The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Just How Do We Handle Our Secrets?

Episode Date: May 29, 2023

A week after the Johnston Report we leave the politics out of the discussion and talk only about what we learned, including what do we know about how we handle our secrets.  And when a top-secret report goes up to the Primer Minister how many people may have first seen it -- you might be surprised.  Special guest is security and intelligence expert Stephanie Carvin. 

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Monday. What did we actually learn about how we handle our secrets? That's coming up right after this. And hello there, welcome to another week, welcome to another Monday, welcome to, well, just about to a new month. Welcome to the edge of summer. That's right, we are finally getting there. So we've got an interesting show today. I'm kind of fighting a scratchy throat on this day. So excuse me if it sounds a little like that. Very interesting program today. What I wanted to do was, you know, get away from the politics of what we saw last week in the release of the Johnson Report and just try to focus on, well, you know, what did we actually learn

about the situation in terms of, you know, foreign interference and the way our system operates? What did we actually learn about that? And what did we actually learn about how we handle our secrets? So we've got a very interesting guest on that one who knows the topic. It's not just theorizing, it's actually knowing what the topic is. We'll get to her in a moment. But I wanted to make a couple of points about this day we're in. One, if you live in Alberta, and if you feel strongly about who the government should be,

if you're in favor of the incumbent government, if you're against the incumbent government, then this is your day. This is the day you've been waiting for, because you get to vote. It's election day in Alberta and, you know, if you take your rights as a citizen seriously, this is your day to make a choice. Now, some people say, yeah, you know, I can't stand any of them, so I'm not going to bother. I don't think that's an excuse. You can bother.

You know, you can make that statement at the polls, if you wish, by spoiling your ballot. But more importantly, make a choice. If you can make a choice, make a choice. This is your moment. This is your moment as a citizen to do just that. And as my father used to say, you get the government you deserve, whether you vote for it or vote against it or don't vote at all.

In making that choice, you get the government you deserve. So there's your friendly advice on voting day if you live in Alberta, and today is the day. Second point I wanted to make was this. Because it came up last week on your turn. Somebody wrote in a very, very lengthy letter on what we should be considering about the debt ceiling crisis in the United States and how it could impact us all. And it was a very good letter, and the points are all totally legitimate.

But at the time, I said that I was, you know, you can only cry wolf so many times when you kind of lose the audience. And that's what happened to me. We've seen this debt ceiling crisis. Spit it out, Peter. We've seen the debt ceiling crisis so many times over the last, what, 10, 15 years. Sort of get there, you know, it's going to be awful.

It's going to be terrible. We're going to run out of money. Everything's going to stop. You It's going to be terrible. We're going to run out of money. Everything's going to stop. You won't get your social insurance checks if you live in the United States. It's going to impact the banks. It's going to impact everybody around the world. And then, gee, magically, they come up with a solution. Now, this one was going to be different.

There was no way there was going to be a possibility of a solution because both sides are so entrenched. And yet you had the feeling, you know what, they'll come up with a solution. Now, it's not finally dragged over the finish line yet, but they have a tentative agreement based on the weekend's talks between McCarthy's people and Biden's people. And it looks like crisis averted. The markets were already kind of assuming that was going to happen on Friday

because they went up quite a bit. We'll see what happens with them today. I don't know. Sometimes these crises seem to be so phony, and yet we all get sucked in. You know, the news networks are going 24-7 on that story. You know, when they don't have time for the latest Trump indictment, the latest lie the guy's been caught in.

Anyway, we'll see where that one turns out. Those were the two things I wanted to say. So in my kind of new policy of not wanting to interrupt great interviews, I don't want to interrupt the one we've got coming up today. I say great interview in the sense that the person I'm talking to is really good. We'll talk to her and about her in just a moment, but in my way of not interrupting those interviews,

I've got to take our quick break now, the only break we need to take in the program, and then I'll come right back with the introduction to Got to take our quick break now, the only break we need to take in the program. And then I'll come right back with the introduction to Professor Stephanie Carvin. I'll tell you all about her right after this. All right, then. Welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Monday episode, right here on Sirius XM channel 167. Canada Talks are on your favorite podcast platform.

We're going to talk to Professor Stephanie Carvin. She's a kind of security and intelligence expert. Well, not kind of. She is. You know, trained at LSE, the London School of Economics, and various other universities that she's stopped in during her career as an academic in both the United States and Canada. She's currently teaching at the Norman Patterson School of Government

at Carleton University in Ottawa. She's written a number of books on security and intelligence. She studied the way Canada's security and intelligence operations work. And she herself was an intelligence analyst before she started teaching. So she's got a lot of this ground covered. And we're going to try and depend on her to understand what exactly is happening. So let's get to the interview. Enough of the setup.

Here we go with Professor Stephanie Carvin. Well, Professor, let's try to leave the politics aside for the moment, which is probably going to be harder for me than it is for you, but I know you love politics as well. But let's try our best to leave it aside and just deal with the issue of interference from other countries to begin with. You know, has the Johnston report in the weeks since it happened, has it changed anything in how we see that subject?

The treatment of foreign interference in the Johnston report is pretty light, to be honest. I mean, it's his first conclusion, right? He comes out with five conclusions. And the first one is that foreign interference is a real issue in this country and that a lot more needs to be done, not months from now, but immediately, right? And so I think in that sense, I think he's confirming that, yes, this isn't something that's made up. This isn't something that's, you know, just a political issue.

This is a real threat to the national security of Canada. But that being said, the report itself does not really delve that much into the threat. There's a number of, I would say, like, you know, points that are raised. But by and large, this was a report more about what steps should be taken, about there's a fairly lengthy critique of the media reporting on this issue. And then there is a really important section in the report, which looks at where the national security community and its nexus with the policy community is failing, and how those failures are actually making it harder to address. So to get back to your original question, no, I would not say that there's a lot in here on the threat itself, but that seems to be where Johnson wants to go with part two,

with his commission, as opposed to an inquiry. So the least we could say is that it's an acknowledgement that we do have a problem. Yes. And he says, look, I've looked at the intelligence and it's an acknowledgement that we do have a problem. Yes. And he says, look, I've looked at the intelligence and he's very clear that this is something, and again, not something that needs to be dealt with, you know, down the road or a future threat. This is something that's happening right now and has been happening for years. And he sees it as a serious threat. Yes. And one that's really kind of being confounded by some of the current institutions in this country, which is, again, where I think the bulk of the report is, as opposed to the threat itself.

I mean, it was I would say if I was, you know, a professor and I am grading the report, I would say that strangely enough, there wasn't actually a lot of citations. There's actually been a lot of Canadians writing about foreign interference, but there really wasn't a lot of citation. There wasn't a lot of research, I think, done on this issue outside perhaps of reading the intelligence related to the reporting and the leaks that have come out. But that's also partially part of the terms of reference. I mean, if you look at the terms of reference that Johnston was given, it's really only to look at the 2019 and 2021 election, right? So he wasn't given the mandate to look outside those issues. He took it upon himself to look at some of the reporting that's been recently released. But by and large, it was a fairly limited terms of reference. So the fact that this wasn't a meaty report on for the actual threat itself is not that surprising. You were leading us down a path where you were going to give us a grade on the report.

You never got that far. Do you have a grade? On citation, I mean, I think, you know, this is maybe where I differ from some of the political takes. But, I mean, I think it was a good report in terms of identifying some of the problems. I would dock some points for lack of citation. I think more work could have been done in that. I'd give it a B plus. A B plus. You know, I would have liked some more chops. But like I said, I think there's more that could have been explored in terms of this. But I mean, also this report came out pretty quick. I mean, I think he's had like what, like six or eight weeks to kind of put this much together. So, but maybe that's what happens when you're cramming before the deadline to be merciful to my students as well. B plus isn't bad.

I would have accepted a B plus in high school and never seen anything like that. It's great inflation, a whole other podcast. Now, is there a path forward using the report? I mean, he talks about all the things he wants to accomplish in these next, whatever it is, five or six six months but is there a clear path forward that can lead to the kind of results and understandings of the problem so if i if you know at the beginning of the podcast you said we're going to separate the political from the policy right so and we're still trying to do

that we're still trying to do that so i'm going to put aside all of the political issues and just speak from a policy perspective, which, you know, I think a lot of people are going to ignore. But I want to talk about the report and its proposed path forward and where I think it probably does actually put a relatively decent plan together. But just because, you know, what is it? You know, Clausewitz once said, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. And Mike Tyson once said, you know, everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face. And there's some punching going on. So again, leaving that aside. So what this plan proposes is effectively, let's start with the big issue first, is that he wants to do effectively a public process, a public consultation on this issue, but not an inquiry. And the difference here, for those at home, is that an inquiry would be done under the Inquiries Act, and it would give the person conducting the inquiry the ability to subpoena witnesses, documents, things like this, right? And it's kind of like the next level up. This is a public consultation. He outlines a number of issues at the end of the report that he wants to get into.

He wants to talk to the community and give the community their opportunity to speak to their experiences. That would have to be done very carefully, I should say. The community itself has said multiple times that it wants to speak and come forward, but it's also intimidated at the prospect. The whole point is that they're being interfered with because they're speaking their opinion. So to come out and do it in public, I think is going to be something of a challenge. So there's that aspect of it. I think he does want to do some more looking into the kind of processes around where intelligence and policy perhaps are failing. But he acknowledges in the report that there are already two other investigations that are being, that are taking place. And the first one is by the National Security Intelligence Review Agency, what we call NCIRA. And NCIRA is, it's a body that was set up in basically the 2017 National Security Act,

but it didn't really start working until 2020, right as the pandemic started hitting. And its job is to look at kind of the legal processes and to look at compliance, right? Is the national security community complying? So they're looking at like, you know, they have the mandate. They can look at all different kinds of intelligence. They can look at all the different agencies that would have touched this material. And they can kind of look and see, okay, well, where did this go and when and was this done appropriately? And is the community, in fact where did this go and when, and was this done appropriately? And is the

community, in fact, investigating this threat appropriately, right? So that's what NCERA is doing. And recently the Trudeau government announced, and forgive me if I'm going a little in the weeds here, that they're actually going to allow the NCERA to look at what's called cabinet confidence. These are really highly classified documents, not necessarily because they have reams of intelligence in them, but because they're the debates that have taken place within cabinet and helped affect the decision-making.

So that's gonna give CIRA the basis to look at, you know, the process of how a lot of this has been dealt with. The second is the committee, maybe more of your audience has heard of, which is the National Security Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. And this has been a controversial committee for a number of reasons. Again, a whole separate podcast, but in a nutshell,

it is not a parliamentary committee in the way that we, you know, you can go on CPAC and watch parliamentary committees. It is a committee of parliamentarians that is responsible to the executive. In other words, it doesn't report to parliament, it reports back to the prime minister. And that was a compromise made because I think the national security community was very scared at being reviewed by parliamentarians for the first time ever. It's important for democracy, but it was a hard thing. All of this to say that this body basically investigates issues within the national security community. They've looked at everything from diversity through, they actually

did a foreign interference report themselves, and they can ask tough questions and write reports. And so they're also writing a secondary report on this as well. But this committee has come under criticism because the conservatives don't see it as an independent body. I think that's a questionable assumption based on the work that they've done. But again, leaving the politics aside, they're going to be doing this. And again, all of this to say, David Johnson says, well, I could do an inquiry, but there's these other two agencies which are going to be producing reports and because they're producing reports why would i want to duplicate that work and so much of this information is classified it is better if these bodies with class of access to classified information do it because you know

otherwise the inquiry itself is not going to be transparent so that's his conclusion that's his plan forward let the two bodies do the classified work. I'll do more of the public facing work. And that's how we're going to go forward. That was a very long answer. But that's effectively what he's proposing and why. Part of that answer that I find fascinating, really, is that the government is going to release cabinet uh cab docs as they call them cabinet documents uh that go through some of the cabinet discussions now usually those are buried for not just years decades right especially around controversial absolutely yes a long time before those come out so the fact that they're willing to release those, well, I would love to read them myself.

When we all. See how far they go, right. Okay, so that's the sort of plan here. You've had an opportunity to study these issues, you know, for some time, written written papers you know helped in in writing books on them how do our you know how do other countries that are kind of in our orbit compare on the handling of issues like this not not the report as such but the basic handling of uh uh you know questions of a foreign interference i mean we're we're a part of the Five Eyes group, so Britain and the U.S., Australia. Is New Zealand in the Five Eyes as well?

Yes, it is. Right. So how do we compare with the other countries in our intelligence orbit, if you will? I love this question for a number of reasons. The first is that I think there's a sense right now that Canada's alone in this, and we're absolutely not. I mean, most democracies at this moment are dealing with foreign interference issues. It's not the same across the board. European countries in particular are dealing with Russia, right?

Russia, especially right now with the Ukraine conflict, right? That the issue is that Russia is trying to meddle in other democracies to weaken support for Ukraine and to harass, you know, people who support Ukraine and to achieve various Russian ends. So, you know, that's fairly well established. And in the United States and Canada, the issue is more China, right, and Australia as well. So within the five eyes, China has been more of the primary influence threat. But again, Canada is not alone in this, it really, and, you know, I've had the opportunity in recent weeks to meet with some diplomats here in Canada. And that's one thing they say is like, you know, you're not alone, you should, you know, I've had the opportunity in recent weeks to meet with some diplomats here in Canada. And that's one thing they say is like, you know, you're not alone.

You should, you know, there's an opportunity here to engage with and learn from our allies. And that's definitely something I hope the government is considering and looking at. With regard, the one thing that I think does make us a bit separate from the other states, I would say, the five eyes, maybe not so much New Zealand, but definitely Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, is that institutionally, our national security bodies are far less mature. They are underpowered, and they struggle to communicate intelligence issues to policymakers. And I'm not saying this, I just want to caveat this by saying this doesn't mean that intelligence is some kind of trump card in a democracy or that we should just give the national security community whatever powers it wants.

I mean, but I mean, intelligence isn't even really a major decision in policymaking generally in Canada relative to other countries. And just for example, you know, our bodies which review intelligence agencies that, you know, have been set up, they have only really been existing for about five, six years now. Whereas in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia, I mean, they've had bodies standing up for decades, right? All three of those countries have a more palpable sense of threat. The United Kingdom, because its geographical position in the

world, and same with Australia, and the United States kind of having a larger global presence, they have been more attuned to issues, especially related to foreign interference for some time. I mean, Australia about 10 years ago went through a bit of a crisis when it found out that some of its politicians were actually very much in the pocketbook of receiving a lot of funds from China and had to make a lot of legal changes to their bodies as well. And I think the third thing here that really is important is that their policymakers, their politicians are far more regularly briefed on intelligence than it then has been the Canadian experience, right? Senators, Congress people, they have access to intelligence. In the United Kingdom, they have a more advanced review body that feeds intelligence to, you know, MPs called the Intelligence Security Committee.

Sorry, pause there. And then finally, we have also seen, I think that the all of these countries also have, you know, bodies in their cabinets, or, you know, executive at the very least that bring intelligence into the process. Right. That these formalized bodies, nationals, you know, probably most famous. This is the National Security Committee in the United States. Right. That in these bodies feed intelligence to the people who are making decisions. Canada really doesn't have any of these. We have a national security intelligence adviser, but that person's office is relatively understaffed, underpowered.

They can convene the national security bodies here in Canada, but they can't compel. And there's no major coordination function. There's no body. There is no national Security Committee in Canada. I don't know if people realize this. So all of this to say is that where our allies are better placed is in their institutions and their institutional infrastructure. was pleased with the Johnson report because I felt it was an acknowledgement of the process issues, not just political failures that have led to the position that we're currently in.

That's good. That's a good snapshot of the way it kind of works now and the way it seems to work in some other countries. So it leads me to this question based on what you know. I want to try and understand how information gets to the prime minister of the day, whoever that happens to be. So you take an intelligence service like say it's CSIS and they've come up with some indication that a foreign country is doing things they shouldn't be doing inside Canada. And they write up a report and one assumes it goes through a number of drafts and it then heads its way up to the prime minister's office. What can you tell us about that journey that takes place what what actually happens in that process or what's supposed to happen what's supposed to happen um so the prime minister

is generally i mean the the first prime minister to really take intelligence seriously and take regular intelligence briefings was actually stephen harper right uh he was the first um prime minister who took intelligence very seriously. He read the intelligence and you knew that because he would write comments on it and send it back. And that was always terrifying. If you got a comment back on an assessment, it was a time, let me tell you. And I think around then the community itself started to make improvements in the way it delivered products. Before, the products were very academic.

They're very lengthy, 30-page reports that no one had time to read, let's be very honest. So they started writing much shorter reports. And there started to be more regular and oral briefings to the prime minister. And that, by and large, has continued through to the Trudeau government. And I know this because myself and my colleague, Tomas, you know, we interviewed around 60 Canadian officials between 2018 and 2019 who were involved in or were involved in the intelligence community or receiving intelligence products. And we got to speak with them with how this process actually works. So by all accounts, Trudeau kept a lot of the same processes and procedures that Harper set up. He probably isn't as interested as Harper is, but still, we do know that PMO tends to be briefed once a week by the intelligence community, often led by a body called the Intelligence Assessment Secretariat within

the Privy Council office. Sorry if I'm speaking in government, I really am. But basically, a branch within the Privy Council office briefs the Prime Minister and his staff, or at least his staff once a week on two pre-selected topics. And so, you know, I guess they pitch a number of ideas, they select topics, and it goes that way. In addition, the prime minister and his staff will meet with the National Security Intelligence Advisor every week. Back in the day, the NSIA was given a binder of different important and key assessments, and their staff in the NSIA was expected to read this and then brief and have a conversation with the prime minister as to how these things are happening. And then finally, if an emergency comes up, if something comes up, I do know that, you know, it's not entirely unusual for the CSIS director or the director of, you know, the head of military intelligence or other bodies to call the prime minister's office directly

and say, you know, you need to know this and you need to know this now. The system can move very quickly if it has to. And I would point people to the shooting down of the plane by Iran in 2020, right, that this was a very serious issue that happened in the system move fast. And the prime minister was basically able to make an announcement to the Canadian public very, very quickly that they believe that Iranian plane had shot down this Ukrainian aircraft carrying a large number of Canadians on it. Right. So that's generally how the system works. But just as another aside here, you know, it's not just the prime minister that gets briefed. It's also ministers. They're supposed to be getting briefs.

But one of the challenges we have, and Johnson talks about this in his report, is that the infrastructure is very difficult. And you can't just email someone top secret information. That might happen sometimes in the movies, but it doesn't happen in real life. These things happen in highly secured facilities. But in order to go into them, you have to leave your BlackBerry behind. I guess no one uses a BlackBerry anymore. Your iPhone behind, your iWatch behind, all of your electronic devices, completely cut yourself off from whatever's happening. Log into this very slow system. Try to find what piece of intelligence that you're actually supposed to find, and

then get it, and you can't take it with you. And you probably can't tell any of your colleagues because they don't have clearance either. So all this to say is that the system is very clunky, it's very broken. And as an intelligence analyst, between 2012 and 2015, I can tell you, I had no idea who was reading my stuff. And that's not a great feeling, and it's probably not a good use of resources. Okay, well, that's, I guess, what I'm kind of getting at in this question, because, you know, I'm glad there's some kind of protection,

as you talk about, you know, there must be, you know, some of these specially created rooms where you can take stuff in to read it, but you can't take it out. And it's not like Mar-a-Lago in there. Yeah. Oh, my goodness, no. But nevertheless, the way you describe it, these are like some of our top secrets, right? These are some of Canada's most secret secrets. and yet there seem to be, the way you described it, an awful lot of people who these secrets pass through their hands before it gets to the eventual top dog, the prime minister. Is it that way?

And how do you keep something secret if it's going through that many levels before it gets to its destination? That's such a great question. I think my answer to that is really kind of two things. One is actually relative to other countries, we have very few people with top secret clearance in this country, especially relative to the United States, which is like well over a million people have access to the highest

classifications of information. So the number of people handling the product is actually probably pretty small. Most of the checks, for example, on an assessment coming out of CSIS, for example, probably the vast majority of it is handled by CSIS and then probably handed to the NSIA directly, right? Maybe their staff. So, you know, really the number of people outside of the building that are looking at a particular assessment, depending on it, is pretty low. The number of, you know, the assessment can sometimes be emailed to people who may be working at these terminals, but it, you know, it's probably like a few thousand people, not tens of thousands. It's actually pretty small. And the other reason for this is that particularly on the Ford

interference file, this is really some of the most sensitive information we have. And we can see that through some of the leaks. I mean, we're talking about wiretapping politicians. I mean, this is explosive stuff. This isn't like run of the mill, like, oh, you know, we think that, you know, X country is considering buying X weapons, things like that. No, this is, this is really some of the closest hold information that's out there. And as a result, I suspect a lot of this was fairly highly classified when it was written, right? This wasn't just information that was put out to a wide variety of people. There is an issue, I think, in the community of over classification, which hinders the sharing of intelligence to policymakers, because again, a lot of the policymakers,

even people who potentially need to know, don't have the top secret clearance or, you know, any of the other kind of clearances that you would need to kind of really understand a lot of what's happening with regards to kind of modern national security threats. So I think it's not just the fact that, you know, like, I don't want to be defensive here. I don't think it's just the fact that there's a number of people who should have seen this who didn't i also think that a lot of these products are probably written at a level that's so high it probably automatically excludes a lot of people from seeing this information in the first place when if something arrives in the prime minister's office like eyes only like basically for him or his most

senior um aid what are the you know a moment ago you said you know things pass couldn't pass through thousands of hands as opposed to tens of thousands of hands could something like that that goes eyes only to the prime minister i've gone through thousands of hands no uh it really kind of depends on the issue and what needs to be done right i mean to a certain extent uh when when when when tamar tamaj you know and i when we did our research in 2018 2019 we found that actually one of the almost the opposite problem that like that a lot of the important intelligence assessments, because there were so many checks and balances and approvals that were necessary in order to get products out. Often these things weren't timely anymore that, you know, people were receiving intelligence

after they came back from their trip overseas rather than before. Right. So it's like in some cases, it's almost like the system doesn't move fast enough. after they came back from their trip overseas rather than before, right? So it's like in some cases, it's almost like the system doesn't move fast enough. But I don't think it's because there's thousands of people looking at it. I think that the community itself is very conservative. There's actually possibly not enough. If someone's on vacation, then approvals might not be given. And a product might sit on someone's desk for two weeks while they're

in Disney World. And that's happened. I know it's happened. So to me, it's almost the opposite problem. Sometimes I think there's not enough people looking at this as opposed to thousands of people. And that's, again, kind of just the nature of the system. I'm not sure that makes sense, but that's just the reality is that, you know, the community itself is very small. You know, we used to have, I remember I had a boss once, he used to say, the CIA has more people off sick every day than the Canadian security intelligence community has people. So it's a pretty small world. I guess we've been somewhat, not conditioned, but we're somewhat more aware of stuff about documents and how they get to certain places as a result of watching what's happened south of the border in the last year. Absolutely. around his condo in Florida. Are there any similarities to that? I mean, is there,

you know, in the States, it's apparently the law that you can't take this stuff out. You can't take it home. You certainly can't keep it. Is that the same here? Yeah, absolutely. It's called the Security of Information Act. And if you, you know, leak, if you handle documents improperly, if you give up classified information, anything like this is a violation of the Security of Information Act. So, for example, the leaker, the person who has clearly walked into, and by the way, I don't think it's one leaker anymore. I think there's probably about four or six based on if you start counting the different sources and the reporting. There's a number of people now doing this. They have violated what's called the Security of Information Act, and it is very serious. the different sources and the reporting. There's a number of people now doing this.

They have violated what's called the Security of Information Act, and it is very serious. This is something, you know, you can have a very lengthy sentence for doing, taking these documents out of a building, providing them to other people. And this is something that is very serious. And I would actually say, you know, again, and I feel like I'm kind of going down memory lane here, but I remember when I was an analyst and someone once said to me, if you want to know what the CIA is thinking, wait three days

and it will be in the New York Times, right? Because the CIA kind of sometimes can weaponize the media in, or, you know, It's a fierce bureaucratic fighter. It knows how to get what it wants. And the idea that a Canadian agency would do that blew my mind. It would never happen, right? And I remember even just right before all these leaks happened, telling some of the reporters, I'm like, oh, well, the Canadian community doesn't leak. We're not a leaking culture.

And we're not. And so I think the shock of this incident, all of these leaks and the idea that perhaps even more people are coming forward now because they're seeing what's happening and they're seeing attention put on issues that we've neglected for a long period of time. I really do believe that, you know, this is this is coming at a terrible shock to the national security community. I think that they're kind of reeling and it'll be interesting to see if they ever do catch the people who are doing this. I do believe with every leak, it kind of becomes,

you can kind of start narrowing down again, the community is not large. You can probably start narrowing down who had access to some of this stuff. Right. So they're actually looking for them. Oh, a hundred percent. They are. I think I'm worried into some extent that they're actually looking for them oh 100 they are i think i'm worried and to some extent that they're they're spending more time looking at uh for for this person rather than

maybe addressing the national security threat um but uh that's that's no i 100 they're absolutely looking for this person or or people who who have been leaking this information because look, I mean, and I debate this with journalists a lot. There is some good coming out of this, right? I don't like what Edward Snowden did, but the fact is he forced the community to become more transparent and more open with the public about what it's doing. Are we there where we should be at? Absolutely not. We need to be much more transparent, stuff like that. But he started a process. I still very much disagree with what Edward did.

I always probably will. I disagree with this leaker as well. You know, you go into office, you swear an oath. You say you're going to protect the stuff. And, you know, eventually I left. I wrote books about, you know, I've been writing books about the national security community. I've talked about forward interference. I didn't leak documents and certainly I didn't get that kind of attention. comes probably mostly from either really sensitive sources, like wiretaps of embassies, or people's phones, or human sources who are putting their literal lives on the line to tell the national security community what it knows in order to protect Canada. And if

these sources are somehow caught out, or caught caught or suffer consequences because of these leaks, that is going to be a tragedy. Or alternatively, if people stop providing information to the intelligence services because they're afraid that one day it'll end up as a headline in a national newspaper, our foreign interference problem will be even worse because people are going to be too scared to come forward. So that's why I suppose I am so concerned. Canada's really never really dealt with something like this before. And I hope it's a wake-up call to Canadians to understand that these national security threats are real, but this conversation has not come without cost. I think we'll leave it at that for this day.

And congratulations, we did manage, the two of us, to get through half an hour or so without getting into the political debate. But there's enough there to lead us there at some point, I'm sure. There's enough commentary without me adding to it, I think. That's right. Professor Stephanie Carvin, listen, thank you so much. I really enjoyed this discussion. Thank you.

Cheers. Professor Stephanie Carvin. And the professor, once again, if you didn't catch it before we got into it, is at Carleton University. She's an expert on this topic. Her research focuses on national and international security and technology. She's a former security analyst, as she talked about a number of times, for the government of Canada. She did her research and some of her training at LSE, London School of Economics. She's also been in attendance at a number of academic institutions in the United States as well,

but currently teaching at Carleton University in Ottawa. We thank her for her time and her expertise and her understanding of trying to make us more understanding of the situation that we have been discussing for the last week or so. Now, I know some of our listeners who are very attentive to the audio feed because I get your letters. every time I sip a cup of coffee or a glass of water and you hear that you don't like to hear that some of you and you write about it bad internet connections

bad audio some kind or another and you take me to task for that and I understand that you do you're probably already those people who are fixated on And you take me to task for that. And I understand that you do. You're probably already, those people who are fixated on audio quality are probably already writing saying, I heard somebody knocking all the way through there or different parts of that interview.

And you did. You know, kind of subtle, dull, kind of knocking, like somebody was trapped in a room somewhere and was trying to get out and trying to signal to us that, hey, I'm in here. It appears, and I checked that it wasn't either one of us. Now, you know, maybe it was a neighbor of mine. I'm in Toronto for this right now and operating out of my little condo in Toronto. And, you know, maybe it was somebody doing construction work in their condo above me or below me. I don't know, but it was clearly there.

It was a spy. It was somebody trying to get at us. You know, who knows? Maybe it was foreign interference in the podcast. I'm not sure. But we'll work on that. I'll try to make sure it doesn't happen again. All right. Brief sense of what's coming up this week.

Obviously, all the normal programs. Tomorrow is kind of interesting. Tuesday, you know we deal with the Ukraine story on Tuesdays. And Brian Stewart will be by, but only for a couple of minutes. Because Brian is going to make way for an interview that I have with a fellow by the name of Brandon Mitchell. I don't know whether you've heard of him before, but he's a Canadian from Miramichi, New Brunswick, who was in the Canadian military reserve for a while, was in the British army for a while. Then he ended up working at an I IKEA store in Sweden, assembling furniture,

when he decided, you know what, I want to go help a situation in Ukraine. So he volunteered with the Ukrainians, and he is, for the last year or two, has been a medic in Ukraine, and has been right in the middle of all the action. So I want to talk to him. He's currently on, you know, he's out of Ukraine for about a month or so dealing with some, you know, personal issues. He's back in Sweden. And then he's going back to Ukraine once he's got his stuff in order,

probably in the next couple of weeks. But we had a fascinating discussion over the weekend, and I wanted to share that with you. It's not about the politics of Ukraine, Russia. It's about his story, about his story in Ukraine. What's it actually like on the ground? He's been there, done that, seen that. Been in Bakhmut. I mean, he's been around.

So he's seen the horrors close up, and he's seen the people close up. So that's Brandon Mitchell, special interview tomorrow. I think you just might find it fascinating. Close up. So that's Brandon Mitchell. Special interview tomorrow. I think you just might find it fascinating. I hope you will. Wednesday, of course, Smoke Mirrors and the Truth with Bruce. Probably talk a little bit about the result of today's election in Alberta. Thursday, it's your turn.

You might have some comments on what you just heard with Professor Carvin. You may have some comments on what you hear tomorrow with Brandon Mitchell. The Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com. Make sure you give me your name and where you're writing from. And that'll be part of your turn along with the Random Ranter on Thursday. Friday, of course, is Good Talk with Chantel and Bruce. So that's it for this day. I appreciate your time, as always, and your attention. Hope you enjoyed the program today. We'll be back in 48 hours.