Canadian SIS Case Study

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Pages: 4

Canada’s fist SIS began to take shape once John A. Macdonald became Canada’s first Prime minister. During this time, Canada maintained strong links with it’s British ruler. As a result, Canada joined in the fight against the Finnian movement. A movement towards Irelands independence from British rule. To aid in this fight, the MacDonald government created a law suspending the habeas corpus in Finnian arrests. The first Canadian spies were hired to penetrate these groups in both the United States and Canada. Canada’s first political target, The Finnian movement, soon experienced defeat.
Canada’s next political target would be the Raj movement. Like the Finnian movement, this was an Indian movement towards independence. Once again, Canada came to the aid of Great, as India was the most important of the British colonies. Canada faced a large problem in the investigation and infiltration of this group, as they did not speak nor understand the language and culture of this group.
To make up for this handicap, the Canadian Dominion Police force began to recruit informants through the
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During times of war, countries are forced to change their primary target. The new threat became enemy infiltration, in addition to pacifist who refused to fight. It was at this point that the War Measures Act was instated. An act providing police with specials powers to combat these threats. This allowed for the creation of internment camps, which would hold both these individuals, as well as the countries secondary threat, the communists. It is at this point, once again, that the police services have acted less then ethically. The Police forces used the power provided to them in this time of war to imprison innocent people with perfectly legal opinions. The internment camps meant for prisoners of war, were in fact mostly populated by innocent people who identified as communist, against conscription, or any left