Canadian Spies And Spies In Canada

Canada has its own fascinating history of cloak-and-dagger, as you'll discover in this entertaining book by author and journalist Peter Boer. Canada's most famous spy was William Stephenson, the man called Intrepid. The Winnipeg-born businessman suppli

Award winning author Gregory S. Kealey's study of Canada's security and intelligence community before the end of World War II depicts a nation caught up in the Red Scare in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution and tangled up with the imperial interests of first the United Kingdom and then the United States. Spying on Canadians brings together over twenty five years of research and writing about political policing in Canada. Through itse use of the Dominion Police and later the RCMP, Canada repressed the labour movement and the political left in defense of capital. The collection focuses on three themes; the nineteenth-century roots of political policing in Canada, the development of a national security system in the twentieth-century, and the ongoing challenges associated with research in this area owing to state secrecy and the inadequacies of access to information legislation. This timely collection alerts all Canadians to the need for the vigilant defence of civil liberties and human rights in the face of the ever increasing intrusion of the state into our private lives in the name of countersubversion and counterterrorism.

In 1898, Spanish spies based in Montreal, Halifax, and Victoria monitored the United States war effort against their homeland, while U.S. counter-intelligence officials watched the Spaniards. Neither the Americans nor the Spaniards sought Canadian permission for these activities. Britain's enemies (and often America's enemies) have also been Canada's enemies. Without the heroic counter-intelligence of the mysterious Agent X, Irish Americans at the turn of the century might have blasted British Columbia's legislature and the Esquimalt naval base the way they blasted the Welland Canal. During World War I, counter-intelligence failed to stop German agents who bombed the Windsor-Walkerville area as well as the CPR bridge on the Maine-New Brunswick border. Meanwhile, Canadian security officials ran around in a state of frantic frustration because of German "conspiracies" along the Ontario-New York State border imagined by Sir Courtney bennett, British consul-general in New york City. After the war, American moles in a Latvian post office monitored mail between Canadian Communists and Moscow. In the thirties, a Finnish-Canadian clergyman spied on Sudbury's Red Finns for the United States consultate inNorth Bay, and Hitler's consuls maintained surveillance of Canadian politicians and German dissidents in Canada. During World War II, Canadian authorities intercepted the mail of envoys from Vichy-France, suspected of spying for Germany, and from Franco's Spain, suspected of spying for Japan. In the 1960s, the CIA not only observed Cubans in Canada, but also watched the situation in Quebec and used a Canadian diplomat to collect information on North Vietnam. Some of this history has merged from previously ignored and newly declassified documents from European, American, and Canadian archives. These newly revealed details show that Canada is an interesting place, both for what Canadians do elsewhere and for what foreigners do in Canada. Also, once readers have seen the kinds of activities in which friends engage, they may be less surprised at what enemies have done.

From German conspiracies along Ontarios borders to monitoring mail between Canadian communists and Moscow an exploration of newly declassified documents.

A unique, unprecedented look at the inner workings of our domestic secret service by a leading investigative reporter. An alarming portrait of incompetence -- and worse -- inside the agency that is supposed to protect us from terrorism. Canada’s espionage agency enjoys operating deep in the shadows. Set up as a civilian force in the early eighties after the RCMP spy service was abolished for criminal excesses, no news is good news for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). This country’s spymasters work diligently to prevent journalists, politicians and watchdog agencies from prying into their secret world. Few journalists have come close to rivalling Andrew Mitrovica at unveiling the stories CSIS does not want told. InCovert Entry, the award-winning investigative reporter uncovers a disturbing pattern of corruption, law-breaking and incompetence deep inside the service, and provides readers with a troubling window on its daily operations. At its core,Covert Entrytraces the eventful career of a veteran undercover operative who worked on some of the service’s most sensitive cases and was ordered to break the law by senior CSIS officers, in the name of national security. Like Philip Agee’sInside the Company: CIA Diary, Mitrovica’s book delivers a ground-level, day-to-day look at who is actually running the show in clandestine operations inside Canada. The picture he paints does not fill one with confidence and definitively shatters the myth that CSIS respects the rights and liberties it is charged with protecting. From the Hardcover edition.

Since the end of the First World War, members of the RCMP have infiltrated the campuses of Canada's universities and colleges to spy, meet informants, gather information, and on occasion, to attend classes.