Global Affairs unit ran afoul of Vienna Convention, national-security watchdog review finds

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A specialized unit within Global Affairs Canada, linked to the detention of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, sends diplomats overseas to report on security matters without rigorous oversight, adequate training or safeguards to protect their sources in authoritarian countries, a national-security watchdog report concludes.

The report from the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency found instances where the activities of some Global Security Reporting Program officers strayed into covert collection of intelligence.

“The creation of a foreign intelligence entity within Global Affairs Canada, or the allowance of mission creep by the GSRP into covert collection would run against the principles of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations,” the report warned. The Vienna Convention requires diplomats to respect the laws of countries where they are based.

The NSIRA report was completed in December, 2020, but deliberately held back from public release because, as the watchdog explained last month, of “high sensitivities” about a public examination of the GSRP while Mr. Spavor and Mr. Kovrig were held in Chinese prisons on espionage charges. The two were imprisoned from December, 2018, to September, 2021. The report’s release comes after The Globe and Mail reported in November about the delay of nearly three years.

The GSRP has come under public scrutiny after The Globe reported that Mr. Spavor is seeking a multimillion-dollar settlement from Ottawa, alleging information he unwittingly passed on to Mr. Kovrig, a GSRP officer, was turned over to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and spy services from the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand, known as the Five Eyes.

Mr. Kovrig has told The Globe that he followed the “standard of laws, rules and regulations governing diplomats.”

The NSIRA review found “an absence of risk assessments, security protocols, and legal guidance specific to the increased scrutiny that GSRP officers may attract due to the nature of their reporting priorities.”

The partially redacted report does not mention Mr. Kovrig by name, but the watchdog warned about the overlap between GSRP officers and CSIS agents at missions abroad. It noted that inadequately trained GSRP officers do not appreciate the risks associated with overseas contacts and sources.

“The review found that the program does not have appropriate safeguards in place regarding the safety of contacts overseas,” the report said. “Significantly, the review identified some possible concerns related to how Canadian identity information is managed.”

The report at one point appears to allude to Mr. Kovrig, who had taken a leave of absence from Global Affairs in 2017 to work for a global consulting firm in Hong Kong. On a trip to China in 2018, he was arrested by China and charged with illegally receiving state secrets and intelligence in collaboration with Mr. Spavor, one of only a handful of Westerners who has met North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un.

“It was not clear if all officers understood that once they are no longer afforded diplomatic immunity, a receiving state may seek retaliatory measures against them,” the report said, adding former GSRP officers “may be liable to prosecution for illegal acts they performed during the mission if they later re-enter the receiving state without the protection of diplomatic immunity.”

The Globe has also reported that Canadians Kevin and Julia Garratt were detained by Chinese authorities in 2014 after Mr. Garratt met a GSRP officer. Beijing accused the couple of participation in espionage, an incident widely regarded as another case of Beijing’s practice of hostage diplomacy. Mr. Garratt said he would not have spoken to GSRP officer Martin Laflamme had he known the discussions would be passed on to CSIS and its Five Eyes intelligence partners.

“The more sensitive a GSRP officer’s conduct, the more likely a receiving state will perceive interference. This is particularly true with respect to officer interactions with contacts,” the NSIRA report said. “It is important to underscore that the assumed diplomatic protections granted to the GSRP officer do not apply to contacts,” it noted, stressing how important it is for these diplomats to avoid raising “unnecessary suspicion about this interaction.”

The Department of Global Affairs says GSRP officers are not covert intelligence operators and do not recruit, handle or pay sources. But NSIRA found that there were no internal policies and protocols in place to provide guidance to GSRP officers, particularly those in countries where there is a “high degree of mistrust for outsiders; often take a hard line on internal security matters; and, tend to deploy mass surveillance on foreigners and citizens.”

Even some of Canada’s allies “misidentified GSRP officers as Canadian intelligence representatives,” the report said. “In at least one instance, GSRP was a primary contact with a foreign intelligence agency instead of CSIS.”

NSIRA discovered cases where GSRP officers engaged with local intelligence agencies in the countries where they were posted and instances where these Canadian diplomats collected what appeared to be classified information from sources. “The contact mentioned serious consequences if he was caught with the information,” the review recounted. It discovered another case where a GSRP officer even requested, and received, classified information from a contact.

NSIRA concluded that GSRP is operating in a “distinctly grey zone” and said the matters raised in its report would likely spark a “renewed conversation” about Canada setting up a foreign human-intelligence collection agency.

The watchdog recommended GSRP create a governance framework and develop risk protocols and security guidelines specific to the program. It urged Global Affairs to complete a thorough legal assessment of GSRP activities and provide its officers training based on the assessment.

It urged GSRP to develop “best practices for interactions with contacts,” or sources, “based on consultation with Global Affairs legal advisors.”

NSIRA called for Global Affairs to develop a consistent approach by GSRP and CSIS when engaging with foreign entities overseas.

Dan Stanton, a former executive manager of operations at CSIS, said the lack of a governance framework for GSRP is shocking.

“How confident is management that their officers consistently operated as diplomats in the absence of any governance and compliance measures?” said Mr. Stanton, now director of the national-security program at the University of Ottawa’s Professional Development Institute.

Mr. Stanton said more alarming is the report’s finding of instances where GSRP “takes on the perceived attributes of espionage” and engages with contacts who “may hold viewpoints considered sensitive by receiving states.”

“This is precisely what intelligence services are mandated to do: obtain privileged information that the host country is determined to keep secret. The overt nature of the meetings is no defence, and it places the contact at great risk,” he said. “That these contacts are neither paid nor tasked is irrelevant to the host country.”

Phil Gurski, a former senior analyst at CSIS, said the report underscores the “carelessness” with which the program was set up in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

“Those of us at CSIS at the time knew this was a trainwreck waiting to happen,” he said, adding “sources were likely put in harm’s way by careless handling.”

Stephanie Carvin, a former national-security analyst and a professor at Carleton University, said the report suggests the program feels the diplomatic protections afforded by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations relieve them of much of the risks of their activities.

“They don’t seem to understand it’s not a get-out-of-jail free card,” Prof. Carvin said.

“GSRP may be trying to play it both ways: acting as an intelligence service under the cover of diplomatic immunity. It’s taking advantage of legal gaps and grey zones to do so,” she said. “This puts at risk Canadian diplomats, national interests, GSRP officers and their sources.”

The Globe obtained a list of the 30 countries where GSRP officers are based that include China, Pakistan, India, Egypt, Ethiopia, Turkey, South Africa, Ukraine, Iraq, Sudan and Israel, in addition to Ramallah in the West Bank. The budget is $20-million annually.

The Global Affairs document – including a map of the locations – also said there were six planned expansions, beginning last summer, that include Poland, Serbia, Vietnam, Qatar, Brazil and Armenia.

Global Affairs spokesperson Grantly Franklin said Wednesday the department has accepted all the recommendations in the NSIRA report and “all have either been or are being implemented.”

He said Global Affairs has made it a priority to establish an overarching governance framework across its programs. “Moreover, the department regularly reviews and renews risk-management protocols and security guidelines to ensure the safety and security of Canadian diplomats abroad,” he said.