Do police disrupt activist groups in Canada? G20 Document indicates they might.

Ahead of being interviewed in last week's episode of the podcast COMMONS, I was reviewing records on the G20 police undercover operations. I found a passage in one document suggesting the intelligence police saw their mandate as including to “disrupt” the activities of activist organizations they deemed to be threats. 

In the most well known program in which law enforcement disrupted activist groups was the FBI’s COINTELPRO. The tactics used by this program to undermine activist organizations and generate division and fear included: infiltration, spreading disinformation including through forged correspondence and false media articles, harassment, contacting landlords and bosses, snitch jacketing, burglary, vandalism, and providing aid to right-wing vigilantes.

While the police clearly used infiltrators at the G20, it is not clear that their motives were to sow mistrust among groups, and it is not clear what, if any, other disruptive tactics were used by law enforcement. Any such activities would be kept secret. However if the mandate of the G20 intelligence operations included disrupting these groups, it is worth asking both what tactics were used at the time, and what tactics are security officials using against protestors today.

I was recently interviewed for an episode of  Canadaland’s podcast COMMONS exploring how a dozen undercover police officers infiltrated activist organizations ahead of the 2010 G20 Summit which took place in Toronto.  They called it “one of the biggest undercover police operations in Canadian history”. It is a great podcast and I was quite impressed with how they were able to tell the story. It is worth a listen, and you can find it here: https://www.canadaland.com/podcast/the-police-7-the-g20-conspiracy/

I was interviewed because of the extensive research I did into intelligence operations at the G20. I had been deeply embroiled in reporting on the G20 protests during the summit, and one it was over I began filing dozens of freedom of information requests, and spoke to activists who had interacted with undercover officers, as well as with lawyers and law enforcement officers. 

Ahead of the interview I started looking for documents I could send to COMMONS that detailed intelligence operations.  I hadn’t reviewed these files for several years, and when reviewing a document on the Primary Intelligence Investigation Team I noticed that their mandate included the disrupting threats:

(Note: In another spot in the same document the mandate is listed without the word disrupt included)

I had in fact  reported on this mandate to disrupt in 2011, but at the time I had not understood the significance of law enforcement disrupting protest groups, and had not given it the attention it deserved. Today it seem outrageous to me that police saw their mandate including the disruption of the activities of activist groups that they deemed to be threats

In the 1980’s it was revealed  that the RCMP had carried out a number of illegal activities that had targeted activist organizations and political parties. In response to this the RCMP had their powers to do intelligence work reduced and a new organization called CSIS was created. The idea was that CSIS would gather, analyze and disseminate information, but not carry out the same sorts of activities that RCMP had been exposed to have done.

Some accounts, have suggested CSIS conducted questionable activities from near its inception. In the 1990’s it was revealed that a CSIS agent had helped found a white supremacists organization and provided it with material aide, including security information on the anti-racist organizers this group was physically attacking. A 2009 report by the body that oversaw CSIS, acknowledged that disruption was taking place, noting that while disruption was not part of CSIS mandate, that mandate “does not explicitly prohibit the use of disruption”.

In 2015, CSIS was explicitly given the power to disrupt. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association describes how:  

CSIS was given a new set of “threat disruption powers” under Bill C-51, allowing them to not just collect intelligence, but act on it, suddenly allowing CSIS agents, for example, to interrupt a money transfer, or plant a forged document. The only limits placed on CSIS: they were forbidden to kill; to obstruct or pervert the course of justice; or to violate a person’s sexual integrity. C-51 also allowed CSIS to apply to court for a warrant allowing them to violate Charter rights. 

In 2019, the rules for CSIS on the use of disruption came into force that made it clearer what they could do at their own initiative and what they needed to ask the courts for approval in order to carry out.  The rules also made clear that CSIS could not take actions that would limit the rights described in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms without the permission of the court. 

However, due to the secretive nature of these activities it is not clear what sorts of activities are carried out.  For a short time the number of warrants applied for and received to carry out disruption was made public, however  I went looking for these numbers to include them it in this post and it seems that this information is now only reported to the Minister of Public Safety. The general public are left in the dark.  

It is unclear what, if any, disruptive activities have been carried out against activist groups in Canada in recent decades. But it is important to ask what sorts of activities are carried out in Canada by CSIS, law enforcement and private corporations, in order to undermine peoples right to effectively protest.