Introduction
The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians 2021 Annual Report

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1. The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP, or the Committee) is pleased to present the Prime Minister with its fourth annual report. The report contains a summary of the comprehensive Special Report on the Government of Canada’s Framework and Activities to Defend its Systems and Networks from Cyber Attack, a special review completed by the Committee in 2021, including the review’s findings and recommendations. It also contains information on the Committee’s work over the past year.

2. This year’s Annual Report differs from past reports. In 2021, the Committee decided to provide its future reviews as special reports. This will disassociate the Committee’s reviews from its annual reporting cycle, permitting the Committee to conduct complex reviews over varying timeframes and to provide its reports to the Prime Minister as soon as they are ready. As a result, the reports will be tabled in Parliament and available to Canadians in a timelier manner. Hereafter, the Committee’s annual reports will focus more narrowly on the Committee’s activities over the previous year and on fulfilling the reporting requirements identified in the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act (NSICOP Act).

The Committee’s 2021 activities

3. Between January 1, 2021 and August 15, 2021, the Committee met ten times, four of which were hearings. It met with twenty-two officials from four different organizations, relying on a hybrid format of in-person meetings and secure video conferences.

4. In 2021, the Committee completed one framework review, under paragraph 8(1)(a) of the NSICOP Act, the Special Report on the Government of Canada’s Framework and Activities to Defend its Systems and Networks from Cyber Attack, which included four findings and two recommendations. Two special reviews remain underway: Global Affairs Canada’s security and intelligence activities and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s Federal Policing mandate.

5. The Committee was dissolved in August 2021 when the writs of election were issued. The Committee’s Secretariat continued to work on ongoing reviews, but no report could be finalized in the absence of a newly appointed Committee.

Reporting Requirements

Injury to National Security and Refusal to Provide Information

6. The NSICOP Act has a number of reporting requirements. The Committee must include in its Annual Report the number of instances in the preceding year that an appropriate minister determined that a review conducted under paragraph 8(1)(b) of the Act would be injurious to national security. It must also disclose the number of times a responsible minister refused to provide information to the Committee due to his or her opinion that the information constituted special operational information and would be injurious to national security, consistent with subsection 16(1) of the Act. In 2021, no reviews proposed by the Committee were deemed injurious to national security and no information requested by the Committee was refused by a minister on those grounds.

  • Reviews deemed injurious to national security: 0
  • Information requests refused: 0

Avoiding Complicity in Mistreatment by Foreign Entities

Pursuant to the Avoiding Complicity in Mistreatment byForeign Entities Act (the ‘Act’), twelve organizations within the federal government must submit to their Minister an annual report in respect of the implementation of the Act in the previous calendar year. The annual reports must contain information regarding:

  1. The disclosure of information to any foreign entity that would result in a substantial risk of mistreatment to an individual;
  2. The making of requests to any foreign entity for information that would result in a substantial risk of mistreatment of an individual; and
  3. The use of information that is likely to have been obtained through the mistreatment of an individual by a foreign entity.

8. The Act requires the implicated Ministers to provide a copy of their organization’s annual mistreatment reports to NSICOP and the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA).

Avoiding Complicity in Mistreatment by Foreign Entities
Annual Compliance Reports Received in 2021

In 2021, the Committee received reports from the following departments and agencies.

  • Canada Border Services Agency
  • Canada Revenue Agency
  • Canadian Security Intelligence Service
  • Communications Security Establishment
  • Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces
  • Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
  • Fisheries and Oceans Canada
  • Global Affairs Canada
  • Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada
  • Public Safety Canada
  • Royal Canadian Mounted Police
  • Transport Canada

Referrals

On June 4, 2021, the Minister of Health sent a referral to the Committee pursuant to paragraph 8(1)(c) of the NSICOP Act regarding possible security incidents at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba and the termination of two Canadian scientists. The Committee continues to consider the issue.

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