Something is changing in our country, and most
people feel it before they can explain it. Welcome
to the Steady State Sentinel. I'm Lauren Anderson.
I served nearly three decades in the FBI, focused
on national security in both operational and
executive leadership roles at home and overseas.
I now work in geopolitics and governance with
a focus on institutional integrity. So as we
get into tonight's episode, if you haven't had
the opportunity to listen to our recent episode
on why an apolitical FBI is vital to national
security, I'd encourage you to do so. It provides
important context for tonight's conversation.
And my guest is Phil Gursky, and I am delighted
Phil is here. He is our first international guest.
Phil is a former senior strategic analyst with
the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. He
is the president of Borealis Threat and Risk
Consulting and host of the podcast Spies Like
Us, where I was honored to be a guest late last
year to talk about the FBI. Phil is the author
of multiple books on terrorism and intelligence,
including a forthcoming book marking the 25th
anniversary of 9 -11. Bill and his colleagues
hosted me in Ottawa last fall at the Pillar Society,
and we've had quite a few candid conversations
since then. We both know that alliances between
the U .S. and other countries aren't abstract.
They're built over years, and they can be strengthened
or weakened by who's in the room and who's no
longer in the room. Today, we're going to ask
a hard question during this conversation. When
America's closest allies look at the United States
right now, at our institutions, our intelligence
and law enforcement communities, and our leadership,
what do they see and what are they assessing?
So, Phil, I'm delighted that you are with us
today. And before we get into our present discussion,
I always love to start and say to everybody,
what drew you into your work in the first place?
Why did you want to do this? Well, first and
foremost, Lauren, thank you so much for inviting
me on to your podcast. You were a wonderful guest
here in Ottawa last October. We've got nothing
but rave reviews for your candor in talking about
what's happening in your country right now in
the security, intelligence and law enforcement
community. We've become friends. We've stayed
in touch, which is great. You know, life takes
amazing turns sometimes. I began my career actually
not with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service,
but with Communication Security Establishment,
or CSE, which is the Canadian Signals Intelligence
Organization, the equivalent of NSA in your country.
And a long time ago, decades and decades ago,
I was at university in my hometown of London,
Ontario. It was during the early 1980s recession,
which I'm sure you remember was not a great time
in the West. Interest rates were through the
roof. I think my brother once signed a mortgage
for 22 % on his house. I was an arts graduate
from Western University and jobs were not plentiful
at the time. And as somebody who graduated with
a master's in Spanish, it didn't look good. And
I was despairing for what to do. I had a part
-time job at the local YMCA, which kind of put
me through university. But I decided that, you
know, staring at wrinkled old men naked in the
shower for the next 25 years was not going to
be an excellent career choice. And so I decided
to look for further work. And lo and behold,
in the student placement office up on campus,
there was a very plain, no logo, sort of piece
of cardboard that says Department of National
Defense wants you. It's almost kind of like Uncle
Sam wants you, right? But without the fancy graphics.
And one of the categories they were hiring for
was linguist. Well, I was a linguist. I studied
five languages at Western. I was taking linguistics
courses. So I thought, wow. And the summer before,
I worked as a student translator in Ottawa from
Spanish to English. I thought this is a great
opportunity. And so I won't bore the details,
but I applied. And after, of course, a long process
of being vetted, security clearance, et cetera,
et cetera. I showed up in Ottawa, what I thought
was national defense, and I get this indoctrination
briefing by this big bear of a man who was a
former RCMP officer, scared the living daylights
out of me. And he basically said, we're not D
&D, son. We're signals intelligence, to which
my response was, excuse me? First of all, what
is signals intelligence? Because, of course,
this is pre -internet days, Lauren. CSE did not
exist on paper. sorry, did not exist in the public
mind in 1983. And so I entered the world of intelligence
purely through dumb luck. And I spent 17 and
a half years with CSE as a multilingual foreign
intelligence analyst, working in about 10 different
languages. And then I got an opportunity to move
to the security service. Again, serendipitously,
as an Iranian specialist back in 2001. And then
nine months later, 9 -11 happened. And because
I also had Arabic and I had a good background
in Middle Eastern history and culture, I quickly
morphed into a jihadi specialist, which is what
I spent my career doing at the security service.
So, you know, you can't plan these things sometimes.
I think it's a little easier now in both of our
countries in the sense that our agencies are
a little more out there in terms of their recruiting
campaigns. There's websites, there's places to
go. But way back then, and I'm sure you had a
similar experience when you joined the Bureau,
but... And they weren't obvious. It wasn't quite
as secretive as the old British method of tapping
you on the shoulder at Cambridge or Oxford and
saying, we might have a job for you. But I ended
up in Ottawa and spent 32 and a half years with
a career that, in all honesty, and I say this
to this day, I had the luckiest job on the planet.
I had a job that I couldn't wait to get to every
morning because it was so exciting and it was
so important. It truly is. And you're right about
how agencies were at that time. I mean, NSA in
the United States was always known as no such
agency for a long period of time, because for
a long period of time, you had to operate that
way. And, you know, I think we could probably
both argue the merits of having that kind of
discretion as it was then. And now sometimes
you can't even stay on top of things because.
There's so much information out there. And I
think it's tough to manage because I think we'd
both argue too that there are certain kinds of
information and intelligence that need to stay
hidden, need to stay quiet. I think, you know,
I hold to the maxim that you don't discuss sources,
you don't discuss methods. Those are sacrosanct.
I even worked as a crypto analyst for a year,
and I will never talk about what systems we were
working on and what systems we successfully were
able to read, because that betrays a very, very
sensitive series of operations. Similar with
your career with the Bureau, you never disclose
your sources, right? Unless they end up testifying
for the prosecution in a criminal trial, that's
a different matter. But if it's not sources and
it's not methods, I think there's a lot of benefit
to talking about our careers and what our agencies
did. First of all, it can help attract... really
good Canadians and Americans that want to do
similar jobs. And secondly, you talked about
the information flow. There's so much crap out
there, a disinformation about what we do and
why we do it, that former such as ourselves,
if we convey stories about what we did, it can
help dispel a lot of the disinformation and misinformation.
I'm not saying it's going to solve it because
that's a huge problem. But I do think that our
citizenry has a right to know some of it. I mean,
we are. civil servants. We are paid from the
public purse. We're doing the best job we can
to help keep our nations and our allies safe.
And so I think coming, playing with some information,
again, not compromising sources or methods, is
in the end of the day, I think is a positive
outcome for, and as a positive change we've seen
over the past couple of years. I completely agree
with you. And it is a careful balance. And that's
actually a perfect segue because a lot of people
think that out in the Canadian public, the American
public that we operate within our agencies. And
I think they don't really appreciate and haven't
had the opportunity to learn about the importance
of those liaison relationships. And you spent
decades inside CSIS. deeply integrated into what
we know as the Five Eyes Partnership, and particularly
with the U .S. So for our listeners who may not
be familiar with that concept or the absolute
criticality of our relationships, can you briefly
explain what Five Eyes is and why it matters?
Sure. You know, coming out of the Second World
War, not surprisingly, there was a very strong
Western alliance that fought the Axis powers.
So Japan, Italy, and Germany, and we were victorious
by... you know, May of 45 against Germany and
August of 45 against Japan. And of course, those
alliances were very strong. I mean, you look
at D -Day, for example, it's not a coincidence
that the three armies that landed on the beaches
in Normandy were Canadian, American, and British.
The plans had gone through, you know, years of
preparation in England. And, you know, you've
probably seen all the movies I've seen too, you
know, the landing at the beaches, the number
of soldiers that we lost. But in the end of the
day, that was the turning point of World War
II. And those alliances were strengthened that
day. And so as a consequence, the alliances went
forward. And it should be also mentioned too,
Laura, that even during the war, before the creation
of the Five Eyes itself, Britain, Canada, United
States shared some very sensitive intelligence
on our adversaries, primarily the Germans and
the Japanese. In fact, there was a sort of incipient
signals intelligence unit in Canada called the
Examinations Unit. that was working on German
and Japanese cipher. And of course, everyone
knows about Bletchley Park, of course, the famous
Enigma breaking by the Polish mathematicians
working with Alan Turing. But both our countries,
too, had a major role to play in that. So that's
the war. So the immediate, I think, logical alliance
was between your country and the United Kingdom.
So there was an agreement that came out shortly
after the war. We joined that alliance, I believe,
if my memory serves me correct, in the early
50s, I think 1952, officially. And then eventually,
two other countries, Australia and New Zealand,
were brought in, and it's now called the Five
Eyes. It's a logical pairing. First of all, A,
we're all English -speaking, although in Canada,
of course, but English and French. But we have
similar culture. We have a similar history. We
have a similar worldview. We fought on the same
side in two world wars. And there's a... There's
a sense of community, I think, amongst those
partners that is very strong. And that led to,
I think, a level of trust that we could share
very sensitive intelligence amongst those five
partners. And for your listeners, we do share
very sensitive intelligence, both signals intelligence,
human imagery, you name it, amongst the five
partners. Now, there will always be intelligence
that's too sensitive to share. You guys call
it no foreign. We call it Canadian eyes only.
There's other terms, I'm sure, in the other three
partners. But in my time in Sigginton Human,
I was always very impressed with the sheer volume
of information that was shared. And that sharing
enabled us to work on investigations, to produce
intelligence that, in the end of the day, protected
our interests and, in some cases, protected public
safety. I call it the gold standard of sharing,
Lauren. And you know from your time at the Bureau,
there are other partners besides the Five Eyes.
We work a lot with Western European partners,
even partners in Africa and Asia as well, depending
on the circumstances. But those relationships
will never be as close, I don't think, as the
Five Eyes partnership has. And again, it speaks
to... It speaks to a shared vision of what we
want the world to be. We want the world to be
free. We want it to be democratic. We want it
to be liberal in outlook. And these intelligence
agencies, they work very hard to provide decision
makers and policymakers with the information
required to help protect that kind of world.
And it's worked very well. It has. Until recently,
maybe. Until recently. Yeah, no, no, no. I agree
with you. In fact, I would argue that... all
of our countries and the world writ large is
much safer because of these relationships that
we've had for so many decades now. And I think
that's something that until you're inside, you
don't appreciate. And that's something that I
kind of love to stand outside and holler out
to the world is we are so much better when we're
together. And it's funny, Lauren, maybe it's
not so big in your country, but it's obviously
an issue here. I know it's an issue in academia
in the United States. This whole, you know, anti
-colonialism and talking about colonial powers
and people trying to cling to the past kind of
thing and laying all the ills of the world on
colonialism. Yeah, a lot of bad things happen
under colonialism. But, you know, we're not the
source of all evil in the world. And the Five
Eyes is not an effort to, you know, recreate
colonial powers in parts of the world. It's an
effort to share information that can keep us
collectively safer. And I have no, I broke no
tolerance for people who say, well, you know,
you shouldn't be sharing with these countries
because of what they've done historically. I'm
saying, I'm sharing with them because of what
they're doing now. And the fact that we, you
know, we rely on you, you rely on us, we rely
on the Brits, et cetera, et cetera. This is a
really good development. This is a good club
to be in. Being on the outside would, I think,
make us collectively weaker. And so I would hope
that the leadership within the Five Eyes, at
least, put it this way, I know that within the
intelligence and law enforcement community, relations
are still very, very strong. My concern is at
the political level. And I'm sure we're going
to get into that. But I think that operationally,
it's pretty strong. Yeah, I agree. And we are
going to get into that. And I just have one more
bit of a kind of a layup question for everybody
to understand. And that is, we do have these
great relationships. But one place where Canada
is different. is Canada does not have an external
intelligence service modeled on MI6 and certainly
the CIA. So I wonder when you look at that as
we move into talking about the relationship,
how has that framed if it has your relationship
with the United States in the intelligence world?
It's a great question. So to bring your listeners
a bit of sort of background as to why we don't.
So the security service, the Canadian Security
Intelligence Service, or CSIS, was created in
1984. It used to be part of the RCMP, the Royal
Canadian Mounted Police. It was called the security
service, kind of like MI5, within the law enforcement
organization. For reasons I won't get into because
it's very complicated, it was decided to carve
that function out of the RCMP and make it a civilian
agency as opposed to a law enforcement organization.
And so CSIS saw the light of day in June of 1984.
I started at CSC in July of 83. So I was there
at the birth of CSIS and worked very closely
with them right from day one. The powers that
be at the time decided that they wanted to basically
replicate the security service and give it a
foreign intelligence mandate. but very limited
in scope. So it's actually a misconception. CSIS
is also a foreign intelligence organization.
Great point. But the minions at the time, when
they drafted legislation, put this really bizarre
clause in the CSIS Act. It's called Section 16.
CSIS has the authority to collect foreign intelligence,
but wait for it, only within Canada. which kind
of sounds like an oxymoron if you think about
it. How can it be foreign if you're collecting
it within Canada? Well, there are ways, and I
won't get into the details, but it's important
to realize that from a security intelligence
perspective, CSIS has no barriers. It can go
anywhere in the universe to collect security
intelligence. We're not constrained to Canada.
It's only with respect to foreign intelligence
that we can't collect outside of Canada. And
of course, the signals intelligence organization
is by definition a foreign intelligence organization,
albeit signals not human. And so, you know, it
does collect foreign intelligence. I don't think
it complicated matters. I mean, my dealings with
the CIA only stem from my time at CSIS. So I
was very familiar with NSA for 17 and a half
years. And then when I joined the security service,
of course, that was 9 -11. And, you know, again,
the sharing of information was the floodgates
had opened. We were all sharing in real time
because we had to. You can't let 3 ,000 people
die and your closest friend and neighbor and
not help them figure out who's who in the zoo
and try to go after these people, right? I don't
think the lack of a dedicated foreign human service
has jeopardized our relationship with the Five
Eyes. And you're right, we are the only one.
Even the Kiwis have one. Their service is a hybrid.
There's ASIO and there's ASIS in Australia. There's
MI5, MI6. And of course, there's the Bureau and
the agency. There's still a debate now, Lauren,
on whether we should create one. But you don't
create these things overnight. You see academics
and policy wonks talking about this periodically.
I think you should just remove the within Canada
clause from CSIS and make it a hybrid service.
We're already good at recruiting human resources.
That's what we do for a living. So you've got
half the organization works foreign intelligence
and half works security intelligence. It's not
complicated. It makes sense. And another part
of the relationship I think people may not recognize
as we start talking about what's going on today
is that also overseas. You know, the FBI has
positions called legal attaches, including in
Canada and in over 50 countries around the world.
And similarly, your folks are deployed as well.
So we're not only working together in the United
States and Canada, but those relationships become
important because it's another trusted partner
in third countries around the world. And I think
that's also been a very successful partnership.
I recall one story when I arrived at CSIS in
2001. This was prior to 9 -11. I attended a presentation
by a dear friend of mine who worked for the RCMP
and then for the Security Service and then for
CSIS. He was in Nairobi in 98 when the attack
took place. That was the al -Qaeda attack against
your embassies in Dar es Salaam and in Nairobi.
And he was actually meeting with his CIA counterpart
at the time when the bombs went off. And he tells
this story. They were blown across the room from
the shockwave. And then basically his job was
to do anything possible to help your embassy
and the staff and other Americans in Kenya get
to the bottom of what happened, provide any assistance
possible, medical, whatever it took to try to
get over this. So yeah, those trusted relationships,
as you said, work right across the world. And
they work because of the Five Eyes Alliance.
And they work because we know each other. We
don't always agree on things. There was a lot
of... disagreement. Canada did not go into Iraq
in 2003 under President Bush. We were the one
that did not agree to go in. The Brits went in.
The Australians went in. But, I mean, overall,
we share the same goals. We share basically the
same training. I mean, we cross -train all the
time, right, in each other's organizations. We
have secondees in each other's organizations.
We even have people who get married in other
organizations. I know of at least two examples
of Americans and Canadians in SIGINT that ended
up marrying each other. There you go. And we
share values. Absolutely. We share values as
humans and we share values as democracies. And
I think that's really important. And I, you know,
to pivot a little bit about today, and you and
I have talked about this on multiple occasions
over the year plus we've known each other, is
would you look at what's happening right now
in the United States broadly? And then, of course,
with the agency that you've had most of the work
with over your career, what do you see? What
does this mean for you? What do you think it
means for the relationship between the United
States and Canada in the intelligence and law
enforcement sector? OK, it's a great question.
So as I said earlier, I've been assured by my
contacts who are still within the security intelligence
community that at the operational level, it's
it's the status quo. Everything is working fine.
Right. Because we know each other. We you know,
we share briefs. We've had cases about a year
and a half ago, there was a Pakistani student
on a visa here in Canada who tried to cross the
border into New York State. He wanted to go to
New York and carry on attacking its Jewish targets
in their attribution for what Israel was doing
in Gaza Strip. And the FBI and CSIS and the RCMP
shared intelligence information all the time,
and the guy was arrested at the border. So he
never got anywhere near New York City. That shows
that at the operational level, things are working
well. But the problem is, and it's not just in
your country, What worries me is what we call
the politicization of intelligence. You know,
as well as I do, that we're messengers. We're
advisory bodies. We collect information. We process
it. We assess it for veracity. We assess it for
reliability. We analyze it. We bring in other
types of information. We put it through the blender.
We figure out what does all this stuff mean.
And then we send it up the line to senior people
so that they can be in the know as to what's
happening on X, Y, or Z. We can't tell them what
to do with it. We can't tell them to use it,
not use it, line your birdcage with it. That's
not our job. We're the messengers. We're not
the implementers of the intelligence. What I
have noticed, and again, it's not just in your
country, is that there are times where people
in very high positions don't like the message.
and then attempt to shoot the messenger. I'll
give you a couple of examples, one from my country
and one from yours, you'll be familiar with,
but we had an inquiry a couple of years ago into
Chinese interference in our federal elections.
And my former organization, CSIS, has been warning
for 40 years about this, four zero years about
this. And somebody, we don't know who, leaked
a very sensitive intelligence summary to the
Globe and Mail, which is a main newspaper in
Toronto. Saying CSIS thinks this is happening.
And it caused a big scandal. Why was this leaked?
What, you know, what are they saying? And the
first thing that came out from the prime minister's
office was, we don't want our security intelligence
service to be spreading anti -Asian racism in
Canada. And we thought, this has nothing to do
with anti -Asian racism. We're talking about
a foreign power that can do influence our elections
in much the same way the Russians sought to influence
elections in your country in 2016 and 2020. Then
we had a big inquiry into this, and it turned
out that several intelligence reports that had
been sent up the line were sent back for rewording
because the message was uncomfortable. Because
they didn't want to hear what China was up to.
And yet we've been saying this, again, since
the 80s, that they've been up to this. Similar
in your country, you've got agencies like the
National Security Agency, the DIA, talking about,
for example, bomb assessments after the bombing
of many nuclear sites last year. The White House
said complete obliteration. They said, excuse
me, sir, we looked at the imagery and we've got
intelligence on the ground. And we don't think
that that the obliteration is as complete as
you said. And what was the immediate reaction?
Well, what do you know? Right. In other words,
the White House is politically inconvenient.
That's right. The White House had a firm position
that the airstrikes had destroyed the Iranian
nuclear program. And have your intelligence services
say, well, that's not what the evidence shows,
sir. was frankly inconvenient. And then given
them, I'll leave it this way, their mercurial
personality of your president, he rejected the
message completely. And that's really scary.
Like I said, intelligence agencies are there
to provide really good information that can help
us figure out who's who in the zoo and what we
should do about it. We're not decision makers.
Right. And the other. I'm sorry, go ahead. What
we don't do is craft our product to suit a particular
individual or a particular political party. We
are neutral intelligence gatherers, law enforcement
gatherers. We provide the best product possible.
As I wrote an op -ed piece, I said, you know,
if I write a report, this is not Phil Gursky's
report. This report goes through umpteen levels
of verification. In fact, when I used to write
things on counterterrorism, It went right back
to the investigators themselves. If I was misrepresenting
what they thought or what their sources were
telling them, I wanted to find out. And so it
went through many levels of checking before.
And when it went out of the building, it went
out of the building with a thesis crest on it,
not Phil Gursky's photo on it. It was the best
product available, similar with the FBI. If the
FBI stamps on that, that's the FBI's position
on X, Y, or Z. You're not writing it to please
somebody. You're writing to inform somebody.
You're right. And the other thing that you mentioned
that I really want to go back on, because I think
it's really important for people who are trying
to understand more about how we operate, is that
partnership between you as the analyst and the
expertise from your role and me sitting on the
operational side. And I think that that's sometimes
not clearly understood about how much more effective
we are when both those pieces are together. And
I think when we look at Some of the hollowing
out that's going on in the FBI right now, how
troublesome that is, because we also know that
in the work that we lived in, that it takes a
long time to get good at what you're doing. It
takes like at least five years to really get
your legs under you when you're talking about
the intelligence world and encounter terrorism.
So I wonder if you could comment on that a little
bit, expand upon that, because I think that's
a really important point. Yeah, I'm glad you
raised that. So as you mentioned, I mean, I was
a foreign intelligence analyst. Then I became
a counterterrorism analyst when I joined the
security service. So I was not an intelligence
officer. I didn't go recruit human sources. I
didn't run investigations. But one thing that
I was, you know, one of the things I was grateful
for were the people with whom I worked at CSIS.
They saw my background. They saw my specialization.
My knowledge had been built up over more than
two decades. And they said, you know your stuff.
And so I was one of the very few analysts that
was regularly invited to source debriefs. So
they would say, okay, I'm going to debrief my
source and, you know, this place on this time.
I want you there because I know you can ask questions
that I can't. So I'm not sure how it works in
the Bureau, Lauren, but in the security service,
most of the investigators are what we call generalists,
which means you're hired, you're taught how to
run a source, recruit a source, do an operation.
You might work China for two years and then work
Russia and then work organized crime for two
years. That's true. That can shift around. I
will say that in the Bureau on the counterintelligence
side, people often tend to stay there and counterterrorism.
But your point is so well taken because back
decades ago, I was really fortunate to be part
of a team involved with debriefing a terrorist
who agreed to cooperate. But I couldn't have
done it without. The analyst, her name was Theresa
Felix. I will forever be indebted to her. But
to have her in the room along with this terrorist
we were debriefing and another agent and a translator
was so important because she, like you, was able
to sit back and say, you know what, Lauren, I
heard him say this and I think this means this.
And I think tomorrow when you go back, you need
to probe a little bit further in this area so
we can build upon that. And that relationship
to me. Anybody who doesn't see the value in it
is missing the point and is not going to be as
effective as he or she could be. It's so true.
I mean, I was even brought in to train human
sources. So if we wanted to run somebody into
what we call thought of terrorism cell, I was
brought in to say, OK, this is how you talk.
This is what you look like. This is what you
say. This is what you believe. This is the ideology
you want. Because, again, the investigators in
some cases were quite junior, didn't have that
knowledge. I was brought in to do debriefings
of terrorists in prison. You know, who claim,
oh, I've de -radicalized. I've changed my ways.
Can you let me out of prison now? Well, no, we
can't because you haven't changed your ways.
I was even brought in to interview the moms,
the moms of dead terrorists, which I must say,
in all of my career, you sit across the room
from my mother and you see in the background,
she's got photos of her kid in elementary school
and secondary school. And now her kid is dead
as a terrorist and he's killed people somewhere
abroad. And now she's the mom of the dead terrorist.
And you're talking to her, trying to understand,
you know, what happened to your son? When did
this start? When were the changes occurring?
How did they occur? What did you notice? What
did you not notice? Who did he hang out with?
You know, one of the hardest things I've ever
had to do. And these poor women are trying to
keep it together, right? Because not only have
they lost their sons, but they know their sons
have, you know, taken part in heinous acts of
terrorism that have killed innocent people. But
I was very fortunate in that sense. And I couldn't
agree with you more. It's a team effort. We would
also bring in, as in your case, we bring in the
linguists, the people that we would hire and
they would, you know, they would go through intercepted
communications under, we would have to get a
federal court warrant to intercept communications,
obviously in a different language. And then the
linguists, they got to know the targets as well
as anybody else did. And you want them there
because they can detect those subtleties that
other people can't because they kind of, it's
almost like you're listening to your family members
after a period of time. It's absolutely true.
And you can't function if you don't have that
entire team together and understanding a threat.
So considering all that and considering a little
bit of what we've talked about, what worries
you the most right now about the path that the
FBI is on, that the CIA is on? What does this
portend for the relationship with Canada and
with other allies? And what worries you about
it? A couple of things. So strictly internally,
I read more and more reports in the New York
Times, the Washington Post, that the FBI has
fired, dismissed, whatever, sidelined X number
of people because of whatever. The most recent
one is a whole bunch of people that I believe
is a Washington Post article, I believe, that
I shared with you. The director fired a bunch
of people. who were working on Iran. So the possibility
that Iran might have agents in your country that
will retaliate because of the bombing going on
right now in that country, they're all fired
because they worked on the Mar -a -Lago investigation
a couple of years ago where the president was
alleged to have had classified documents that
he shouldn't have had in his house. And that's
pure vindictiveness. There's no just cause for
doing that. So I worry about the bleeding of
expertise. Because one thing that I know, when
I worked in counterterrorism, We would meet regularly.
In fact, I spearheaded a brand new group amongst
the Five Eyes to look at radicalization patterns.
What did we learn from our investigations? What
were the behavioral indicators? And we would
have experts. We'd get together two, three days.
So once in Ottawa, once in Washington, once in
Canberra. And we'd sit around a couple of days
and we'd go through what we knew. And having
those experts in the room with you, good God,
I learned so much. Well, I had my own sort of
narrow view on what the Canadian landscape was
like. Now I have the British landscape and the
Australian landscape and the American landscape.
And it made me a better analyst because now I
could see things more clearly because they'd
experienced things that I hadn't seen. What worries
me is if those experts are all fired for reasons
that don't make any sense, that kind of exchange
ends. So that's very worrisome. The other thing,
of course, is that, you know, about a year ago
or so. There were rumors, and I forget the individual's
name, some minor figure in the Trump administration,
even threatened to kick Canada out of the Five
Eyes. It was a completely offhanded remark that
came completely out of left field. It didn't
make any sense whatsoever. And of course, it
was denied and hushed up later on kind of thing.
But, you know, if we're going to have this politicization
of intelligence and intelligence sharing get
that much worse. I mean, first of all, I don't
know how you kick somebody out of the Five Eyes.
I don't think there's any protocol for doing
that. But certainly, I mean, you know, the United
States could choose to turn the tap off. You
did it against New Zealand in the 80s. And there
was a controversy over a U .S. warship that was
docking in Auckland. And the policy was, you
know, don't ask, don't tell about nuclear weapons
on board, right? And the Kiwis said, well, you're
not docking until you tell us. And the Americans
said, we're not telling you. We're going to cut
off intelligence. And they did for a period of
time. If we were to lose that access to American
intelligence, it would have a tremendous impact
on our ability to inform our decision makers.
I mean, we have our own intelligence and we still
get it from the Brits and the Aussies and the
New Zealanders. But the bottom line, Lauren,
is Canada, given our size, is a net importer
of intelligence. Whereas I think the United States
is a net exporter of intelligence. So losing
that access would have a deleterious effect on
our understanding of the situation around the
world. And at that point, it can start to affect
joint operations as well. And, you know, we've
bragged now for over a century, well, two centuries
now, that we have the world's longest undefended
border. You know, until recently, right? People
cross pretty easily. I'm not going to cross anytime
soon for reasons I won't get into. I remember
as a kid with my dad going to see the Tigers
play in Detroit. And basically, it was a wave
and a smile at the border. That's all you had.
No passports, no ID, nothing. So we do share
information that keeps the border safe for both
of our countries. And if this is going to be
jeopardized because of the politicization and
because of the vindictiveness of certain officials,
it's going to affect both of us. It'll affect
us because we won't have the intelligence that
you share with us. It'll affect the Americans
because we'll be that much more. I mean, I wouldn't
say be a tit for tat. Let's just say, you know,
if we're cut off, there'll be a greater reluctance
to share what we know with our American counterparts
because, well, you're not sharing with us. So
why in heaven? It'd be like tariffs, right? You
put tariffs on us, we're going to put tariffs
on you. Right. Well, and the thing is, is everybody
suffers with that. Everybody is less safe when
that happens. And I think that's the key point,
because we both know that political leaders come
and go, and hopefully they come in with the best
of intentions about what they want to do. But
at the end of the day, the jobs that you and
I had and the people that still do those jobs
on a day -to -day basis. Do it out of patriotism.
Do it because they love their country. They want
to make their country safe. And we both know
that the people doing the job on the ground are
not paying attention to the politics. They're
about getting the mission done. And so, you know,
as we've often said, and I think I shared with
you when I was in France, the French didn't agree
with the choice to invade Iraq either. And I
was so worried that they would stop sharing information.
And it was the best feedback because what they
said to me is, don't worry, that's the politicians.
We still have a job to do in keeping the people
in our countries and around the world safer.
And so we're going to continue to focus on that.
And I think if we can do that, that's what keeps
everybody in a better place. And I think hopefully
hearing from you, too, is really important because
it allows people to understand the mechanism
and the importance of those relationships. And
it's also unnecessary. I mean, the system was
working fine. You know, again, I've seen incredibly
sensitive source intelligence that's being shared
back and forth for over three decades. If it
ain't broke, don't fix it. You know, again, we're
going to have our disagreements, but, you know,
it's such a fluid relationship that we have.
It's almost seamless. You know, we have, again,
we have, you know, we have our liaison people
in each other's agency, but we also have people
that, you know, work in each other's agencies
and even work on files that normally they wouldn't
have access to because there's that trust factor
that's there. And for this to be happening. Even
with you and I, Phil, because we came from the
environment we came in, although we didn't know
each other personally while we were still working
for our respective governments, we knew people
in common. So that trust always is there. We
inherently said, I'm trusting him. I'm trusting
her. Because we spent so long recognizing that
we were better together and we assume that trust
is there for the good until there's a reason
not to. And I think that's an important point
also and a through line that will continue for
us probably for the rest of our lives. I couldn't
agree with you more. I still have very close
friendships with colleagues in Australia, United
Kingdom. in New Zealand and the United States,
even in some of the Western European partners
with which I worked in counterterrorism over
the years. They weren't just colleagues, they
became friends. And, you know, those friendships
are lasting. And it's because it worked well.
And, you know, trust is earned. And this trust
has been earned over the better part of almost
a while. It's not quite a century now since the
end of the Second World War. You know, for two
countries, I'll throw the Brits in, for three
countries that died together on the beaches of
Normandy, free Europe from tyranny. Similar in
Afghanistan, you know, when the president, you
know, talked about nobody else, you know, was
on the front lines of Afghanistan. I mean, people
were justifiably angry. I mean, 164 Canadian
soldiers died in Afghanistan. That's not a small
number for a country our size. You know, to have
that ignored and have that sort of poo -pooed
or dismissed, it really hurts because Americans,
Canadians, Brits all surrounded, we all fought
together in those various wars. And to insult
the memory and the sacrifice that was made, it's,
but Lauren, it's so unnecessary. You know, I
mean, there's other ways to score cheap political
points. And, you know, as well as I did, that's
what politicians do. They want to score cheap
points, right? Why in heaven's name would you
score cheap points when it comes to multilateral
intelligence and military and law enforcement
alliances? It doesn't make any sense to me. It's
almost like an own goal. Like you're just cutting
off your nose just by your face in this regard.
I hope this too shall pass. I don't know. The
alliance is far too important to founder. I hope
we can get the point where... You know, the trust
levels are going to be re -established. Like
I said, at the ground, you know, the cold face
level, I'm not too worried about that. It's the
higher levels that I think are going to take.
And as my prime minister said, you know, if you
break trust one day, it doesn't reappear the
next day. It's going to take some time to rebuild
that. I have confidence, though, in our alliance.
I have confidence that, you know, as I said,
you know, as neighbors, as friends, you know,
we've been very close for, you know. since the
last time you tried to invade us in 1812. Well,
I think that's a perfect segue. So we want to
start wrapping this up. But if you could build
on that just a little, what, Phil, would you
like to leave our listeners with? What is one
thing or a couple things that you would really
want people to understand about the importance
of the liaison relationship and the alliances
between the United States and Canada and with
others? Okay, I'll put it real simple. The United
States has no better or closer friend and ally
than Canada. That's been the case for centuries.
We have our disagreements. There always is a
latent anti -Americanism within Canada. It's
only because I think a lot of us, you know, we
see you as a major power that we're not. We're
very much a middle power. But we visited each
other's countries. We do vacations in each other's
countries. Canadians flee to Florida and Arizona
when it's minus. 145 million degrees up here
in wintertime, like it has this winter. Although
that too has been affected over the past couple
months, unfortunately. But why would you want
to harm such a close, mutually beneficial relationship?
Whether we're talking trade, whether we're talking
the military. Let me look at NORAD, right? North
American Air Defense. I mean, this has been around
since the Cold War. And it's jointly commanded
by a Canadian American. Why would, again, if
it ain't broke, don't fix it. This alliance has
stood the test of time. We have shown through
blood and treasure that we're on the same side.
And moving on, I hope we can get back to that
sense of trust and mutual respect. I'm hopeful.
Again, the average American, the average Canadian,
we get it. And I think that it'll be a rather
rapid reestablishment of that relationship once
the current... you know, political shenanigans
end. So I'm confident in that regard. I just
wish we weren't going through this rather hard
patch right now. Yeah, they are tough. They are
tough. Phil, I am so grateful to you for taking
the time to come on here with me and talk about
this. I mean, we have our own great new friendship
forged over the last 14 months or so, which is
wonderful. But I value, we value hearing from
you as our... As our partners, as our friends
to the north, you've always been there. I hope
it always stays. And I'm very grateful for you
sharing your time, your wisdom, your views on
things, because it matters. And so thank you
so much for that. Thanks for having me on. Even
though you won both gold medals and ice hockey
at the Olympics, we will forgive you. Well, thank
you for that. And thanks for everyone for tuning
in for this episode of the Steady State Sentinel.
This is Lauren Anderson, still standing watch.
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