This was an important year for CSIS. Not only did we celebrate 40 years of protecting national security, but our legislation, the CSIS Act, received the most significant updates since its enactment in 1984. We recognised that the Act had aged, and that we needed to better equip CSIS in the face of an increasingly complex threat environment and rapid technological change. 

As Deputy Director of Policy and Strategic Partnerships, I had the honour of directing the effort to modernize the CSIS Act. This was truly a team endeavour. Its success is owed to the contributions of individuals from across CSIS, the Government of Canada, and Canada. Many Canadians played a key role by taking the time to provide their diverse perspectives on the proposed modifications to the CSIS Act. A total of 360 Canadians provided written submissions and CSIS met directly with over 200 stakeholders, representing a wide-range of interests—provincial, territorial and Indigenous, business, academic, and ethnic, religious and cultural—from Whitehorse to Halifax, and many cities in between. Throughout the process, Canadians generally noted the need for changes to the CSIS Act, and agreed that existing gaps were problematic. Many indicated that the proposed amendments could better equip CSIS and the government to respond to national security threats such as foreign interference, and their input ultimately informed the amendments proposed by the government to the CSIS Act in Bill C-70, An Act respecting countering foreign interference.

On June 19, 2024, Bill C-70 received royal assent, helping fill a number of key gaps in CSIS’ authorities. Bill C-70 also provided the government with stronger measures to protect national security through amendments to the Security of Information Act, the Criminal Code, and the Canada Evidence Act, as well as via the establishment of a foreign influence transparency registry.

With these amendments, CSIS is better able to equip a broader range of national security stakeholders, operate in a digital era, and respond to changes in the threat environment, while remaining accountable to all Canadians. 

With the amendments to information disclosure, CSIS can now share information with entities or persons outside the Government of Canada to proactively build resiliency to threats. This ability will help build society-wide resilience by increasing our partners’ ability to understand and recognize threats, and to protect their people, information, assets, as well as Canada’s interests. In 2024, CSIS conducted 28 resiliency briefings since the Act came into force, and we are continuing to deliver resiliency briefings in 2025. We have moved quickly to share threat information with provincial and territorial governments, Indigenous organizations, religious and community groups, and national advocacy organisations like the Business Council of Canada, a network composed of chief executives from Canada’s leading enterprises across the private sector. 

Our new legislative amendments also provide CSIS with expanded judicial authorizations modeled on authorities routinely relied on by Canadian law enforcement and intelligence services in other democracies. For instance, CSIS now has the ability to request a single-use warrant to conduct a one-off investigative technique, such as examining the content of a USB key that may contain information that advances a national security investigation. The single-use warrant is less intrusive than a traditional warrant as it does not authorize ongoing collection, but like all warrants and orders, it still requires Federal Court approval and remains subject to robust oversight by the Minister and the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency.

The amendments to CSIS’ dataset regime increase the efficiency of the collection and use of datasets, and the retention timeline from 90 to 180 days for CSIS to decrypt, translate and evaluate datasets before seeking permission from the Minister of Public Safety to retain them. This is an important change as datasets can vary in size from a few entries to billions of records.

In addition, the amendments to the CSIS Act closed a technical gap to allow CSIS to collect information from within Canada that is located outside Canada, when the information is about the activities of foreign individuals in Canada.

I’ve said before that whole-of-society threats require whole-of-society responses. The process to modernize the CSIS Act demonstrates how effective a whole-of-society response can be. This is what separates us from our adversaries, and makes us stronger.

Nicole Giles, Deputy Director of Policy and Strategic Partnerships at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

CSIS’ outreach and engagement activities aim to develop relationships with, work alongside, and learn directly from Canadians to build a whole-of-society approach to mitigate national security threats.

“The Business Council of Canada is proud of the strategic partnership it has forged with CSIS to enhance the Canadian private sector’s awareness of, and resiliency against, malicious threat activity targeting Canadian businesses in every sector and region of our country. Through increased information sharing and collaboration, Canadian businesses have been able to better protect their employees, customers, and the communities in which they operate."

- Goldy Hyder, President and Chief Executive Officer, Business Council of Canada

“As Canadians, we are concerned about foreign government interference that undermines our democratic processes and intimidates our citizens. At the same time, as Asian Canadians marginalized by systemic anti-Asian racism, we must ensure that security-related laws and policies do not become tools of oppression that target and deny the rights of Asian and racialized communities. We support CSIS focus on combating racially-motivated hate and threats, and urge CSIS to continue building trust with Asian Canadian communities through meaningful engagement to protect Canada’s democracy and values of inclusion and equity.”

- Amy Go, President, Chinese Canadian National Council for Social Justice

“Collaboration with external partners is vital for national security. Civil society and the private sector face direct threats and also hold key pieces of the security puzzle. The workshops, briefings, and outreach by CSIS’ Academic Outreach and Stakeholder Engagement are critically important in furthering Canada’s national security.”

– Maria Robson-Morrow, Intelligence Project, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School

“It remains crucial for CSIS to continue in its positive efforts to repair trust and build meaningful relationships with Canadian Muslim communities.”

– Amira Elghawaby, Canada’s Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia

“When we began planning a conference on Canadian intelligence history in 2022 we were unsure what support, if any, we would get from the government. Over the next two years, however, CSIS proved to be our strongest advocate. The success of the conference reinforced my firm belief that intelligence history is at its strongest when historians and practitioners work together to both share and compare our understandings of the past.

– Sarah-Jane Corke, Associate Professor, University of New Brunswick 

Protecting national security and Canada’s interests requires CSIS to be a policy-driven organization that is accountable to Canadians and Parliament.