The story I'm referring to lasted about a week in October, when the country of Brazil made allegations that Canadian security officials (specifically, CSEC, a Canadian establishment controlled by the Ministry of Defense) were not only spying on Brazil's energy and mining ministry, but they were also giving that information over to private energy (aka oil mining and gas) companies in Canada. When questioned, Ministry of Defense spokesperson Jean Paul Duval said "It is standard practice for security agencies to discuss issues with Canadian industry in order to protect lives and sensitive infrastructure from terrorism and other threats". Not an at all relevant statement when you are talking about commiting industrial espionage.
This is a big deal. This is not the Cold War. We are not spying on "The Enemy" with opposing political and social ideologies (although 20 years later we still have only the haziest of ideas of what the Cold War was actually all about). Brazil is supposed to be an ally and trading partner, the capital letter B in the BRICS, a buzzword to describe countries playing catch up to the advantages held by first world countries in Europe and North America. Our leaders, under better circumstances, would tell us that Brazil is trying to imitate us in a most flattering way, to climb up out of poverty and catch up to first world countries technologically and economically. So by stealing their secrets regarding energy prospects, could this be seen as a snub to Brazil, taking what advantage we can from them before kicking them back down from where they surfaced? CSECs Canadian brand of spying is actually part of the larger five-eyes network that includes the US, Britain, Australia, New Zealand. None of the articles I read implicate involvement of the other member countries, but it is reasonable to presume at the least they aren't going to say no to free information.
Five eyes aside, handing over sensitive information that CSEC agents knew could damage relations between our countries if it was found out is both telling and at least a bit disturbing. Not only are they giving particular companies an advantage with that information, but we don't know what, if any, limits there are for what information they giving away. We only know about Brazil because the Brazillian government caught them and blew the whistle. This information sharing from public organizations to very particular private interests has no real limits, because you and I have little way of knowing what is going on.
On top of all of that, CSEC is a Canadian Government operation paid for with Canadian tax dollars. We are paying for an oil company to extract information from our allied trading partner, ruining our countries reputation, so that this particular company can get some sort of advantage, to the obvious end that they don't have enough money. Can not some argument be made that since CSEC gave that information outside of government operations that it needs to be made public domain, or that it needs to stop happening, full stop? And do not the media (ie the CBC) need to push harder to find out what is going on and what else is being used with this misappropriation of spy funds? I don't expect any accountability or transparency from our government, but when nobody else seems to care, even the media who I would think would be looking to expand news stories out of their self-interest, what other options are available?
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