The Canadian Security Intelligence Service acknowledges its past investigating of Indigenous people has left a legacy of mistrust that persists today, but officials at the spy agency say the organization is mending its ways.
That’s the main message two CSIS officials, speaking on the condition they not be identified, impressed on CBC Indigenous during a recent sit-down discussion at the agency’s Ottawa headquarters.
Long gone are the days, they said, of CSIS’s expansive “Native extremism” program, in which CSIS officers labelled Indigenous activists as domestic extremists and potential terrorists in sweeping countrywide investigations.
