Greg Fyffe – How good is intelligence analysis in Canada?

Phil–on the creation of the IAS, by Chris Spencer (an External Affairs officer with considerable intelligence experience) in 1996:

“…[in the early 1990s] For years there had been discussion about the need for some sort of central assessment staff, since departmental analysts naturally were expected to look after their departmental demands and needs first. In addition, as indicated above, no way had been found to give real authority to any central coordinating body or individual in the face of long-established departmental autonomy and priorities and the coordinating rather than executive role of the PCO. Also, quite apart from any perceived need for a change or reduction in the role of intelligence with the end of the Cold War, the federal government was running into serious fiscal problems and has felt it necessary to reduce almost all departments’ funds and authorized staff.

In 1993, it was decided that the need for a central assessment capacity, and the further reductions being required of DFAIT in both its budget and its personnel, made it advisable to effectively transfer its responsibility and capacity for foreign and economic intelligence to the PCO. As a result, the latter created an Intelligence Assessments Secretariat (IAS) with both coordination and assessment functions, using the extremely limited resources transferred from DFAIT. The result of these moves is that Foreign Affairs has been left with virtually no intelligence analysis capacity. Simultaneously, while the IAS is very much smaller than the former intelligence analysis staff of DFAIT (down from about 35 analysts [that included a significant number of economic analysts who were not foreign service officers] to 13), its responsibilities are considerably broader. These include government-wide coordination and analysis, but without any formal DFAIT input. Moreover, however willing they may be to help the IAS, DFAIT desk officers are not experienced as analysts, often have not previously visited or dealt with their current areas of responsibility, and are fully occupied with operational activities. 31…”
https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/jcs/article/view/4525/5348

As a foreign service officer I was in the ExtAff Intelligence Analysis Division 1980-82 covering all of Asia (and the arms trade); we had six officers to cover the world and produced most the contents of the “Weekly Intelligence Report (WIR)” put out under the authority of the Interdepartmental Intelligence Advisory Committee (IAC) of the PCO, which had its own tiny coordinating staff.

Then from 1982 to 1984 I was seconded to PCO as IAC Current Intelligence Coordinator tasked with putting the WIR together through the interdepartmental process. We had two other officers, from the RCMP and the CAF, tasked with coordinating the production of longer, more specialized, papers from the IAC. Our boss was a wonderful army colonel (the IAC Secretary) who just let us get on with our jobs and had confidence that we would seek his advice or approval if we thought something needed it. Most unlike ExtAff where one had no authority to sign almost anything on one’s own. Refreshing.

Mark Collins