The former senior Canadian intelligence officials say that Canada must be attentive to campaigns aimed at destabilizing the country amid the growing state threats of the president of the United States, Donald Trump.
And they told CBC News that the most powerful weapon exercised by the Trump administration to advance in the cause of annexation would probably not be the intelligence agencies led by the director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
“I would consider Mr. Musk as a problem,” said Ward Elcock, who headed CSIS for a decade, even during September 11 attacks and also served as National Security Advisor. “I think that’s on several fronts.”
The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has worked to destabilize many governments and nations in the past, using methods as mundane as corruption and as drastic as murder, but the former chiefs of spy say that a campaign addressed to Canada would probably depend less on cape and daggers tactics and more on social networks, such as the X platform of Elon Musk.
“Is [Trump] Trying to change political opinions in this country? If so, that is the foreign interference, “said Dick Fadden, who also led CSIS and served as the national security advisor of former Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
“It is not more acceptable from the United States than from China, Russia or any other person.”
Economic anguish: the weak point of Canada
Neil Bisson is a former intelligence officer of CSIS who is now director of the Global Intelligence Knowledge Network and teaches at the Institute of Professional Development of the University of Ottawa.
He says that despite the visible signs of the Canadian unit against annexation threats, there are those who are vulnerable to the call of siren, particularly among young people who feel economically disadvantaged.
“That would be one of the Linchpins, one of the cracks in the armor that another country would be looking to try to explode,” he told CBC News. “If you have people who are worried about where your next meal comes from or if you are going to put a roof on the head, that replaces sovereignty.”
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He said that Canadians could be attacked by propaganda campaigns sold by US citizens as the response to their economic problems.
“And there will be individuals within Canada who could be co -opted to boost that narrative forward,” said Belson.
Trump administration officials have given numerous foundations for tariffs against Canada, but Trump himself has said he wants to use the economic force to join Canada to the United States on Tuesday morning, he said again that Canada could only avoid economic ruin through annexation.
“It intends to try to destabilize our economy,” said Elcock. “The reality is that if Canada is really impoverished, people can start thinking about it. That is always the possibility, that not all Canadians will be willing to support economic deprivation. Therefore, some can start thinking about it as time progresses.”
‘People begin to believe it’
Fadden says that governments and intelligence agencies have learned the difficult form of the power of misinformation and propaganda channeled through social networks.
“You keep repeating things enough, people begin to believe it,” he said. “If you continue along this way for years, practically anyone can be worn.”
In addition to sending politicians to negotiate with counterparts in Washington, says Fadden: “We need to find a way to reproduce in the front of information.”
He says that means finding ways to “use social networks more effectively than I think we have been doing.”
Bisson says that government assistance for those affected by tariffs could affect the impact of such propaganda.
“This is the Canadian government who tries to underpin that political opinion within its own citizenship to say: ‘Ok, we have this covered, we will take care of it regardless of what,’ ‘he said.
“Because if that was not done and things began to destabilize economically, that would give people even more reasons to resort to thinking, well, it may be a better idea if we have succumb to this.”
‘Trip Wires’ for spies
Intelligence professionals say that it is possible that the United States government uses more intrusive tactics, such as promoting or financing pro-onexationist groups within Canada to create the impression of a support land for the idea.
“They have an extraordinary ability to do this,” said Fadden. “The real problem for me is whether with respect to Canada, they will actually use these capacities and resources.”
He says Canada should be attentive. “We need to start the basics. We need to start monitoring money flows. We need to start talking about whether they are trying to interfere with our choices at all levels.”
But he says that covert operations on Canadian soil would probably offer the United States little return in exchange for a great risk. And Trump is typically his own messenger, preferring the megaphone to the coded message.
“I would argue that it is likely that the president’s current approach is as effective as using the relatively secret resources of the CIA or the United States intelligence community,” said Fadden.
Former spy bosses say that American intelligence agencies have rarely operated in Canada in the past and would need time to develop networks. It would be difficult for them to go very far without alerting the Canadians about their presence, said Elcock.
“Intelligence organizations are looking for possible threats all the time,” he said, and have the intelligence “Trip Wires” configured to help monitor the threat environment.
“The probability that Americans face something, such as a crew wire at some point or talk to someone who would report it later, those things are very likely,” he said.
Purges in the agencies
The intelligence professionals who spoke with CBC News said they deposited faith in the professionalism of their American counterparts and their historical attachments to alliances such as Five Eyes and NATO.
Elcock said US agencies would have to worry about their own people speak.
“There is a long relationship between Canada and the United States and there will still be people who would not necessarily approve it. Therefore, I don’t think they could carry out something like that, that was not a very, very narrow operation,” he said.
But these calculations could change if the Trump administration continues to eliminate and replace staff in agencies to the management and operational level.
“The more you get the people who buy the philosophy of the current life of the president of the United States,” said Fadden, “the more displaces professionals in the intelligence community and puts their own people, the more worrying it becomes.”
As for those Canadians who want to see their annexed country, and have presented that case out loud, Elcock says that not everyone should necessarily be seen as a security threat.
“It would depend on what their activities were. There are many people who have strange ideas in Canada who do not qualify as a threat to Canada’s security,” he said. “Many of these organizations would already be on the radar. Therefore, the reality is that, if they begin to become active, it will not be something that nobody knows.”
All experts said that Canada is a much more resistant objective than other countries where it is known that the United States has carried out destabilization operations, but that does not mean that it is immune to pressure.
“We need to worry more and talk more about the medium and long term, instead of just worrying about the important tariffs that are there now,” said Fadden.
He warned if Canada is subject to a prolonged campaign of economic war, then “at some point someone will have to cry uncle.”
While Fadden does not see a military invasion on the horizon, he said that “the country’s economic and cultural control can be equally effective.”
