The Maxime Bernier ‘bug in the bed’ brouhaha beautifully illustrates the fact that good intelligence is focused on what might happen in the future.

The issue that would have faced intelligence agents would turn not on what rules applied to his breach of security but whether or not he might advertantly or inadvertently disclose vital information to a potential intelligence source.

Senior politicians under the illusion of absolute power have and always will be monitored by intelligence/security agents. Like it or not, even heads of state, royalty and other VIPS privy to classified information are monitored by intelligence services around the world. If CSIS indeed had the former Foreign Minister’s relationship with Ms. Couillard under watch, it would have been doing its job well.

We Canadians are historically an inoffensive bunch and since the demise of the Cold War have perhaps become complacent in our intelligence awareness. I certainly am told often enough by business folk, when mentioning the possibility of wire/internet monitoring that “This is Canada…you are paranoid…”  We forget that Canada was an ideal venue (and indeed complicit in) for spying at the height of the East/West conflict. We have at our disposal perhaps one of the most sophisticated intelligence capacites in the world.

We in business would do well to remember that forearmed is forewarned…In our own operations how many of us/our team let critical information walk out the door everyday. So much valuable information can be gathered by those aware of this very human fallibility. How often do we not carelessly leave work related documents unattended or even talk about stuff that would best be kept under wraps? To err is human…yet others profit by it…Only enhanced awareness and mistake management will improve our security rating.

Canadian society prides itself on pretending not to look at/listen to strangers. So, in public, we continue to talk on cell phones, work on computers and carry on conversations, blissfully unaware that interested parties might be lurking…purposely or by chance!