so I sent CSIS a request under the Privacy Act to see if they had a file on me.

A few weeks later a brown envelope arrived from Ottawa with my address hand-written on the front. Inside was a single, watermarked page with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service logo at the top.

“Dear Mr. Nagata,” it began. “The personal information bank listed below was searched on your behalf with the following results:

(CSIS PPU 045) – Canadian Security Intelligence Service Investigational Records — The Governor-in-Council has designated this information bank an exempt bank pursuant to section 18 of the Privacy Act. If the type of information described in the bank did exist, it would qualify for exemption under section 21 (as it relates to the efforts of Canada towards detecting, preventing, or suppressing subversive or hostile activities), or 22(1)(a) and/or (b) of the Act.”

I looked up the exemptions in the Privacy Act. It says agencies can refuse to release information about “activities suspected of constituting threats to the security of Canada,” including details “that would reveal the identity of a confidential source of information.”

In other words, I may be under investigation by CSIS. If I am, they can’t tell me — because it might blow the identity of a source. Other friends and organizers have received the same letter. 

Let’s rewind to January 2013 when along with allied groups, Dogwood helped organize an unprecedented number of people to participate in a public review of the Enbridge Northern Gateway project. Most governments would view that as a good thing. Our government sent federal agents after us.

Thanks to U.S. intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden, security researchers at Queen’s University and journalists at the Guardian, Vancouver Observer and other outlets, the picture has slowly become clear: CSIS and other agencies in Canada see peaceful opposition to private oil company projects as a threat to national security.

We found out long after the fact that a Dogwood-organized meeting in a church basement in Kelowna came under federal surveillance. Later, it appears CSIS agents shared intelligence they had gathered with oil patch executives at a secret briefing sponsored by Enbridge.

Let me try to explain why this makes me so angry.

My dad’s parents were born in Vancouver and grew up speaking English. But because their folks had emigrated from Japan, in 1942 the whole family was reclassified as a threat to Canada. Everything they couldn’t fit in a suitcase — land, houses, shops, boats, farm tools — was seized and auctioned off. More than 25,000 men, women and children were rounded up and deported, put in prison camps or on remote work sites for the next four years.

It emerged after the war that the RCMP had never actually considered Japanese-Canadians a threat. It was the politicians who wanted a scapegoat. Our community has had a wary relationship with the Canadian government ever since. It’s hard to fully identify with a country that has shown you just how fragile your rights are as a citizen.

Still, I tried. After university I volunteered for the infantry reserve. I wanted to be proud of my Canadian identity, to wear the flag on my shoulder, to defend our values at home and overseas. Ironically, they tried to recruit me to do intelligence work in Afghanistan.

Instead I got a job doing radio journalism, ending my army career before it really began. I was disappointed to leave my regiment, but glad to be defending Canada and the public interest in a different way.

What I’m saying is, I work with Dogwood Initiative because I’m a patriot.

I believe in a country where power comes from the people. Where politicians are held accountable to their constituents. Where decisions are made together, not forced down our throats. And yes, where you need consent from First Nations and British Columbians if you want to build a pipeline to an oil tanker port on our coast.

I believe citizenship means thinking for yourself, not just blindly repeating what some politician wants you to say. I believe there’s a difference between our national interest and the interests of state-owned oil companies in China, or pipeline executives sitting in Houston. And I believe that Canada needs to plan for the threats to our economy and security created by climate change — not make them worse.

If you agree with any of that, then I guess we’re both enemies of the state.

The language is ridiculous, but don’t forget — it always starts with language. At a recent event in Vancouver South a Mandarin-speaking woman wanted to sign our Let BC Vote pledge, but explained that she was about to write her citizenship exam. She didn’t want to anger the government.

I laughed it off as paranoia. Sure, there are countries around the world where politically inconvenient people disappear. Secret agents torment families. Peoples’ careers and reputations are ruined. But we tell ourselves that’s not supposed to happen in Canada.

Well, here’s the ugly truth: she’s not wrong to harbour those fears. This country was built on cultural genocide. We invaded territory, stole children, wiped out languages — all of this was official government policy. Canada really did impose a racist head tax on immigrants. And in the First and Second World Wars thousands of citizens were stripped of their rights and property and interned for years in prison camps. These are difficult events to come to terms with, but they’re part of our history.

The only thing protecting us from such abuses today are limits on state power. These checks and balances are not given to us — they had to be fought for. Our job is to guard them vigilantly from the political and corporate interests that would weaken our democratic institutions to their own advantage.

This is one of those moments.

It’s becoming clear that oversight of spy agencies in Canada is dangerously weak. Dogwood only found out about the Kelowna incident long afterwards, by fluke. We have no way of knowing what other events or communications CSIS or other agencies have monitored. But we do know one thing: the situation is about to get worse.

Bill C-51, the government’s so-called antiterrorism law, beefs up the powers of Canada’s clandestine agencies to violate our constitutional rights — with no improvement in transparency or accountability. The violations we allege happened long before C-51 was on the books. Our spy agencies are already breaking the law, because there are no real consequences.

Last week’s hearing were far from perfect. The contents are secret, closed to media and the public. The adjudicator hearing our case is a former director of the TransCanada pipeline company. But it’s a good thing we have this opportunity, however fleeting, to hold Canada’s spies to some degree of accountability. It’s also a reminder of what’s at stake in the current election.

We can go in one of two directions as a country. We can vote to give even greater powers to spy agencies to violate our rights and freedoms. Or we can vote for rational civilian oversight: measures that balance the need to keep our population safe with the need to know how spy agencies are spending public money — and whether they’re obeying Canadian law.

The choice is yours. I invite you to sign the BC Civil Liberties Association “don’t spy on me” petition at SecretSpyHearings.ca. Ask your local candidates where they stand on government surveillance. Make sure they understand it's an election issue.

Above all, please get out and vote. It’s still the most dangerous act of defiance you can possibly undertake.

Image Credit: 707d3k via Flickr

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When I asked the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) whether it has files on me or DeSmog Canada, I got a response that's been used as a non-answer by government spokespeople and celebrity publicists for 40-plus years: We can "neither confirm nor deny" the records exist.

The intelligence body doesn't have to disclose such information because it's exempt from Canada’s Access to Information legislation since it relates to “the detecting, preventing or suppressing subversive or hostile activities.”

Hmph. Some part of me was expecting them to simply say "no." While non-denial denial responses like this are pretty par for the course when dealing with intelligence services — the phrase was first conjured up during a clandestine CIA submarine operation in the 1970s — it's disconcerting in light of the federal government’s proposed anti-terrorism bill C-51, which would increase the powers of CSIS and its role in government-sponsored spying.

As others have pointed out, bill C-51 will allow dangerously strong measures to be taken against even perceived terror threats or individuals that pose a threat to Canada’s critical infrastructure, such as pipelines, or the nation’s financial security.

The language in bill C-51 has been roundly criticized for being so broad that it endangers the democratic rights of Canadian citizens and their ability to engage in legitimate dissent. Under the new legislation, CSIS could foreseeably monitor the activities of ordinary Canadians participating in community organizing, climate activism, blockades, strikes or pipeline protests.

As a recently leaked RCMP intelligence report highlights, environmental and First Nation groups are already targeted for surveillance in Canada and are being characterized (some say hyperbolically) as “violent anti-petroleum extremists.”

As an editor at a news outlet that routinely reports on energy and environment issues directly related to "critical infrastructure," I thought it sensible to submit two requests to CSIS through the Access to Information and Privacy Act to see if any records came back.

For the record, I have no particular reason to think CSIS is monitoring either me or DeSmog Canada. To be sure, they have no legitimate reason to. But I find the inability to know whether we've been swept up in the spy agency's wide net concerning, as many other Canadians likely would.

Unfortunately, when it comes to CSIS, Canadians can expect very little transparency, a cause for additional concern when you recall Harper eliminated the position of the CSIS watchdog in 2012. The only overview of CSIS is handled by the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), a body comprised of part-time appointees with limited resources that assess CSIS operations after-the-fact.

DeSmog Canada's CSIS Privacy Request for Editor Carol Linnitt by DeSmog Canada

DeSmog Canada's CSIS Access to Information Request by DeSmog Canada

I reached out to Vincent Gogolek, executive director of the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association (FIPA), to see what he makes of these responses from CSIS.

"It certainly looks like the way the law is being interpreted there really aren't any 'citizens above suspicion,’” Gogolek said. “Or at least CSIS apparently won't confirm or deny” if such citizens exist.

Gogolek said it’s fair CSIS wouldn’t want to release information relevant to an ongoing investigation through the Access to Information process, but added, “likewise they shouldn't use this as a blanket excuse to refuse to release information."

Access to Information Act Gutted Under Harper 

Reg Whitaker, distinguished research professor emeritus at York University and adjunct professor of political science at the University of Victoria, is a national security expert who has written several books on the topic including The End of Privacy: How Total Surveillance is Becoming a Reality.

Whitaker said when it comes to transparency, the Harper government has successfully gutted the Access to Information and Privacy Act over the last several years.

“Their idea is: you let out as little as possible, you make it as difficult and you make it as expensive as you can to make it difficult to use the Act in the first place,” Whitaker said.

“That’s not necessarily related to CSIS or the RCMP or surveillance of ongoing movements,” he conceded. “There’s just a general tendency that they are trying to stop up the flow of information about what they’re doing generally across the board.”

But when it comes to CSIS, Whitaker said, “there’s this extra sensitivity, obviously.”

As the Harper government looks to expand the power of CSIS under the name of “counter-terrorism,” Whitaker said, “we know they are focusing on activist groups and certainly anti-pipeline groups, or more generally groups focused on resource issues and mega projects that have the highest priority in this government.”

“They will always claim that they’re only focusing on the potential for violence, therefore it falls into the category of terrorism. But there’s no way they can carry on the surveillance of potential violent activity of these groups without spying on these groups.”

“They are doing it and they’re very sensitive about trying to make sure there is as little information getting out there as possible,” he said.

But information still has a way of getting to the public, Whitaker added, such as the leaked RCMP intelligence report first published on DeSmog Canada.

Whitaker acknowledges there is no way to know if myself or DeSmog Canada is being monitored by CSIS.

“I don’t know if in your case that what’s happened with your request signifies you’re a target,” he said. “It could well be that you’re not. But they’re going to give you the same answer whether you had been a target that sought their files, or someone who wasn’t but thought they might be.”

RCMP and CSIS Risk Losing Social Licence

And that’s a problem, Whitaker said, arguing the outcome of a surveillance campaign like this will be growing social mistrust.

“The implications are not going to be good for social licence,” he said. “It’s a pretty fuzzy concept, but it’s a phrase that is used a lot these days.”

Whitaker said it is clear pipeline proponents Enbridge and Kinder Morgan have lost their social licence with individuals worried about the environment, First Nations and “generally the population of British Columbia feeling they’re having these juggernauts rammed down their throats.”

In much the same way, the RCMP and CSIS risk the social licence they require to adequately address real security threats.

“With CSIS and the RCMP in fighting terrorism, it’s very important, I think, that they — and in their more lucid moments they’d agree, I’m sure — that they have social licence.”

But with the looming implications of Bill C-51 both CSIS and the RCMP put their social licence at risk.

“What they’re in danger of doing now as bill C-51 goes through and their powers get greatly expanded and the definition of what they’re looking at is being expanded so broadly, well beyond terrorism in fact…they are going to seriously lose that social licence with a much larger proportion of the Canadian population.”

The loss of public support is something “they ought to be very worried about,” Whitaker said, adding it’s unclear “how much they are being pushed by the present government to focus on the quote-unquote anti-petroleum movement, etc. and how much is coming from within CSIS and the RCMP.”

“But certainly pressure has been coming from government.”

Image Credit: Emory Allen via Flickr

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This is a guest post by Shiri Pasternak.

Recent revelations that the RCMP spied on Indigenous environmental rights activist Clayton Thomas-Muller should not be dismissed as routine monitoring. They reveal a long-term, national energy strategy that is coming increasingly into conflict with Indigenous rights and assertions of Indigenous jurisdiction over lands and resources.

A “Critical Infrastructure Suspicious Incident” report was triggered by Thomas-Muller’s trip in 2010 to the Unist’ot’en camp of Wet’suwet’en land defenders, where a protect camp was being built on the coordinates of a proposed Pacific Trails pipeline.

The Unist’ot’en clan continues to hold their ground along these GPS coordinates today. Not coincidentally, they are members of a nation that took its assertions of jurisdiction to the Supreme Court of Canada in Delgamuukw v. British Columbia in 1997, establishing in Canadian case law the underlying proprietary interest of Indigenous peoples to their unceded lands.

This confluence of Indigenous proprietary interests with a multi-billion dollar energy sector has informed the development of new security apparatuses, mobilized to defend private sector investment and national energy market ambitions. As Public Safety Canada notes, disruptions to critical infrastructure could lead to “adverse economic effects.”

The RCMP National Security Criminal Investigations (NSCI) unit currently focuses on three “critical infrastructure” sectors, among which are energy and transportation. The NSCI houses the Critical Infrastructure Criminal Intelligence Unit (CICIU), which runs the Suspicious Incident Reporting (SIR) system that first identified Thomas-Muller’s travel plans as a potential risk.

State surveillance of Thomas-Muller falls into a growing net of secret spying on Indigenous groups, leaders, and organizers who seek to uphold Indigenous peoples’ internationally recognized rights of free, prior, and informed consent on their territories.

One form of risk mitigation to keep energy sectors barrier-free and accessible to the flow of capital is to induce First Nations to cede jurisdiction over their lands through the land claims policy and other “non-treaty” agreements.

It is no coincidence that the Department of Aboriginal Affairs appointed Douglas Eyford in July 2014 as the Special Ministerial Representative to review the first update to the land claims policy in almost 30 years. Eyford was also appointed the Special Federal Representative commissioned to produce a report on facilitating agreement with First Nations regarding West Coast Energy Infrastructure in 2013.

But when Indigenous groups refuse to comply with such policies, pacification strategies like surveillance are put into effect to intimidate lawfully acting organizers and citizens. Keeping tabs on organizers like Thomas-Muller is one prong of a complex and powerful constellation of power between industry and government to ensure pipelines like Pacific Trails, and its nearby Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, will get built.

An Army of Complicity & Collaboration

As reported in The Guardian, information sharing between the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) and dozens of oil and gas sector companies shows an unprecedented degree of cooperation between parties. Corporations have been meeting bi-annually with federal government officials since 2005 to discuss security issues around critical infrastructure such as pipelines. At the request of the Ministry of Natural Resources Canada, companies like Enbridge have even footed some of the bill for these gatherings, receiving high security clearance in exchange.

In fact, as Dr. Tia Dafnos explains, the SIR system was established by NSCI to facilitate the exchange of information and intelligence among law enforcement, government agencies and private sector critical infrastructure owner-operators relating to threats to critical infrastructure.

Dafnos’ doctoral research in Sociology at York University examined the expansion of intelligence sharing relationships among police, government and owner-operators. The SIR is a web-based portal where critical infrastructure owners and operators, such as Enbridge, can access information through the system as well as contribute and report “suspicious incidents” relating to their infrastructure operations. As she explains, “The information provided by owner-operators is analyzed by the NSCI’s Critical Infrastructure Intelligence Team to produce intelligence for both law enforcement and owner operators to inform their operations.”

She notes that what is significant about the surveillance documents concerning Thomas-Muller is that the initial assessment by the intelligence analyst concluded that no “national security nexus” was found. What pressures existed for a senior officer at RCMP headquarters to override this assessment?

Dafnos states that this raises serious questions about how criminal investigations are triggered in Canada. It also raises critical questions about how groups and individuals become targeted as “extremist” threats. She said, “The implication of this designation is that, as these documents show, a group or individual can be targeted for more intensive investigation and surveillance.” Surveillance, then, can escalate into far more serious criminal targeting and defamation.

Indigenous Rights

The difference between other environmental activists and Indigenous peoples being monitored are the particular legal and historical rights associated with Indigenous relationships to the land.

When Indigenous assertions of jurisdiction over their lands are characterized as threats to critical infrastructure, the state is likely hazarding a claim over disputed lands. These sweeping state powers blatantly contradict recent Supreme Court of Canada decisions on Aboriginal rights and title.

As Thomas-Muller declares, “These movements, like the Unist’ot’en camp of Wet’suwet’en land defenders, are acting in defense of their jurisdiction. Since these are disputed territories, Canada is bringing in its intelligence agencies and army to clear us out. But the courts are delivering more clarity on these issues of territory, and our rights to unceded and treaty territories are much greater than the government lets on. They are still acting like cowboys, when those days should be long over.”

He finds particular issue with the hypocrisy of calling this surveillance necessary for national security. “Our movements are about justice,” he said. “To criminalize Indigenous dissent, then, is to repress Indigenous rights in Canada, and our responsibilities to protect the land. We are transparent, open, base-driven movements that take a non-violent, peaceful direct action approach.”

“The state is criminalizing Indigenous peoples who are acting within their right to exercise jurisdiction over their lands. This is an abuse of democracy. It is clearly about providing a right-of-way for the mining and energy sector.”

The new anti-terrorism legislation and Indigenous rights

Dr. Tia Dafnos, who has written extensively about the criminalization of Indigenous dissent, finds chilling the proposed anti-terrorism legislation, as wells as calls for further increases in police and intelligence powers in the wake of the shootings at Parliament Hill.

“This is significant in light of recent proposals to increase the investigative powers of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) as Indigenous activism has long been a matter of interest to the RCMP, CSIS and the Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre. Although the recent proposal to increase CSIS powers has been couched in terms of addressing the ‘radicalization threat,’ investigative powers are not issue-specific once they are introduced.”

She notes that while the full extent of the bill has not been released, the designation of groups like the Indigenous Environmental Network (that Thomas-Muller worked for in 2010 at the time of the RCMP report) as “extremist” could make them susceptible to new investigative powers.

What should concern Canadians is how the concept of ‘national security’ is being hijacked to promote an energy agenda that promotes economic uncertainty, ecological risk, and the violation of Indigenous rights.

These are the wars at home and ordinary citizens have suddenly found themselves thrust onto the frontlines.

Shiri Pasternak is a writer and researcher based in Toronto and a Post Doctoral Fellow at Columbia University. She is an organizer with the Defenders of the Land network and the Anti-Colonial Committee of the Law Union of Ontario. Find more of her writing at ShiriPasternak.com.

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More and more often, we are reading in the news about the federal government and various intelligence and law enforcement agencies allegedly “spying” on aboriginals and pipeline opponents.

I am both of those things. I have no idea whether strangers are picking up shards of information from my emails and text messages. I have no idea what kind of beautiful stained-glass mosaics their imaginations might create. But in the spirit of wild and optimistic honesty, I would like to make a declaration to them, just in case:

I have nothing to hide from you.

Sometimes I can be arrogant. I’m very bad at playing guitar, but you know, I think I can sing pretty nicely. I like an embarrassing amount of honey in my tea. When I hike in the forest, I like to run. I write poems on napkins and receipts and scraps of paper and most of the time, I lose them; maybe you’ve found some. I don’t make my bed. Even though I think they’re silly, sometimes when it’s laundry day I resort to wearing animal print underpants.

I love my family so much it feels like my heart could burst out of my chest. Yeah, I know that emotions don’t really come from the little organ hidden behind my ribs, but I’ll admit it: I simplify the things that are too complex for me to comprehend, and I am content with those little truths I create. Besides, my family is pretty amazing. I really think my cousins build better forts than anyone else in the world, and they’re all my best friends.

It’s not just my family, though. I love my people. I really believe this: there are salmon swimming in my veins. Isn’t that incredible? My vertebrae are just stones from an old fishtrap arranged into a spine. My whole body belongs to the land I come from. I didn’t inherit the legacy of my ancestors; I’m part of a continuum. My whole sense of time is probably different from yours. I have 10,000 beautiful years of history on my shoulders and I live my life hoping that future generations will nod quietly to themselves someday and think of me as just another face in the vast village of ancestors that lives in their imagination. I’m Heiltsuk; it’s imprinted in every cell in my body.

Okay, that probably sounded a little smug. I told you I can be arrogant. Really, though, I wish everyone could experience how beautiful it is to know where you come from and to know where your bones will rest too. With a good heart, I wish you the peace that comes from having deep roots.

What else should I tell you? I was going to say “that you should never be afraid of me,” but I’m not sure that would be honest of me, and this is an exercise in honesty after all.

A journalist asked me a question once. Well, journalists ask me questions all the time – I’m not sure why – but there was one question I particularly liked. Not because it was original, but because of how he asked it.

This journalist, he was sitting on my deck last summer in Bella Bella, and a couple of barn swallows were swooping over us while he interviewed me. We were trying to have a very grave conversation, but it was a sunny day, and my heart was feeling light. After awhile, his formal interview tone just sort of dissipated, and then he asked me in a small voice: “Do you think this pipeline will get built?”

I couldn’t help it. It was instinct. I started giving my usual, predictable response. “I’ll be dead before this pipeline gets built,” I snapped. Then I paused and thought about his tone. And so he looked relieved when my voice got softer too, and then I said a thing I really do believe with all my heart: “But I hope it’s the case that I die an old, old woman, whose grandchildren never got tired of hearing how granny watched the people rise up to defeat the pipeline.”

I don’t want to die to stop this from happening. More importantly, I don’t want to ask other people to risk their own wellbeing to fight beside me if it comes to that. It’s why I work so hard to find peaceful resolutions. But people can be hard and soft at the same time, you know. I want justice for the land and its people without any violence. But that is secondary to a simpler statement: I want justice for the land and its people. I hope we find justice and peace; I know we will find justice.

I’m arrogant sometimes, but often it’s to cover up being nervous. When the journalist’s voice went quiet that afternoon, I should have known that for a moment, he was just a nervous person asking me a personal question. And you know what? I believe we should reciprocate the trust that comes with someone making themselves vulnerable in front of us.

That probably sounded like I expect you to trust me with your vulnerability too, stranger, if you do indeed exist. But don’t feel pressed. Making space for something isn’t the same as asking for it. Just know that if you want to tell me your secrets, I will respect them.

If you remember just one thing from what I’ve shared, I hope it’s not that I own animal print underpants or that sometimes I switch to autopilot when I’m being interviewed by journalists. I hope you remember that I have nothing to hide from you.

Maybe you’re worried that I’m organizing a riot when all I’m really doing is building community. Maybe you think I’m opposing development when really what I’m doing is protecting something sacred. Maybe you have questions about place-based indigenous identity. Or maybe you don’t ever ask yourself “Why?” Me, though, I sleep well at night because I do my work with a good heart; I’ll answer any questions you ask of me in the same spirit. If you’re out there, and if you’re “spying,” come out of the shadows. Be the audience to a story. Or be a participant in dialogue. Let’s understand one another instead of one side watching the other. Don’t be passive; be bold, and engage!

You don’t need to worry. My people have a long tradition of feasting with their enemies.

I’ve made peace with the possibility of watchers. I hope someday when this is all over, you will come out and publicly affirm all that to which you bore witness when reading my emails: that my boyfriend is, as I often rave to my friends, incredibly handsome; that the seventeenth round of edits to that draft of my thesis chapter is good enough already; and that as I write to my sister in Vancouver quite frequently, I’d give just about anything to share a cup of tea with her. I really do miss her. But you know that.

Does that sound like a deal? If so, give me a sign. I’m sure you are able to manipulate my devices and accounts to do so.

In the spirit of kindness, Jess

Read more from Jess on her blog Coast: Stories, Poems and Personal Journal.

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Recent revelations that Canada’s top spy watchdog Chuck Strahl is also a paid lobbyist for Enbridge and Northern Gateway Pipelines have Canadians in a rightful tizzy. The implications are grim, especially for citizens already concerned with federal overreach in the surveillance of environmental groups opposing the Enbridge's Northern Gateway oil pipeline and tanker proposal for B.C.'s coast.

Strahl is the federally appointed chairman of the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), an independent and non-partisan oversight agency designed to keep an eye on all activities of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

In November the Vancouver Observer released internal documents showing the federal government, the RCMP and CSIS had been working closely with the energy industry to address the issue of pipeline opposition and other barriers to energy development. Cross-sector responses between government and industry included the monitoring of environmental groups.

Lorne Sossin, dean of the Osgoode Law School at York University and specialist in constitutional law, regulation of professions and public policy, told DeSmog while Strahl may not be using his role as CSIS watchdog to advance the interests of Enbridge, the overlap of roles poses some threat to his perceived ability to perform as an independent adjudicator.

"I have no reason to think Chuck Strahl would use his position as chair of SIRC to advance interests of his clients as a lobbyist (whether Enbridge or others)," Sossin said. "That said, the nature of lobbying is building close relationships with government in order to advance client interests, while the nature of a regulatory and oversight body such as SIRC is to act independently to hold government accountable."

Sossin continued: "There seems to me to be an inherent challenge in having a lobbyist serve in such a capacity … The standard for impartiality at law is one of perception and I think a reasonable person could certainly see a conflict in this context. It may be that this concern is mitigated by the chair recusing himself in matters where his client's interests could be at stake but there may also be a perception of an inherent conflict in these roles." 

Duff Conacher of Democracy Watch called Strahl's lobbying "problematic" since "CSIS is investigating the people who oppose Enbridge."

“We need a full examination by ethics commissioner Mary Dawson into whether he used any information gained as a member of the Privy Council," Conacher said.  

On Wednesday, Dawson dismissed questions around conflict of interest in an exchange with the Vancouver Observer.

In December Strahl’s private consulting company took Enbridge on as a client to lobby on behalf of the company’s subsidiary Northern Gateway Pipelines L.P.

Strahl has previously publicly stated that he will not lobby and will take care to avoid conflicts of interest arising from his move to the private sector.

Recently the Vancouver Observer reported Strahl’s support of Enbridge can be traced back to an open letter signed in 2011.

The letter, entitled “A Choice for British Columbia” states:

Canada has talked about a “Pacific Gateway” for years: a tantalizing dream to position British Columbia as the leader of a coordinated national effort to leverage our strategic position into jobs, investment and prosperity for many decades to come.

Turning that dream into reality will require large, responsibly managed investments. It’s time to build the ports and pipelines, create the transportation systems, develop the skills and assemble the financial muscle to lead our country in tackling the challenges of global economic change.

…

Timely completion of natural gas pipeline and liquefaction capacity, as well as pipelines such as Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipelines Project, is essential for our economic future. 

Strahl’s open support of the pipeline has many concerned CSIS powers used to advance Enbridge interests above those of British Columbians will remain unchecked.

“Canadians were already concerned about the federal government using CSIS and the Canada Revenue Agency to target environmental groups and charities — now we learn the chair of CSIS’ civilian oversight committee is a paid pipeline lobbyist,” Nathan Cullen, NDP House Leader, said.

“This just further undermines people’s confidence in the fairness of the pipeline approval process.”

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That revolving door just keeps on turning.

As the Vancouver Observer recently reported, Canada’s spy watchdog and former Conservative cabinet minister Chuck Strahl registered in December to lobby the B.C. government on behalf of Enbridge subsidiary Northern Gateway Pipelines L.P.

B.C. lobby records show Chuck Strahl Consulting Inc. registered to lobby Rich Coleman, B.C. Minister of Natural Gas Development, arranging meetings with Northern Gateway representatives to discuss the issues of “energy.” The registration runs until June 2014.

“I do some contract work for Enbridge,” Strahl told the Vancouver Observer. “I’ve registered just in case I arrange a meeting, but no meetings to report.”

The story has gained particular traction in light of November revelations regarding CSIS involvement in spying on opponents of the Northern Gateway pipeline.

High-level collaboration and information sharing between Enbridge, industry representatives, the RCMP, federal government departments and CSIS were discovered through documents released through Access to Information legislation.

The records, which revealed closed-door meetings sponsored by Enbridge, raised questions about freedom of conscience, government transparency, and the democratic process regarding the pending Northern Gateway pipeline, unquestionably Canada’s most contentious energy infrastructure project.

Strahl’s move from the public sector to the private has raised further concerns about the effectiveness of the federally imposed ‘cooling-off’ period meant to bar holders of public office from using former government relationships to advance private sector interests. Federal rules prevent former public officials from lobbying for five years, although the loose ban allows for minimal amounts — 20 per cent or less of the lobbyist’s time — after two years.

As a former federal office holder, Strahl is not prevented from becoming a B.C. registered lobbyist.

The revelation comes after questions have already been raised concerning Strahl’s relationship with the B.C. Liberal party and Premier Christy Clark, a conditional proponent of the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline. Clark publicly thanked Strahl for the role he played in securing a Liberal victory in the 2013 B.C. election, although she later revoked the comment, after Strahl and the B.C. Conservatives claimed he remained non-partisan and arms-length from any party.

In June 2012 Strahl was handed the reigns of Canada’s Security and Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), the federal body overseeing the nation’s most powerful spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). As chair of SIRC Strahl has access to all intelligence handled by CSIS, excluding cabinet secrets.

The SIRC website states: “Parliament has given CSIS extraordinary powers to intrude on the privacy of individuals. SIRC ensures that these powers are used legally and appropriately, in order to protect Canadians’ rights and freedoms.”

“It has the absolute authority to examine all information concerning CSIS activities, no matter how sensitive and highly classified that information may be.”

Taking the position of disgraced former SIRC chairman Arthur Porter, who is now serving a jail sentence in Panama for unsavory business dealings including corporate conflicts of interest, the inexperienced Strahl was called an appointee of “pure patronage” at the time by reporter Brian Hutchinson.

Strahl’s position as chair of the board of the Manning Centre, a conservative political organization, led some to question his appropriateness as watchdog of an apolitical Parliamentary agency.

Strahl told Hutchinson he had a system of “double make-sure” for protecting the public from potential conflicts of interest or unethical moves. He claimed he wouldn’t lobby governments and that potential conflicts would be taken up with Canada’s ethics commissioner, Mary Dawson, whom he had already spoken with, he said.

The good news, Hutchinson remarked, was that “Mr. Strahl comes free of scandal.”

Yet Strahl seems to have brusquely wandered into questionable territory as lobbyist for a corporation at the centre of Canada’s dubious oil export race.

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When I sat down Tuesday night to put some thoughts on paper about allegations of spying on Canadian environmental and pro-democracy groups, I never imagined those musings would end up being read by tens of thousands of people and spawn news coverage across the country.

But that’s exactly what happened. In my original piece, I lamented that the story wasn’t being covered by traditional news outlets — but within a couple of days the Globe and Mail, Metro, Sun News, the Victoria Times Colonist and CBC had picked up on the story. The National Energy Board, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), several politicians and Alberta’s energy minister all commented on the spying allegations.

On Monday morning, I did three CBC Radio interviews — here's a clip of me discussing the spying allegations on Daybreak North.

I’ve spent much of the past week brushing up on the ins and outs of surveillance, speaking to lawyers, reporters and trusted friends about the implications of the Vancouver Observer’s report.

Here are answers to the three most pressing questions raised by this news.

1) What evidence is there of spying in the documents obtained by the Vancouver Observer?

Most of the documents are e-mails from the National Energy Board’s security lead, Rick Garber, describing security plans for the Enbridge Northern Gateway public hearings in the first half of 2013. In one of those e-mails, Garber writes that his team “has consulted today with Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) at national and regional levels; RCMP at national, regional and local levels.”

This reference to CSIS is notable because it is the first public evidence of Canada’s spy agency being involved in monitoring the Enbridge hearings. The extent of the involvement of CSIS is unclear. In other e-mails from the National Energy Board, specific events and protests were described and assessed for security risks.

Combined with The Guardian’s recent revelations that CSIS and the RCMP have been hosting secret briefings with the energy industry, the involvement of CSIS in the Enbridge hearings raises a lot of questions.  

2) What else was notable in those documents?

The other newsworthy item in the documents is an e-mail memo with the subject line “Security Concerns – National Energy Board.” It was sent by Tim O’Neil, senior criminal intelligence research specialist with the RCMP, and circulated to a lengthy list of stakeholders, including CSIS.

In that memo, O’Neil describes “sustained opposition to the Canadian petroleum and pipeline industry,” adding opponents have “the ultimate goal of forcing the shutdown of the Canadian petroleum industry.”

Forcing the shutdown of the Canadian petroleum industry? While there are many Canadian environmental organizations advocating to pause the expansion of oilsands development at least until adequate monitoring is in place, you’d be hard-pressed to find a credible group working to "shut down the Canadian petroleum industry." O’Neil’s description indicates a troubling lack of understanding of the Canadian energy debate and the people he appears to be tasked with providing "intelligence" on.

He goes on to write: “The anti-petroleum … movement has attempted to interfere within the federal regulatory hearings and have used coordinated/mass intervention that have at times bogged down the regulatory hearings.”

Pro-democracy and environmental groups informed citizens about how to register to speak at the Enbridge public hearings. At what point did the public speaking at public hearings become "interference?"

O’Neil also states there is “no intelligence indicating a criminal threat to the NEB or its members” and “I could not detect a direct or specific criminal threat.”

The mandate of CSIS is to monitor “threats to Canada’s national security.” If no threat can be detected, one wonders why the spy agency is being kept in the loop. It raises the question of why CSIS would be involved in the perfectly legal, legitimate, non-violent democratic activities of citizens.

At the end of his e-mail, O’Neil advises recipients to discuss concerns with officials at the May 23rd Natural Resources Canada classified briefing. This is the briefing where breakfast, lunch and coffee were sponsored by Enbridge, while representatives of CSIS and the RCMP exchanged “intelligence” on such topics as “challenges to energy projects by environmental groups.”

3) What’s wrong with all of this?

The National Energy Board co-ordinating with local police forces to ensure safe public hearings is perfectly reasonable — but the involvement of CSIS raises a couple of concerns.

First, these taxpayer-funded agencies appear to be spending their time monitoring the legal activities of Canadian citizens and organizations, which raises questions about public safety resources being used in the interests of the oil industry.

Second, the sharing of intelligence with the energy industry calls into question whose best interests the government has in mind — oil companies' or the public's?

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Nov. 19th, 2013. A Tuesday. The day started out sunny, but hail fell out of the sky in the afternoon. It was a Victoria day like any other until I found out the Canadian government has been vigorously spying on several Canadian organizations that work for environmental protections and democratic rights.

I read the news in the Vancouver Observer. There, front and centre, was the name of the organization I worked for until recently: Dogwood Initiative.

My colleagues and I had been wary of being spied on for a long time, but having it confirmed still took the wind out of me.

I told my parents about the article over dinner. They’re retired school teachers who lived in northern Alberta for 35 years before moving to Victoria.

I asked them: “Did you know the Canadian government is spending your tax dollars to spy on your daughter?”

Then I told them how one of the events detailed in e-mails from Richard Garber, the National Energy Board’s “Group Leader of Security,” was a workshop in a Kelowna church run by one of my close friends and colleagues, Celine Trojand (who’s about the most warm-hearted person you could ever meet). About 30 people, mostly retirees, attended to learn about storytelling, theory of change and creative sign-making (cue the scary music).

In the e-mails, Garber marshals security and intelligence operations between government operations and private interests and notes that his security team has consulted with Canada’s spying agency, CSIS.

To add insult to injury, another set of documents show CSIS and the RCMP have been inviting oil executives to secret classified briefings at CSIS headquarters in Ottawa, in what The Guardian describes as “unprecedented surveillance and intelligence sharing with companies.”

These meetings covered “threats” to energy infrastructure and “challenges to energy projects from environmental groups.” Guess who is prominently displayed as a sponsor on the agenda of May’s meeting? Enbridge, the proponent of a controversial oilsands pipeline to the coast of British Columbia.

I asked my folks: “Isn’t that scary? CSIS is hosting classified briefings sponsored by Enbridge?” No answer. My parents are not the type to get themselves in a flap about things like this, but I prodded them: “Dad, this is scary, right?”

“It’s scary,” he admitted.

How much information is being provided to corporations like Enbridge? What about state-owned Chinese oil companies like Sinopec, which has a $10 million stake in Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline and tanker proposal?

What kind of country spies on environmental organizations in the name of the oil industry? It seems more Nigerian than Canadian.

I fought the urge to react with indignation, a sentiment I find all too common in the environmental movement. I also didn’t want to be overwrought about it. Fact is though, the more I thought about those documents, the more I began to feel a sense of loss for my country.

I’m not the touchy-feely type. Everyone from my conservative cousins in Alberta to my former colleagues at the Calgary Herald could attest to that. I grew up in northern Alberta playing hockey and going to bush parties. I think our oil and gas deposits, including the oilsands, are a great asset to our country — if developed in the public interest. Yes, that’s a big "if" — but Canadians own these resources and the number one priority when developing them should be that Canadians benefit.

For speaking up for the public interest and speaking out against the export of raw bitumen through the Great Bear Rainforest, hundreds of people like me have been called radicals and painted as enemies of the state, as somehow un-Canadian. That last bit is what hits me in the gut.

I love my country. And in my eyes, there isn’t anything much more patriotic than fighting for the interests of Canadian citizens. I’ve argued that after 25 years of oilsands development, Albertans should have something to show for it — not be facing budget crises and closing hospital beds; that Albertans aren’t collecting a fair share of resource revenues; that we should develop resources at a responsible pace that doesn’t cause rampant inflation, undermining Canadians’ quality of life and hurting other sectors of the economy; that we should prioritize Canadian energy security (half of Canada is currently dependent on foreign oil). And I’ve agreed with the Alberta Federation of Labour that exporting raw bitumen and 50,000 jobs to China doesn’t make sense for Canadians

Now, I don’t expect everyone to agree with me, but it’s a stretch to portray any of those statements as unpatriotic or radical. In fact, one of my proudest moments as a Canadian was encouraging citizens to register to speak at the public hearings on Enbridge’s pipeline and tanker proposal for B.C. With a team of committed people at Dogwood, in collaboration with several other groups, we helped more than 4,000 people sign up to have their say — seven times more than in any previous National Energy Board hearing.

It was this act of public participation that sparked the beginnings of the federal government’s attacks on people who oppose certain resource development proposals. Helping citizens to participate in an archaic public hearing process is a vital part of democracy— not something to be maligned.

What makes me sad is the thought that we’ve been reduced to being the type of country that spies on its own citizens when they speak out against certain corporate interests. Not only that, but our government then turns around and shares that intelligence with those corporations.

Disappointingly, a scan of today’s news coverage indicates Canada’s major newspapers never picked up the spying story, save for one 343-word brief on page 9 of the Vancouver Province. Is it now so accepted that the Canadian government is in bed with the oil industry that it doesn’t even make news any more? Now that’s really sad.

Whether you agree or disagree with my ideas about responsible natural resource development, I’d hope we could all agree Canada should be a country where we can have open and informed debate about the most important issues of our time — without fear of being attacked and spied on by our own government.

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This is a guest post by Michael Harris, writer, journalist and documentary maker.

According to the pollsters at Ipsos-Reid, about half of all Canadians don’t care if their own government is spying on them through CSEC, Canada’s national cryptologic agency.

A whopping 77 per cent of us apparently actively support such spying when it is justified by the claim that it helps prevent terrorist attacks. So the message to government is that to get buy-in from three-quarters of Canadians on gross violations of privacy, simply play the terrorist card.

(The fact that we are spying on an ally, Brazil, has sparked less public interest than Vanity Fair’s upcoming tongue-wagger on Gwyneth Paltrow.)

There are two problems with our laissez-faire attitude about the government listening in. None of us will ever be able to check the claims of the authorities when they say they acted in the interests of national security – it’s classified; and governments routinely lie about alleged security threats to get around the messy business of defending the indefensible in public.

I wonder how many people have stopped to think about the predatory menace of big governments that want to get even bigger. In the U.K., for example, look what has happened in the wake of the phone-hacking affair.

A Rupert Murdoch newspaper closed, huge fines and settlements were paid, and people went to jail. That’s what happens when you violate peoples’ privacy rights and break the law; rightly so. But politicians, who dislike the media the way our esteemed prime minister does, have used as a tool to not-so-gradually knock down free speech.

The Leveson Inquiry in the U.K. did recommend regulation of the press, but the key word was “voluntary” regulation. There is nothing voluntary about an all-party agreement amongst politicians that a government panel should have the right to decide if someone has overstepped the journalistic boundaries, or should be fired. That’s what they do in the places where there is but one name on the ballot and a dark room for dissenters.

Consider this monstrous contradiction. When journalists and news agencies were caught illegally listening in, it wasn’t enough to punish the guilty under existing law. Instead, freedom of the press itself became a target of politicians and their ongoing efforts to constrain an institution that often embarrasses them. Politicians led the charge with alacrity.

But the governments of the United States, the U.K, and Canada have been caught implementing vast domestic and international spying that makes phone-hacking look like putting your ear to the keyhole. Yet there is no talk about charging people who have violated the Constitution in the U.S., the Charter in this country, and the law in both, there is no push to hold an Inquiry – just a poll saying that an awful lot of us don’t really give a damn.

The banal routine of big government’s big lies ought to keep everyone awake at night. It has been widely reported in the U.S. and British press that the leak of diplomatic cables by Julian Assange and Wikileaks put the lives of Americans at risk and threatened national security.

Assange was universally painted as treasonous by people like then-U.S. national security adviser General Jim Jones and Mike Mullen, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was nothing more than misguided hate-mongering disguised as patriotism. One idiot on Fox News, Bob Beckel, said that the U.S. should “illegally shoot the son of a bitch.”

In Canada, Ezra Levant and Tom Flanagan agreed, Levant arguing that Assange was no different from Taliban leaders who had been targeted for assassination.

Assange had actually performed an invaluable service for democracy-loving people; telling them the documented, unspun truth about what their government was doing in their name in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. In other words, doing what government is supposed to do – own up to one’s public actions in order to make accountability possible. But no one in the U.S. military was particularly anxious to talk about torturing enemy combatants, (as witnessed by former SAS officer Ben Griffin), or using white phosphorous in the raising of Fallujah, where even the British were appalled at American disregard for civilians.

As for the claim that Assange had done irreparable damage by documenting what actually happened in two wars, it was a gross distortion. Then U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates made that clear when he said the reaction from some U.S. officials was “fairly significantly overwrought,” and consequences of the leaks, “fairly modest.”

Even the chief investigator into Bradley Manning’s leak of classified documents testified that he found no evidence of a single person dying as a result of what the young soldier revealed, the Guardian reported.

And now half of the country doesn’t care if the Canadian government spies on them. One has to shake one’s head to remember that there was a time in Canada when official law-breaking was mega-news.

There was a time nearly 35 years ago when illegally opening first-class mail, stealing party membership lists, conducting unauthorized wire-taps, burning barns and conducting more than 400 break-ins led to the McDonald Commission. It pays to remember that the RCMP, which lost its Security Service over these deeds, used the Commission not to exhibit remorse for its many disgraces, but to argue that what it had done illegally ought to be made legal.

It’s time to stop jumping every time the security establishment says boo. It’s well past time to recognize that spurious national security claims have been used to either suppress information or punish those who make it available.

It is no accident that prison, embassy sanctuary, and exile have so far been the reward for three men who dared to tell what their governments are actually doing. The truth is now treasonous. The unkindest cut of all? The spooks who peer into our lives from the electronic shadows get a billion dollar palace at public expense.

For the fifty percent who don’t care what CSEC, GCHQ, or NSA are doing, ponder this: lazy democracies don’t last long. What comes next won’t really care what you think.

This article originally appeared on iPolitics.

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WARNING: Military Spooks Probably Know You Are Reading This

You could be in Canada's secret surveillance database. All it takes is a phone call, text message or email to someone in another country. And every time you visit a website your location, your browsing history and other metadata can be collected by the little-known Communications Security Establishment Canada.

All of this is illegal according to BC Civil Liberties Association which filed a lawsuit in BC Supreme Court Tuesday.

“Unaccountable and unchecked government surveillance presents a grave threat to democratic freedoms,” says Joseph Arvay, Q.C., lawyer for the BC Civil Liberties Association.

"We are deeply concerned that CSEC (Communications Security Establishment Canada) is gaining secret, illegal access to the private communications of ordinary Canadians," said Arvay.

CSEC, which will soon be housed the most expensive government building ever constructed (almost $1.2 billion), is Canada's $350 million-a-year counterpart to the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).

In recent months the NSA has received much media attention after whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked secret NSA documents. Those documents revealed the extensive surveillance the NSA undertakes including tracking the calls of almost every American citizen and spying on a vast but unknown number of Americans’ international calls, text messages, and emails.

Turns out CSEC also spies on Canadian citizens but unlike the NSA no court or committee  oversees its operations. Canada's other big spy agency, the $500-million-a-year Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) has its activities monitored by an independent  committee.

CSEC is a military spy agency and has no such overview. The Minister of National Defence calls all the shots and issues directives in secret.

However a Nov 21, 2011 directive that became public revealed that then Minister Peter Mackay approved the collection and analysis of metadata. This is information that is automatically produced each and every time a Canadian uses a mobile phone or accesses the internet. [See Guardian's Guide to Metadata]

"Metadata information can reveal the most intimate details of Canadians’ personal lives, including relationships, and political and personal beliefs," said David Martin, lawyer for the BCCLA.

Canadians should be able to use the internet "without the government snooping on our personal information and monitoring our behaviour online," Martin said in a Vancouver press conference Tuesday.

The spy agency is allowed to capture the communications of Canadians at home and abroad if the collection relates to obtaining “foreign intelligence.” CSEC shares this information with foreign intelligence entities in the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia.

Arvay says CSEC's domestic spying infringes on Canadians rights of freedom of expression.

"Canadians are going to censor themselves fearing their communications will be intercepted," he said.

It's "unbelievable there is no judicial oversight of CSEC" said Caily DiPuma, Counsel for the BCCLA.

"Canadians have a right to privacy. We have no idea what CSEC is doing with their information or how they are interpreting laws," DiPuma said.

No one knows have many Canadians are caught up in the CSEC net said OpenMedia.ca Executive Director Steve Anderson.

OpenMedia fought a successful battle against Bill C30 – the online spying bill. "I was shocked to learn that CSEC is monitoring Canadians online and we're picking up the tab," Anderson said.

"We can’t even tell when we’ve been victimized by it. We strongly support the BCCLA’s court challenge," he said.

OpenMedia has launched a new online sign-up pledge against "out-of-control spying on Canadians.”

Incredibly, CSEC is just the tip of the domestic spying spear for Canadians involved in labour and social justice, indigenous issues, environmental or other organizations the Harper government has labeled as a "threat" to Canada's business interests.

The RCMP, CSIS and others involved in "security intelligence" have been monitoring Canadians involved in various non-governmental organizations such as environmental groups said Jeffrey Monaghan of the Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.

Protests and opposition to Canada's resource-based economy, especially oil and gas production, are now viewed as threats to national security, Monaghan said.

Based on security documents just released under freedom of information laws, CSIS has likely created a wide-ranging surveillance net in partnership with the private sector he said.

One Feb 2011 document reads: "…the private sector is ideally suited to provide the Service (CSIS) with unsolicited, but potentially valuable street-level information."

Later the document notes that the private sector can violate Canada's privacy laws "for reasons of law enforcement, national security, defense of Canada, conduct of international affairs…"

Part II will look at the role of the private sector, including energy companies, in working with law enforcement to spy on and punish individuals and organizations involved in legal, democratic activities. 

Image Credit: CSEC Common Criteria icon

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