Commissioner's Message

I was appointed Commissioner of the Communications Security Establishment on June 18, 2010. I knew very little about the challenge that awaited me. I knew that I was following in the footsteps of illustrious colleagues whom I had the privilege of knowing during my career (Chief Justices Bisson and Lamer, and Judges Gonthier and Cory). I knew that I would be involved in the highly technical and fascinating, albeit sensitive field, of security and the protection of the privacy of Canadians. As a lawyer and a Federal Court of Appeal judge, I had been involved in a number of privacy and terrorism cases. However, I would never have imagined the extent of the activities of the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC), nor the critical and active role played by the Office of the Commissioner.

First, I wish to acknowledge the warm welcome that I received from the Office's team. I say "team" because they are a group of people who work together in a remarkable spirit of cooperation and strength of mind and of purpose. I especially appreciated the efforts that were made as soon as I arrived to explain to me in a clear and understandable manner the mandates and roles of the Office and of CSEC respectively. In this regard, I would also like to thank CSEC and its Chief, John Adams, who took considerable time and effort to convey the full nature and scope of CSEC's work. The information sessions that they organized for me were complex and intense, and I must say, well adapted to my needs.

During the first nine months of my mandate, I was impressed by the professionalism, objectivity, and rigour of my analysts. They know they have an important mission, especially in ensuring that the unintentional interception by CSEC of the private communications of Canadians is in compliance with the law. Consequently they leave no stone unturned in their reviews, which are conducted in an impressively detailed and comprehensive manner.

I was also impressed, and I must say surprised, because I was initially sceptical in this regard, with the degree of transparency and spirit of cooperation displayed by CSEC and its Chief. There have been, and will be, of course, significant differences of opinion between my office and CSEC on certain issues. However, overall, I can say that the protection of the privacy of Canadians is, in the eyes of CSEC and its employees, a genuine concern, which is more than I would have imagined at the beginning of my mandate.

During my appearance before the House of Commons' Standing Committee on National Defence on November 18, 2010, I stated in the following terms the dilemma faced by Parliament when passing the Anti-Terrorism Act in December 2001:

Within Canada, every individual has a quasi-constitutional right with respect to his or her privacy. And every person has a constitutional right with respect to security of the person. In addition, the State has an obligation to protect each of these individual rights and to ensure the country's security as well. These rights and obligations are not easy to reconcile: what in fact would the right to privacy mean – or the right to security of the person – in a society where security was no longer taken for granted or that was no longer free and democratic?

I must reconcile these rights and obligations in the very specific context of the activities in which CSEC is engaged. It should be recalled that the first mandate of CSEC is to gather intelligence from foreign entities located outside Canada. CSEC is in fact prohibited by its governing legislation from "spying" on a Canadian wherever he or she might be in the world or on any individual in Canada. It is only unintentionally -- and I would add unavoidable given the complexity, pervasiveness and interconnectedness of global telecommunications networks -- that private communications are intercepted by CSEC. It is precisely because of this inevitability that the National Defence Act provides for ministerial authorization. The number of these intercepts, I hasten to emphasize, is very small.

During my first several months as Commissioner, I took the initiative to meet with the Minister of National Defence, the Chief of CSEC, the National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, the Inspector General of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Privacy Commissioner, and the interim Chair of the Commission for Public Complaints against the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. These meetings enabled me to gain a better appreciation not only of the scale of review activities in Canada but also of the opportunity for greater contact among the various review agencies.

Before explaining my role, I'd like to provide the reader with a clear understanding of CSEC's mandate.