Thank you.
I'm happy to be back to talk to the committee again. Last time I was here, three weeks ago, my focus was on how transparency should be better used as a tool to counter foreign interference. Today I want to continue in the same direction and focus on other reforms to the intelligence community that could help better counter foreign interference. I want to address issues directly related to what happened to Mr. Chong and, more broadly, to some of the structural problems in the national security apparatus as highlighted in David Johnston's first report.
My recommendations are broadly based on two sources. The first is a book I co-authored recently with Professor Stephanie Carvin from Carleton on intelligence policy dynamics in Canada. This book was based on 70 interviews with officials in the national security world. The second is a report I co-authored with Vincent Rigby, a former national security and intelligence adviser to the PM, with the support of a task force of a dozen retired senior officials, including CSIS directors, other NSIAs and deputy ministers.
My first recommendation is for the creation of a cabinet committee on national security. We need sustained attention at the political level on national security issues. This is essential to approach national security issues in a more proactive and strategic way. The current system encourages a much more ad hoc and reactive approach.
A national security committee of cabinet would need stronger bureaucratic support. That can only come through a stronger national security and intelligence adviser position. More generally, I think the national security committee suffers from a lack of coordination. To be clear, this is not about individuals in specific positions. It is the architecture of the system that encourages silos and prevents stronger coordination from the centre.
I would add that the policy capacity in Public Safety Canada, which also plays an important coordination role, is still too weak. If you look at the main threats that Canada faces today, including foreign interference, they all have to be countered by not just a whole-of-government effort but also a whole-of-society effort. This cannot be done optimally without stronger coordination.
One weakness in the community that has been glaring through recent events is that our intelligence community suffers from weak policy literacy, and the policy side suffers from weak intelligence literacy, though I would say that there have been significant improvements in recent years. This means that the intelligence community is often poorly positioned to provide optimal support to policy and political clients because of its poor understanding of their work. The culture in the intelligence community is still too insular, too closed and too resistant to change. The reverse is also true. Consumers of intelligence in policy, in the bureaucracy but also in politics, are not optimally positioned to ask for the right intelligence support, as we've seen very clearly in recent weeks, and then to know how to use it as part of their work.
It's hard to build better intelligence and policy literacy, but we could do some things better, such as better training. Training in the intelligence community is often mediocre. There is very little measurement of how the money is actually spent. We need secondments and exchanges. We need far more staff movement between the policy and intelligence worlds to help break silos and foster mutual understanding. As I said three weeks ago, there is also an epidemic of overclassification. That remains a major obstacle to information sharing between clients and the intelligence world.
Another major problem is human resources. There are major challenges in the national security community on recruitment, retention, morale and career paths. Security clearances face massive backlogs. These are complicated, frustrating issues to deal with, but the longer they are neglected, the worse the situation gets. If we don't get the human capital foundation right, we will not be able to allow the reforms that we're proposing to succeed.
Finally, there is a glaring need for a comprehensive national security review in this country. This is an exercise that is labour-intensive and bureaucratically very painful, but we have not had one since 2004. It is useful as a brainstorming exercise to consider and develop options and to answer difficult questions about threats we face, about tools, about governance and about human resources. It signals to our allies that we take national security seriously, which is a signal that we badly need to send right now.
To conclude, what may be most important is a point that is often neglected in Ottawa. It would signal to Canadians that national security matters, help raise awareness and provoke a more informed debate.
Thank you.