Former high -ranking Canadian intelligence officers say that Canada has to be looking for campaigns to destabilize the country in the middle of US President Donald Trump’s escalating 51st state threats.
And they said CBC News that the weapon led by the Trump government, which to promote the cause of the annexation, probably not the secret services that would be led by the director of the National Secret Service Tulsi Gabbard.
“I would consider Mr. Musk as a problem,” said Ward Elcock, who led CSIs for a decade during the September 11 attacks and also acted as a national security advisor. “I think that’s a number of fronts.”
In the past, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has destabilized many governments and nations with methods that are used as banal as corruption and as drastically as assassination.
“Try (Trump) to change political views in this country? If so, is the foreign interference,” said Dick Fadden, who also headed CSIS and acted as a national security advisor of the former Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
“It is not more acceptable from the United States than from China, Russia or others.”
Economic shortage: Canada’s weak point
Neil Bisson is a former CSIS secret service officer who is now director of the Global Intelligence Knowledge Network and teaches at the Professional Development Institute of the University of Ottawa.
He says that despite visible signs of a Canadian unit, in view of annexation threats, there are those who are susceptible to the siren call, especially among the boys who feel economically disadvantaged.
“That would be one of the lines and fishing points, one of the cracks in the armor that another country would try to take advantage of it,” he told CBC News. “If you have people who are concerned, where your next meal comes from or whether you get a roof over your head, it replaces sovereignty.”
US President Donald Trump paused – again – for some goods from Canada and Mexico. Andrew Chang breaks out two schools of thought: whether Trump’s chaotic approach to a lack of planning or a much more deliberate strategy is due.
He said these Canadians could be attacked by propaganda campaigns that sell American citizenship in response to their economic problems.
“And there will be people in Canada who could possibly be co -opted to drive this story ahead,” said Bisson.
The Trump government officials gave numerous rationale for the tariffs against Canada, but Trump himself said that he wanted to apply economic violence on Tuesday morning to accompany Canada to the United States.
“He clearly intends to destabilize our economy,” said Elcock. “The reality is that when Canada is really impoverished, people may think about it. This is always the possibility – that not all Canadians will be willing to endure economic deprivation.
“People start to believe it.”
According to Fadden, governments and secret services have learned the hard type of strength of disinformation and propaganda through social media.
“They keep repeating things that people think they believe,” he said. “If this path continues for years, practically someone can be worn out.”
Fadden not only says politicians to negotiate with colleagues in Washington, “we have to find a way to play back on the information front.”
He says that this means finding ways “using social media more effectively than I think we have done it”.
Bisson says that state support for the tariffs affected by tariffs could stow the effects of such propaganda.
“This is the Canadian government that tries to support this political opinion within its own citizenship to say: ‘Ok, we covered this, we will take care of you, no matter what happens,” he said.
“Because if that didn’t happen and things were to be destabilized economically, it would give people even more reason to use thinking, maybe it is a better idea if we only succumbed to it.”
‘TripWire’ for spies
The intelligence experts say it is possible that the US government would use more intrusive tactics, such as:
“You have an extraordinary ability to do this,” said Fadden. “The real problem for me is whether you will actually use these skills and resources in terms of Canada.”
He says Canada should be on the view. “We have to start with the basics. We have to start monitoring money flows. We have to talk about whether you are trying to disturb our elections at all levels.”
However, he says that hidden operations on Canadian soil in the United States would probably offer little return on a great risk. And Trump is usually his own messenger and prefers the megaphone of the coded message.
“I would argue that the approach of the current president is probably as effective as the relatively secret resources of the CIA or the US secret service group,” said Fadden.
The former spy chiefs say that US secret services have rarely operated in Canada in the past and would need time to develop networks. It would be difficult for her to get very far without making the Canadians aware of their presence, said Elcock.
“Secret service organizations are constantly looking for possible threats,” he said and has intelligence “Trip Wire” to monitor the threat environment.
“The likelihood that at some point the Americans would run something against something like a tripwire, or talk to someone who would then report it – these things are very likely,” he said.
Cleanings with agencies
Secret service experts who spoke to CBC News said that they trust the professionalism of their US colleagues and their historical ties in alliances such as five eyes and NATO.
Elcock said the US agencies had to worry that their own people talk.
“There is a long relationship between Canada and the United States, and there will still be people who would not necessarily agree. So I don’t think they could certainly do this – that was not a very, very narrow operation,” he said.
However, these calculations could change if the Trump administration further deprives and replaces the staff in the agencies up to the leadership and operating level.
“The more you get people who buy in the life philosophy of the US President,” said Fadden, “the more he relocates experts from the secret service group and puts his own people in, the more worrying it becomes.”
With regard to the Canadians who have annexed their land and made this case loudly, Elcock says that not everyone should definitely be seen as a security threat.
“It would depend on what their activities were. There are many people who have strange ideas in Canada who do not qualify as a threat to Canada’s security,” he said. “Many of these organizations would already be on the radar. So the reality is when they become active, it won’t be something that nobody is aware of.”
The experts all said that Canada is a much more resistant goal than in other countries in which the USA is known to have carried out destabilization operations, but that does not mean that it is immune to pressure.
“We have to worry more and talk more about the medium and in the long term instead of just taking care of the critically important tariffs that are now there,” said Fadden.
He warned whether Canada is exposed to a longer campaign of the economic war, then “at some point someone has to cry on an uncle.”
While Fadden does not see a military invasion on the horizon, he said, “the country’s economic and cultural control can be just as effective.”
