At the height of concerns over foreign interference in 2023, Canada’s spy agency started adding blanket warnings to assessments of foreign nationals seeking security clearance to work for the federal government.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) started by warning federal departments about China’s national security laws, which allow Beijing to compel Chinese nationals to provide the state with information.
The spy agency expanded the warnings to include an undisclosed number of other countries, attaching the general warnings to foreign nationals applying to work in sensitive positions with the federal government.
An independent federal review agency is now warning that the practice risks stereotyping foreign nationals and denying them federal work based on their country of origin — but CSIS says they will continue to include the “Non-Canadian Citizen Briefs” in their security screening process.
In a recently released report, the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA) warned that CSIS risks biasing departments against clearing foreigners who pose no national security threat.
“Integrated into the person’s security assessment, the brief is not bespoke to the individual. It contains threat-related information about the country with the individual’s citizenship being the only connection between the individual and the country,” the agency wrote.
“No further information or analysis is included to tailor the information to the individual security screening applicant.”
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As of 2025, foreign nationals who are not Canadian citizens are no longer eligible to obtain top secret or enhanced top secret clearance, NSIRA noted. So CSIS’s “Non-Canadian Citizen Briefs” are only applied to applicants for “secret” or “site access” clearance.
Paul Champ, an Ottawa-based human rights and labour lawyer, has represented clients denied employment for failing to obtain security clearance.
In one ongoing case, Champ said his client had worked for the UN, dealing with highly sensitive material for years, but Global Affairs Canada denied his application for higher clearance.
Champ contends that was based on his client’s country of origin.
“I think it is a problem. Canada, we’re definitely a pluralistic society and democracy … but the reality is, unless you are born here, you’re always inherently suspect in some way when it comes to employment with the federal government,” Champ said in an interview Friday.
CSIS did not say how many of those applicants had been cleared by the departments and agencies ultimately responsible for granting or denying security clearance.
But the spy agency disagreed with NSIRA’s warning, calling their country-specific warnings “fact-based information about national security risks associated with certain countries.”
“CSIS’ special country briefs are designed to reflect the current threat landscape, without bias or discrimination, and are updated regularly to ensure that they accurately capture evolving risks and threats posed,” the agency wrote in response.
“Security assessments are just one component of sources of information a government department may consider in its decision-making process on a security clearance application.”
The country-specific warnings started in 2023 with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Despite Prime Minister Mark Carney’s overtures to Beijing to improve diplomatic and trade relations, the PRC has long been viewed by the Canadian intelligence community as the country’s largest national security threat.
That threat includes foreign interference and influence campaigns, economic espionage and more traditional forms of spying that would interest CSIS in the security screening process.
Under the PRC’s wide-reaching national intelligence laws, Chinese nationals can be induced to provide information to Beijing. The PRC has also been accused of leveraging friends and family still in China to coerce expats into working for the state.
But since 2023, CSIS has expanded the briefings to include an undisclosed number of other countries where no similar national security laws are cited, NSIRA noted.
“While the brief states that the CSIS ‘has not identified specific adverse or threat-related information regarding the subject,’ they continue that the individual ‘may be at risk of being induced to cooperate with a hostile foreign state in a way that constitutes a threat to the security of Canada,’” NSIRA reported.
“The fact that a certain country of origin may be viewed as suspect … that’s fine, we get that. But it just means that (CSIS) needs to be thoughtful and deliberate in terms of looking at other collateral sources (to assess) reliability,” Champ said.
“If you don’t do that, you’re basically saying ‘we have a discriminatory policy.’”
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