Activist warns of ‘propaganda’ as CSIS officials tout agency’s new approach to Indigenous people

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service acknowledges its past investigating of Indigenous people has left a legacy of mistrust that persists today, but officials at the spy agency say the organization is mending its ways.

That’s the main message two CSIS officials, speaking on the condition they not be identified, impressed on CBC Indigenous during a recent sit-down discussion at the agency’s Ottawa headquarters.

Long gone are the days, they said, of CSIS’s expansive “Native extremism” program, in which CSIS officers labelled Indigenous activists as domestic extremists and potential terrorists in sweeping countrywide investigations.

“What you saw in the 1990s is not the situation today,” said the first CSIS person, who described recent reporting by CBC Indigenous as “a portal to the past” and “a learning experience for us.”

Newly declassified documents have shown this shadowy Indigenous surveillance program became more intrusive over more than a decade between 1988 and 1999, and included previously unconfirmed involvement during the contentious Ipperwash and Gustafsen Lake standoffs in 1995, respectively.

The agency maintained a “network of directed sources, protected contacts and police liaison” in place as late as 1998-99, according to one document. Academic analysts described the program as overreaching and biased.

The CSIS officials touted a new approach, where the agency aims to repair that broken trust and partner with organizations like the Assembly of First Nations and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami. The agency embarked on this program in 2022 with outreach to Inuit leaders, amid concerns about foreign interference and espionage in the North.

In the past, CSIS would have taken “an intelligence-collection approach” in that scenario, they said. That is, CSIS would have simply snooped on Inuit affairs. Now CSIS shares information instead.

Even so, the reception has been “quite mild," the second official said. There’s been even less progress building bridges with First Nations, the person added.

“Mistrust, you hear it more,” they said.

Katsi'tsakwas Ellen Gabriel can explain why. The Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk) activist questions whether it’s possible for Canada’s security intelligence service to change its ways.

When presented in an interview with CSIS’s latest comments, she said bluntly, “I don't believe them.”

“It's just another form of propaganda. This is their specialty,” she said by phone last week.

“The national interest has always been the excuse for the violence and brutality conducted by the state. So we have no reason to trust CSIS or the government of Canada.”