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The PCO’s National Security Advisor, currently Stephen Rigby, has the ear of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, putting him at the top of the intel food chain; the PCO chairs the Interdepartmental Committee on Security and Intelligence, which handles top-level strategic policy, resourcing, sensitive national security matters and reviews proposals destined for Cabinet; and the PCO recommends the annual intelligence priorities to government. Also within the PCO are two important intelligence secretariats (‘‘Security & Intelligence’’ and ‘‘Intelligence Assessment’’) along with Ward Elcock, a special advisor on human smuggling.

CSIS:

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service is Canada’s primary spy agency, with a mandate to investigate, analyze and advise the government on suspected threats to Canada’s national security.

A civilian agency, it was created in 1984 to separate the dark and dirty secrets of security intelligence work from the court disclosure process of law enforcement. The relationship between CSIS and the RCMP has sometimes been rocky. After the 9/11 terror attacks, terrorist threats, both homegrown and abroad, have been a key focus, along with probing espionage and foreign influence activities.

RCMP:

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is a law enforcement agency and its mandate is to investigate and prevent crimes, make arrests and prepare prosecutions, so its work must meet the scrutiny of the courts in terms of methods and what it gathers. That awkward fit led to the creation of CSIS, but the RCMP maintains an important role in national security intel. Security cases that come to the RCMP from CSIS often have to start again from scratch using evidentiary standards that can be used in court. The RCMP has liaison officers abroad and also runs a cyber-security taskforce, which can involve national security.