Zak Vescera, Matt Simmons, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Narwhal

Editor’s note: This story is a collaboration between the Investigative Journalism Foundation and The Narwhal.

A Canadian oil and gas firm successfully pressed Canada’s spy agency to start sharing government intelligence with the country’s wealthiest companies, something advocates say will protect critical infrastructure but that critics worry could infringe on civil rights. 

TC Energy, a major North American pipeline company, asked the former head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to set up regular “information-sharing” meetings between the agency, RCMP and representatives of major Canadian companies, according to internal government documents. TC Energy said the meetings would allow for “private, high-level discussions about security threats facing Canadian industry.”

The Canadian government has since passed legislation allowing CSIS to more easily share intelligence with outside organizations, including other governments and private companies. 

TC Energy’s proposal, detailed in documents the Investigative Journalism Foundation and The Narwhal obtained via access to information legislation, argued the creation of a “Canadian Security Alliance Council” would let CSIS share “unclassified but sensitive” intelligence it collects on behalf of the government with select major corporations. The company proposed the council would include corporations with annual revenues of $500 million or more.

In a February 2024 email, TC Energy argued it needed access to this kind of information because of unspecified “acute risks from foreign adversaries” seeking to sabotage critical infrastructure. 

“[G]iven the severity of the present threat, we support immediate action as current law permits,” the company’s proposal noted. 

That pitch was seemingly well received by then-CSIS director David Vigneault, who told an executive assistant of TC Energy’s CEO, François Poirier, that he would help “advance our shared interests.” The names of TC Energy employees in those emails are redacted but their titles are not.

TC Energy did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this story.

“While the implementation of a formal program like this is a project involving multiple private and Government of Canada stakeholders, we’re seized with the issue and we appreciate your support,” Vigneault wrote to TC Energy in May 2024.

Nicole Giles, a senior assistant deputy minister at CSIS, told attendees at the Vancouver International Security Summit on Oct. 16 that the agency has given such briefings to members of the Business Council of Canada, which was involved in TC Energy’s proposal to Vigneault. Poirier is on the council’s board of directors.

The result is that large Canadian corporations have unprecedented access to intelligence collected by Canada’s spy agency. 

Magali Hébert, a spokesperson with CSIS, said the agency and the business council, which represents the country’s wealthiest and most powerful companies, “have enjoyed a productive relationship that has advanced the interests of Canadians and of Canada’s economic security” since 2022.

“CSIS is considering formal mechanisms for enhancing information sharing with those outside government to help increase their resiliency to national security threats, such as foreign interference,” Hébert wrote in an emailed statement, adding the Canada Security Alliance Council is “conceptual.”

Hébert said CSIS made 28 disclosures in 2024 to governments, “ethnic, cultural and religious communities” and businesses, but would not say which ones. 

Sharing intelligence the spy agency gathers with industry “can serve to protect Canada’s research ecosystem and economic prosperity from foreign interference, espionage and unwanted knowledge transfer that could pose a threat to Canada and Canada’s national security interests,” Hébert said.

‘A chilling effect’

The Business Council of Canada says information sharing is crucial to foil increasingly frequent cyberattacks from criminal networks and hostile states which aim to steal Canadian data and intellectual property, hamstring the country’s economy and even disrupt public utilities. Some hackers have even targeted smaller government entities like cities and hospitals. 

Council president Goldy Hyder told the audience at the same Vancouver summit on Oct. 16 that Canadian companies “can’t be boy scouts” in a world where such attacks are routine.

“We’re being honest with people that businesses are under attack. Our economy is under attack. Our way of life is under attack,” Hyder said. 

Hyder added he considers Vigneault, who now works in the private security intelligence sector, a “dear friend,” and said they communicate regularly.

The Investigative Journalism Foundation and The Narwhal approached Vigneault in person to ask about his relationship with the council and the friendly language in his emails.

He referred reporters to his employer Strider, an American private intelligence company, which declined to comment.

Business Council of Canada spokesperson Michèle-Jamali Paquette said the flow of information from CSIS to businesses was “tightly limited” and that it could only be used to “strengthen resilience against security threats.”

But some critics and observers worry information sharing between CSIS and private companies could chill legitimate political protest, particularly demonstrations against oil and gas projects led by companies like TC Energy.

CSIS said its legislation prohibits investigating lawful protest and dissent. Hébert said the spy agency “would only investigate individuals if there was reasonable suspicion that said they were planning activities that fit within the scope of our mandate (threats to the security of Canada), such as violent extremism.”

But Vibert Jack, the litigation director of the BC Civil Liberties Association, argues the existence of such an information-sharing agreement could still discourage people from expressing their views.

“I think the overall prospect it raises is a chilling effect on overall dissent and protest,” Jack said. 

“The more data is being collected about people who are voicing dissent and the more that data gets shared between different parties, the more consequences can flow for all those people.”

TC Energy, Business Council of Canada said spy intelligence needed to ward off threats

TC Energy has long sought to increase corporate access to CSIS intelligence, which historically has rarely been shared even with other governments.

The Calgary-based energy company retained former staffers from the office of U.S. President Donald Trump to lobby CSIS for such changes, including at an October 2023 security summit in Palo Alto, Calif. 

The Narwhal previously obtained recordings of internal TC Energy meetings including one where Michael Evanoff, a former assistant secretary of state in the Trump administration who went on to work for TC Energy, said he had directly approached Vigneault about making it easier to share classified intelligence with companies.

TC Energy, in its February 2024 proposal, described the agency’s information-sharing rules as “archaic.”

The pipeline company pitched the security working group as an “interim” solution, saying it could be used to distribute intelligence that was unclassified but still sensitive. The proposal suggested the group would be composed of CSIS, RCMP, the federal Ministry of Public Safety and representatives from a select group of Canadian companies.

TC Energy suggested the “convenor” of those meetings could be the Business Council of Canada, which represents banks, telecommunications firms, automakers, energy companies and accounting offices. 

But TC Energy and the Business Council of Canada also appear to have lobbied to loosen CSIS rules around sharing more sensitive information, which may have helped ultimately change Canada’s legislation. 

In November 2023, a month after the Palo Alto conference, Vigneault wrote an email to a TC Energy representative, saying its participation was “widely recognized by our partners as an important sign of Canada’s commitment to broadening and deepening relationships and cooperation with governments and private sector partners on national security matters.”

Vigneault later wrote in May 2024, encouraging TC Energy and the business council to bring its concerns about CSIS information sharing to Parliament.

The business council went on to support legislation — Bill C-70 — which included amendments to the CSIS Act allowing the agency to share classified information outside of government with the permission of the minister of public safety. 

The bill also created new criminal offences for sabotaging critical infrastructure and made it a criminal offence to distribute material that can be used to sabotage such infrastructure.

Paquette, the council’s spokesperson, said CSIS previously “lacked the legal authority to proactively share threat intelligence with the private sector for the purpose of building economy-wide resilience.” She contrasted that to the United States and the United Kingdom, which have long had programs allowing intelligence agencies to more easily share information with private businesses.

“This gap left Canadian companies often fending for themselves despite CSIS possessing the knowledge and expertise to help them withstand such threats,” Paquette wrote in an email to the Investigative Journalism Foundation and The Narwhal. “By limiting CSIS’s ability to meaningfully engage with businesses, it also left CSIS, and the broader Canadian government, without a more complete understanding of the national security threats facing the Canadian economy.”

Paquette did not explain the nature of security threats the council is concerned its members face. 

Experts warn corporate access to government intelligence could be used to quash protests, advance projects

Many in the intelligence community see such partnerships as universally beneficial. 

Nitin Natarajan, a consultant who previously served as the deputy director for the American Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said sharing intelligence with private partners and local governments can help spur needed spending on things like cybersecurity.

“We’re asking state-level jurisdictions and small cities to use taxpayer dollars to increase their cyber defences. We’re asking water utilities that have no money … we need to be able to do a good job of saying why,” Natarajan said.

Natarajan, who helped start up multiple intelligence-sharing programs in his prior role, said such collaborations are “more critical today than [they’ve] ever been because hackers are targeting organizations like public utilities, municipalities and even small and medium-sized businesses.”

Natarajan said the goal of those attacks is to “disrupt the day-to day-lives” of citizens. “That’s a very different tactic,” he added.

Other observers, though, see risks in spy agencies partnering with the private sector.

Tia Dafnos, an associate professor of sociology at the University of New Brunswick, said the informal relationships between corporate executives and intelligence agencies add a layer of secrecy the public should be concerned about.

“One of the key concerns here is around the lack of transparency — and therefore accountability — when you have these discussions happening in spaces that are outside of public access.”

Dafnos said formalizing a group where powerful companies can discuss security issues with the likes of CSIS and the RCMP opens opportunities for corporations to advance their interests. 

“Creating these venues is sort of creating space for the blurring of interests.”

Companies like TC Energy employ extensive in-house security personnel and also contract out to third parties, which “engage proactively in forms of information collection and monitoring related to threats, which includes protests and opposition, the political climate surrounding their company and proposed projects and so forth,” Dafnos said.

“Those informal kinds of relationships are also significant, whether or not it’s having an impact in sort of directing the gaze or focus, or leading the RCMP, for example, to spend more time looking at a certain group or certain issue,” she explained, noting it is uncertain to what degree this takes place. “But those resources are there and they can be capitalized on.” 

The BC Civil Liberties Association previously filed complaints against CSIS, alleging the agency spied on environmental groups opposed to a pipeline project in northern B.C. 

Jack, who works for the organization, worries allowing CSIS to share such intelligence with companies — even unclassified information — could be used to quash similar protests in the future. 

“I think it’s fair to assume that part of the goal here for TC Energy is to find ways to prevent protest or lessen their impact at least on their operations,” Jack said. 

He is also perturbed by the tone of the emails between Vigneault and TC Energy. 

“It really seems as though CSIS views oil and gas companies as their partners, and when we see what they say about protestors and Indigenous land defenders, it’s clear they don’t see them as having shared interests,” Jack said.

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