A sign for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service building is shown in Ottawa on May 14, 2013.

A sign for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service building is shown in Ottawa on May 14, 2013.
Photo Credit: PC / Sean Kilpatrick

Trudeau appoints new spy chief

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced the new head of Canada’s domestic spy agency.

David Vigneault, currently serving as the assistant secretary to the cabinet on matters of security and intelligence, will take over the Canadian Security Intelligence Service on June 19, the Prime Minister’s Office announced Thursday.

He replaces current CSIS Director Michel Coulombe, who is retiring from the public service after a 36-year career.

Coulombe, who was the first career intelligence officer to be hired to lead the agency, leaves his post at the end of May, with Jeffrey Yaworski, CSIS’s deputy director of operations, acting as director until Vigneault lands in his new position.

Vigneault has previously worked for CSIS. From 2006 to 2010 he held the position of assistant director before moving to the Canada Border Services Agency to serve as an associate vice-president of the programs branch. From 2004 to 2006 he was director of the department of Transnational Security at the Communications Security Establishment, Canada’s electronic spy agency.

A sign with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) logo is pictured outside the agency’s headquarters in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada January 17, 2017. (Chris Wattie/REUTERS)

CSIS is a civilian spy agency that conducts security investigations primarily within Canada related to suspected subversion, terrorism and foreign espionage and sabotage.

It was created in 1984 following the McDonald Commission of Inquiry of the late 1970s, which looked into allegations of crimes and abuses committed by the Security Service of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Unlike its predecessor, the RCMP Security Service, CSIS has no police powers.

While since 9/11 CSIS has expanded international operations to investigate threats to Canada, the agency remains a predominantly domestic and defensive spy agency. Unlike most countries, Canada has no foreign intelligence service similar to the CIA or the British Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6.

Canada’s Communications Security Establishment collects foreign signals intelligence by intercepting radio, telephone and Internet communications but it does not run spies or collect human intelligence.

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