War on terrorism

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Jim Judd

On March 8, 2005, Judd was asked by Canadian Senator David Paul Smith about whether Canadian mosques were being monitored by CSIS, to which Judd replied that he was unaware of any such policy. Assistant Director Dale Neufeld then interjected, and confirmed that CSIS was indeed monitoring Canadian mosques, which it suspected of recruiting and funding terrorism.^[3]

Later that month, Judd addressed the Senate of Canada and said that Kassem Daher was a Canadian citizen, and member of Usbat-al-Ansar.

In August 2005, Judd announced that Canadian citizens were fighting as part of the Iraqi insurgency, an announcement that was met with derision from the Prime Minister's office.^[4] In October 2005, Judd said the 2003 Invasion of Iraq was creating "long-term problems" for other countries, including Canada.^[5] While facing criticism for CSIS's role in handling the case of Mohamed Harkat and other Muslim-Canadians detained under Security certificates in November 2005, he offered the Members of Parliament the chance to "ride along with agents" as they conducted interrogations of others. In July 2006, he announced that several hundred Canadians were being investigated for "pro-al-Qaeda sympathies"^[6]

In August 2006, he referred to the concept of racial profiling as "fundamentally stupid".^[7]

On March 31, 2009, veteran CSIS lawyer and advisor Geoffrey O'Brian told the Commons Committee on Public Safety that CSIS would use information obtained under torture.^[8] Testifying on the same committee on April 2, 2009, Jim Judd said O'Brian would be recanting his statement in a letter.^[9]

Leaked diplomatic cables

On November 29, 2010, a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable sent from the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa dated July 2, 2008 reported a meeting between Judd and US State Department official Eliot Cohen.^[10] In the meeting Jim Judd, then head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, tells Eliot Cohen that the Canadian spy agency was still "vigorously harassing" known sympathizers of Hezbollah in Canada.^[11]

In the same cable the American officer quotes Jim Judd as he laments a soon to be released video of Canadian citizen Omar Khadr being interrogated by CSIS's officers at American Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. Judd refers to video saying that it "would likely show three ... adults interrogating a kid who breaks down in tears. He adds the comment that the release of the video would trigger "knee-jerk anti-Americanism" and "paroxysms of moral outrage, a Canadian specialty," he says.^[12]

In another instance, Jim Judd said Canadians and their courts had an "Alice in Wonderland" worldview and he "derided" Canadian court judgments that, as per his view, threaten foreign governments' intelligence-sharing with Canada. The cable goes on reporting Judd as having said that "These judgments posit that Canadian authorities cannot use information that 'may have been' derived from torture, and that any Canadian public official who conveys such information may be subject to criminal prosecution."^[13]

Views on China

In testimony before the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence in April 2007, Judd appeared concerned about Chinese espionage activities. The alarm had been raised publicly in 2005 by Chen Yonglin, a former Chinese diplomat who defected to Australia, insisting that China had 1,000 agents operating there. Chen also claimed that similar numbers of Chinese spies also surveil in Canada.^[14] As of April 2007, Judd had almost half of CSIS resources devoted to counter the Chinese.^[14]

From its inception in January 2006, the Harper government took a hard line with the Chinese. As of 2007, they maintained that position.^[14] The government stance has changed radically since then, signalled in spring 2009 by the purchase of a 17% share fraction of Teck Resources by the China Investment Corporation.^[15]

Since that time, the Canada China Energy and Environment Forum has seen a vast increase in business associated with the National Energy Administration of China.^[16] A framework agreement was signed in October 2013 by Alberta Energy Minister Ken Hughes to give provincial officials "unprecedented access" to Chinese decision-makers, strengthening ties to "what we believe will become one of our key markets" for energy products.^[16]

Retirement from CSIS 8 months before schedule

In April 2009, Judd announced his resignation from the post effective in June of that year, before his term was scheduled to end in November 2009.^[17][18]

He resigned 8 months after the appointment of cancer specialist Professor Arthur T. Porter to the Security Intelligence Review Committee which has the mandate to review the activities of Judd's operations or the operations of any future Director of CSIS. He was succeeded by Richard Fadden.