AWOL: Canada’s National Security Policy, Governance, and Culture

This chapter explores three core features of Canadian national security governance—policy, process, and culture. It will be argued that recent national security controversies are indicative of a low priority attached to national security generally within the federal government; an outdated national security policy; inadequate internal national security processes and governance; and an under-developed national security culture in government, Parliament, and Canadian society. If no effort is made to change Canada’s fundamentally weak national security culture—and in particular jettison the obsession with extreme secrecy, while working to educate Canadians on the risks they and their country face—no manner of new policy statements, strategies, cabinet committees, or bureaucratic processes will likely make much difference. Unless and until national security gets a much greater public airing on a regular basis, the Canadian public’s indifference to and ignorance of these issues, and the corresponding reflection of that among the political class, will persist.