Rogers, during his annual speech, provided an update on Canada’s security challenges and the threats that the country presently faces — making special mention of threats coming from Iran, Russia, and China. The Straits Times indicated Rogers’ comments mark the first time CSIS has intervened to protect Canada-based critics of Iran.
“In particularly alarming cases over the last year, we’ve had to reprioritize our operations to counter the actions of Iranian intelligence services and their proxies who have targeted individuals they perceive as threats to their regime,” Rogers said. “In more than one case, this involved detecting, investigating, and disrupting potentially lethal threats against individuals in Canada.”
With regards to Russia, Rogers explained his office routinely works with other Canadian agencies to counter Russian espionage threats, and listed identifying Russian intelligence officers and denying their travel to Canada as an example of one of the actions taken.
“It also includes working with allied and domestic partners to degrade the strength of Russian Intelligence Services globally, for example by countering their efforts of sabotage through commercial courier companies and the transportation industry,” Rogers said.
The director detailed that illicit Russian procurement networks seek to illegally secure Canadian goods and technologies, moving them to Russia through “complex series of front companies based around the world” before the Canadian goods are then used to support Russia’s military actions in Ukraine and elsewhere.
Speaking on China, Rogers warned Canada has become a “theatre of increased interest” due to its Arctic location and its economic and strategic potential. Rogers said that China, and other non-Arctic nations seek to gain a strategic and economic foothold in the region.
“Russia, an Arctic state with a significant military presence in the region, remains unpredictable and aggressive,” Rogers said. “Both of those countries, and others, have a significant intelligence interest in our Arctic and those who influence or develop its economic or strategic potential.”
Most alarmingly, the Canadian official said that nearly one in ten terrorism investigations conducted by CSIS now includes at least one subject under the age of 18, and pointed out Canadian authorities arrested a minor in Montreal in August for allegedly planning an attack on behalf of Isis.
Rogers further pointed out a 15-year old minor was arrested in Edmonton for a minor terrorism-related offense in May. Two additional 15 year-old minors were arrested between late 2023 and early 2024 for allegedly conspiring to conduct a “mass casualty attack” against the Jewish community in Ottawa.
“Today’s violent extremists are motivated by an increasingly diverse, often personalized, set of extreme beliefs including xenophobia, accelerationism, nihilism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, extreme interpretations of religion, and more,” Rogers said.
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