Wesley Wark
Sep 20, 2026
Thanks for reading Wesley Wark’s National Security and Intelligence Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) has been resting in the shade since its ill-fated report of June 2024 on foreign interference, whose dramatic findings were undermined and discounted in the final report of the Foreign Interference Inquiry. [ii] NSICOP also lost its experienced chair, when David McGuinty was appointed as a Cabinet Minister, first as Public Safety Minister in December 2024, and then as Minister of National Defence in May 2025. The committee had to be re-constituted after the federal election in May 2025.
So, it was welcome news when NSICOP announced, in June 2026, on the eve of Parliament’s summer recess, that it was going to launch a review of foreign intelligence. [iv] The statement said that NSICOP was going to study two aspects: effectiveness of current foreign intelligence efforts; and whether “gaps” exist.
This sounds like ambition redux. The committee tackling an important and topical issue and bringing a strategic lens to it. Maybe all the members are reading The Walrus? [v] But, in truth, I have no idea where the inspiration for tackling this issue came from. A report by Jim Bronskill of Canadian Press states that Cabinet Ministers have been briefed on the question of expounding Canada’s foreign intelligence capacities and that the Committee would have access to background material for their study, including a “recent academic paper.”
https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/article/intelligence-committee-scrutinize-canadas-ability-to-spy-overseas/
Whatever the motive and inspiration might haver been, it’s an important study for NSICOP and for the Canadian intelligence system. My hopes are high for it, but also tempered.
Tempered not from cynicism but from knowledge of how things work. NSICOP will be reliant on the intelligence community and particularly PCO to help it navigate its understanding of effectiveness issues and gaps. It doesn’t have the resources to do that work on its own. It will get records and briefings from the intelligence community, but it also faces the dilemma of being able to push-back on bureaucratic wisdom and come to its own independent findings.
In this process, there are two things I think we can be sure of. One is that the Canadian intelligence community will paint its best picture of current effectiveness in foreign intelligence collection. Some of that picture will, no doubt, be accurate, especially with regard to CSE capabilities. How much the committee will be told about the limits to CSIS operations abroad remains to be seen. What the committee might learn about choke points in the current set up of the Five Eyes intelligence partnership, especially when it comes to intelligence sharing from the U.S., may be very limited because of the extreme sensitivity of the problem. What it will be told about the potentiality of new intelligence partnerships beyond the Five Eyes will likely also be limited, especially if these are still nascent.
When it comes to the gaps analysis, I expect the Committee to hear a tired and old song from the intelligence community, about how Canada should continue to steer away from having an independent foreign intelligence agency on grounds of cost, distraction and disruption, uncertain mandates, and limited benefits.
The challenge facing NSICOP is to demonstrate that they can come up with a truly independent take on the issues of the current effectiveness and future needs of Canadian foreign intelligence. They won’t get much encouragement from government.
High hopes, tempered.
[iv] NSICOP, “The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians launches a review on the collection of foreign intelligence,” June 11, 2026, https://www.canada.ca/en/national-security-intelligence-committee-parliamentarians/services/statement-2026-06.html
[v] Wesley Wark, “Canada needs a Foreign spy agency,” The Walrus, March 9, 2026, https://thewalrus.ca/canada-spies/
