CSIS Report on Foreign Interference.

And why it misses the mark

CSIS Canada’s ‘s 2026 report on foreign interference in Canada is a perfect example of how siloed approaches to threat assessment undermine Canadian autonomy. If we want Canada to become more resilient, the CSIS report and related mainstream media coverage won’t get us there.

The report completely omits any mention of “weaponized interdependence” or the strategic risks of economic over-reliance on the United States. Furthermore, despite the political prominence of Mark Carney’s recent critiques regarding strategic autonomy and the “grey zone,” these concepts are absent from the report’s lexicon. The report is a masterclass in maintaining a status quo security paradigm. Its failure to acknowledge these concepts is not an oversight—it is a functional necessity for the current Canadian security framework.

In this Substack post I explain why this came to be. A good example of these neglected linkages can be found in my Vulnerabilities research where I warn that Alberta is “excessively vulnerable” to American interference. That inference has moved from covert to overt actions including Direct Meetings; High-Level Endorsements; Celebrity Support; and Social Media Amplification.

Yet, CSIS continues to categorize threats in a binary fashion: State Actors (China Russia, Iran, etc.) vs. Canada. By definition, this excludes the possibility that Canada’s allies could be a source of “structural” threat. While the report mentions protecting “economic prosperity,” it defines this exclusively as defending against IP theft and cyber-espionage by foreign adversaries. It does not treat the architecture of our economic relationship (which is where weaponized interdependence lives) as a threat-vector.

By keeping “Carney’s rupture” firmly in the political/academic domain, the security establishment shields itself from having to analyze the very real strategic risks posed by the U.S. government. Calling out the U.S. for “weaponized interdependence” would be a radical policy shift that no current Canadian government or security agency is mandated to undertake.

It isn’t for lack of awareness. In my 2024 submission to the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference, I documented the extent to which non ”traditional” actors - state and non state- were becoming increasingly important as sources of interference in Canada. A key argument I make is that, Canada’s working definitions of and policies on foreign interference are too narrow and reactive, failing to address modern "grey zone" strategies that exploit open, legal channels and the deliberate and selective targeting and manipulation of diaspora groups.

When my PIFI submission was written in 2024, Trump had not yet been elected (the second time). Even well before then, however, it was clear that Canada was becoming increasingly subservient to U.S. interests. For example, U.S. “extraterritorial overreach” and trade actions were causing more direct harm to Canada than actions by China.

A second point I make is that, Canadian politicians should be held to account for their constant and unending “diaspora opportunism”—instrumentalizing ethnic communities for electoral gain. These shortsighted and self serving actions are basically an open invitation to foreign states to disrupt Canada’s internal affairs.

Although the CSIS report recognises that some non-state actors even without external state support can destabilise Canada ‘s bilateral state-to-state relations it ignores “conflict transportation” as a long standing specific mechanism of destabilisation. The roots of these transported conflicts stem from a range of factors, including historical rivalries linked to colonialism, homeland nationalism, war, and the actions (or inactions) of host countries toward diaspora communities.

This lack of context in framing policy choices generates counterproductive outcomes and exacerbates and in some cases triggers long standing grievances. Special treatment for some groups at the expense of others, heightens tensions between communities. In turn, Ottawa is forced to spend its limited political capital managing imported ethnic tensions rather than articulating a cohesive national strategy free of bias.

Indeed, the decline of Canadian democracy is in part reflected by “elite capture” as I document here and ongoing efforts to silence and discredit those who dispute Canada’s open-ended support for Ukraine in the absence of resolution, those who want better and more coherent engagement with China and those who seek justice and balance towards Israel’s war on Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.

It is well documented that Canada’s preferential policies towards some diaspora have harmed our diplomatic capacity to engage with countries like Russia, Iran, China, and India, where successive governments have leveraged diaspora political agendas to advance their interests domestically. It is also not suprising that such opportunism deliberately opens Canada to foreign exploitation.

Like the U.S., Canada selectively chooses when to hold some states responsible for foreign meddling and not others. For example, the U.S. chooses to hold the Russian, Iran and Chinese governments accountable for their foreign influence operations but ignores the activities of the United Arab Emirates and Israel considering them “friends and allies.”

Indeed, similar to the U.S. agenda, Canada’s current approach to foreign interference is “lopsided and shortsighted”. By labeling traditional “adversaries” as the primary sources of interference, Ottawa’s larger security apparatus, which includes those media “experts” acting as public gatekeepers, has created a cognitive blind spot regarding “allied” interference.

I argue that this blind spot allows the U.S. and others to operate with relative impunity in the Canadian grey zone, as its actions are reflexively categorized as “cooperation” or “alliance management” rather than coercive. Academics who uphold these traditional frameworks are equally culpable.

Existing definitions are calibrated to detect overt, non-kinetic meddling—such as election disruption or cyber-attacks—which are easily identifiable. But they fail to account for more pervasive, structural, and “peaceful” grey zone tactics (Ambiguity, Incrementalism, and Hybrid Blending) that the U.S. employs. Because these tactics rely on leveraging existing institutional and economic dependencies (e.g., CUSMA, NORAD, supply chain integration), they do not trigger the sensors of current intelligence frameworks.

In sum, Ottawa’s bureaucrats continue to rely on an outdated, idealized view of the U.S.-Canada relationship. Instead of examining structural dependencies, mainstream journalists assume by and large, that the U.S. acts in Canada’s best interests and does not “interfere.” In turn, without being held to account, policymakers ignore the reality that the U.S. systematically uses its structural leverage to achieve its objectives at Canada’s expense. When interference occurs within an alliance, it is “deniable”—it is framed as necessary policy alignment rather than a deliberate effort to hollow out Canadian Authority, Legitimacy, and Capacity.

With a focus on overt or rarely proven “criminal” acts, what is missing in these reports on “foreign interference” and their coverage in newspapers such as the Globe and Mail, is the role of “lawfare”—the strategic use of legal systems (contracts, regulations, and funding rules) as a weapon to achieve geopolitical aims. For example, when the U.S. uses its legal system to dictate Canadian trade or research policy, that is a form of interference that current definitions ignore.

Looking ahead, the core of my critique is that by maintaining these narrow, adversary-centric definitions, the Canadian government and the media that supports its agenda, has essentially “outsourced” its security discourse to Washington. Because Canada’s counter-interference measures are often modelled on U.S. preferences, Ottawa is effectively adopting tools designed to ensure American dominance under the guise of “strengthening security.”

The weaknesses in current definitions ensure that Canada remains in a state of “managed subordination.” It allows the U.S. to apply continuous, low-intensity pressure that constrains Canadian policy autonomy without triggering the diplomatic ruptures that would normally alert the public to such interference.

In short, the current focus on U.S. interpretations of “foreign interference” is a distraction—an analytical framework that focuses on the external threats of specific foreign states while ignoring the structural vulnerability of the Canada-U.S. relationship itself.

My Designing Canadian Sovereignty report stresses the need for systemic de-risking and the dismantling of “one-way socialization” within Canadian institutions. My diaspora analysis highlights a similar institutional weakness: the “black box” of influence-peddling. I argue that the current lack of transparency in how diaspora groups interact with the federal government creates a structural vulnerability.

To that end, a Canadian approach to answering questions of foreign interference should begin with Canadian multiculturalism and its inherent strengths. Much like how Canada’s strategic dependency on U.S. frameworks leaves it open to trade and policy manipulation, the lack of a formal, arm’s-length structure for diaspora engagement leaves the government open to “partisan capture.”

A core theme in this ‘rethink” on threat assessment is my critique of reactionary, threat-driven policies. The government’s tendency to either ignore or hyper-securitize some diaspora activities based on current partisan needs or shifting international alignments is an inherent problem that must be addressed. The media contributes to the amplification of these perceived threats to the point that government overreaction becomes the norm. Mistakes are made with genuine human consequences. The CSIS report and subsequent mainstream media coverage are a perfect example of that kind of shortsighted and harmful blindness.

Instead of treating diaspora groups as either electoral tools or security threats, I propose a more disciplined, and objective, evidence-based approach—typified by the recommendation for a federally funded, independent diaspora office. This mimics my call for a systematic, five-stage tactical plan for Canadian sovereignty: it replaces ad hoc reactionism with an institutionalized, transparent, and interest-based framework.

In essence, my diaspora work provides the granular, sociological detail for the high-level geopolitical model in Engineered Vulnerabilities. If my vulnerabilities reports demonstrate how structural dependency weakens the state, my diaspora research demonstrates how social fragmentation provides the necessary “terrain” for that weakening to occur.

The fact that these concepts and ideas are missing from the CSIS report helps validate my central argument about the state of Canadian institutional autonomy. The security apparatus is itself a part of the "vulnerable system." If the institutions charged with analyzing national security cannot, by definition, perceive the risks of the U.S. relationship and the threat posed by diaspora manipulation then the "vulnerability" is indeed engineered into the system. Because the government's official security assessment claims to be "de-politicized" to protect “allies” the analytical heavy lifting—the identification of true structural threats—is left to external, independent policy frameworks.

Given that the report is a 2025 assessment released in 2026, its failure to engage with the very debates dominating the current political scene (including my own work) suggests that the security establishment is intentionally choosing to maintain a narrow, manageable definition of "threats." This is a clear sign that the Canadian security apparatus has become so deeply siloed that it can no longer integrate strategic vulnerability analysis into its core mission. To understand the implications of that analytical failure for Canada’s pursuit of greater autonomy see my posts here and here.