Policy Brief No. 198 — February 2025
The National Security and Intelligence Advisor’s Leadership Challenge Wesley Wark
Key Points → The Canadian security and intelligence community needs new gateways to ensure that key intelligence products reach the prime minister, cabinet ministers and deputies. → The national security and intelligence advisor (NSIA) must shift from being a “coordinator” and convenor to being the leader of the security and intelligence community. → Seizing on a new mandate letter, the NSIA must ensure the rapid delivery of a substantive national security strategy, accompanied by a strong engagement plan to inform Canadians. → The NSIA must work to change the culture of Canadian intelligence.
Introduction The Canadian security and intelligence community faces the need for transformative change to ensure its ability to deliver impactful intelligence products to senior decision makers. Demands for change respond to deficiencies in intelligence dissemination revealed through two recent public inquiries, media leaks, parliamentary investigations and the work of independent, external review bodies. Transformative change requires a new governance capacity for leadership and direction of what has historically often been a deeply siloed system. The recent issuance of a mandate letter by the prime minister puts a new onus on leadership in the security and intelligence community on the part of the NSIA. The management of the Canadian intelligence community’s production of reports used to be a secret. Thanks to two recent public inquiries and a lot of media, political and public attention, that is no longer the case. But in the wake of all that attention, an important