Security and Intelligence: Review and Oversight Mechanisms

Overview

This course gives and overview of the three mechanisms on review and oversight of national security activities in Canada: the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA), the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act (NSICOP) and the Intelligence Commissioner. In all three cases, new legislation has been introduced within the last five years. Participants will learn the distinctions between the review mandates under NSIRA and NSICOP. They will also learn how they differ from the Intelligence Commissioner mandate. Participants will also explore the activities these bodies engage in, their interactions with the government institutions, and the nature of their findings.

Learning Outcomes

• Understand the mandates of all three mechanisms, and of their differences and similarities
• Understand their overall important role for the Security and Intelligence community in Canada, and for the Government of Canada
• Discuss the challenges of those departments and agencies being reviewed

Audience

• Anyone interested in matters of national security, as well as anyone working in the national security domain.

Duration

Cost

• $655 (plus tax)

Featured Instructor

Gérard Normand was called to the Barreau du Québec in 1982. His career as counsel at the Department of Justice lasted 28 years, 25 of those in national security law. Original founding counsel of the National Security Group (NSG) in 1993, he spent two years there before moving to the CSIS Legal Services for 7 years in 1995. He came back to NSG in January 2002, after the events of September 11, 2001, where he became the Director and General Counsel of the Group, providing legal advice to the Deputy Minister of Justice on an ongoing basis, as well as to the RCMP officers involved in investigating terrorism offences. In 2006, he spent a year as the Director of Policy and Planning, Security and Intelligence at the Privy Council Office. He then served as the national security advisor of the Assistant Deputy Attorney General responsible for national security at the Ministry of Justice between 2007 and 2010. He finally spent 8 years as General Counsel responsible for the national security section at DND/CF. Since his retirement, he was, for some years, the special legal advisor to the NSICOP Secretariat and to the Intelligence Commissioner. He is also a professor of national security law at the Faculté de droit civil de l’Université d’Ottawa. He has been directly involved in the drafting of national security laws in Canada from 1993 to 2017.

Sessions