Secret Service
Political Policing in Canada From the Fenians to Fortress America

Publisher:  University of Toronto Press, Toronto, Canada
Year Published:  2012
Pages:  720pp   Price:  $36.95   ISBN:  9780802078018
Library of Congress Number:  HV8157.W45 2012   Dewey:  363.2830971
Resource Type:  Book
Cx Number:  CX15987

A history of political policing in Canada.

Abstract: 
Secret Service provides the first comprehensive history of political policing in Canada – from its beginnings in the mid-nineteenth century, through two world wars and the Cold War to the more recent 'war on terror.' This book reveals the extent, focus, and politics of government-sponsored surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations.

Drawing on previously classified government records, the authors reveal that for over 150 years, Canada has run spy operations largely hidden from public or parliamentary scrutiny – complete with undercover agents, secret sources, agent provocateurs, coded communications, elaborate files, and all the usual apparatus of deception and betrayal so familiar to fans of spy fiction. As they argue, what makes Canada unique among Western countries is its insistent focus of its surveillance inwards, and usually against Canadian citizens.

Secret Service highlights the many tensions that arise when undercover police and their covert methods are deployed too freely in a liberal democratic society.

[From publisher]



Table of Contents

Introduction: Political Policing in Canada

Part I: Origins
Chapter 1: The Empire Strikes Back
Chapter 2: 'You drive us Hindus out of Canada and we will drive every white man out of India!'
Chapter 3: A War on Two Fronts

Part II: Survival and Revival
Chapter 4: The RCMP, the Communist Party, and the Consolidation of Canada's Cold War
Chapter 5: 'Redder Than Ever': Political Policing During the Great Depression
Chapter 6: Keep the Home Fires Burning, 1939-1945

Part III: Cold War Canada
Chapter 7: The Ice Age: Mounties on the Cold War Front Line, 1945-1969
Chapter 8: The Coyote, the Roadrunner, and the Reds under the Bed: Communist Espionage and Subversion

Part IV: Separatists, Scandals, and Reform
Chapter 9: National Unity, National Security: the Quebec Conundrum
Chapter 10: 'I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!': The Creation of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service
Chapter 11:Old Wine into New Bottles: CSIS, 1984-2001

Part V: After the Twin Towers
Chapter 12: After the Deluge: In the Shadow of the Twin Towers, 2001-2010
Chapter 13: No More Mr. Nice Spy: CSIS and the Dark Side of the War on Terror

Conclusion: Policing Canadian Democracy

Endnotes

Subject Headings

• Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)
• National Security
• Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)
• Secret Police
• Surveillance