Canada's Security & Intelligence Community after 9/11: Key Challenges and Conundrums

The Canadian security & intelligence community’s historical development and scope reflect the country’s relatively favourable geopolitical circumstances. Since 9/11, anti-terrorism has been the country’s clear security priority, possibly to the point of ignoring other critical issues. Because responses to terrorism involve both criminal law and intelligence-led preemptive activities, Canada’s chief police and intelligence agencies now overlap in their investigations to a considerable degree, creating conundrums for both operations and accountability. This article traces the impact of these developments on the Canadian management of national security, and the institutional design of Canada’s S&I community and accountability mechanisms. It concludes with a series of questions Canadian policy makers must ponder in deciding how best to address Canada’s operational and accountability national security challenges.