6 December 2021 (Waterloo, Canada) — Today, the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) published a report advising the Government of Canada to update its 17-year-old national security policy in the face of non-traditional threats and recommending specific actions toward its development and implementation.
The special report is the culmination of the think tank’s Reimagining a Canadian National Security Strategy project, which included consultation with 250 experts in the fields of security, intelligence and surveillance over the past year. It involved 65 workshops in 10 thematic areas, as well as input from 21 senior government officials. Seven additional thematic reports have been published, with three more to come.
Aaron Shull, CIGI’s managing director and general counsel, and Wesley Wark, CIGI senior fellow and adjunct professor at the University of Ottawa, call their report a “cri de coeur” as they identify five new global threats facing Canada: a vastly altered geopolitical environment with the rising power of China at its core; ongoing and future pandemic threats; climate change security impacts; uncontrolled technological change; and the undermining of economic security.
"Canada is currently unprepared to meet the uncertainties that face the country, as the nation has fallen behind its allies in intelligence and security strategies,” says Wark.
Shull and Wark recommend significant governance reforms, including a full-scale review of security and intelligence capabilities, the formation of a National Security Council (NSC) that models the best practices of Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States to advance a new national security policy, and the creation of a cabinet-level intelligence and security committee to be chaired by the prime minister. The ad hoc Incident Response Group, first convened in 2020, is too narrow and reactive, they say.
To complement this new cabinet committee, the authors also suggest the establishment of six expert advisory councils, to draw on specific expertise in enhancing national security planning to face the new threats identified in the report.
Lastly, Shull and Wark counsel that Canada must be transparent in matters related to national security, not only in Parliament but also by publicly addressing all Canadians. They advise the prime minister to provide an annual statement on Canada’s intelligence priorities and threat landscape as a measure to course adjust the new policy.
“The current COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the complexity of new global threats for our country,” says Shull. “Our security establishment must be self-sufficient, prepared and responsive, and our government can best protect our national interests by keeping Canadians informed along the way.”
The special report — as well as more information about the Reimagining a Canadian National Security Strategy project, including previous publications — can all be accessed for free at www.cigionline.org/canada-security/.
The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) is an independent, non- partisan think tank committed to innovative policy making at the intersection of technology and international governance. Headquartered in Waterloo, Canada, CIGI has a global network of multidisciplinary researchers and strategic partnerships providing expert research and objective analysis with one goal in mind: to improve people’s lives everywhere.
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