Ten Per Cent of CSIS Terror Investigations Involve Teens, Canadian Spy Boss Warns

Rogers says Canada’s 2025 election faced foreign meddling attempts, yet fell short of altering the overall result.

OTTAWA — In his first speech as Canada’s new intelligence chief, CSIS Director Dan Rogers said the agency observed “foreign interference activity of concern” during the 2025 federal election — though not at a level that altered Canada’s ability to hold a “free and fair” vote — warning that the country now faces escalating national-security threats shaped by violent extremism, criminal–state hybrid networks, and transnational repression from China, India, and Iran, which, in extreme cases, involves “threats to safety and life.”

Addressing espionage and attempts to recruit Canadians, the new CSIS director singled out China prominently.

“Classified and sensitive Canadian government information continues to be the target of foreign intelligence services, including the PRC’s civilian and military intelligence services,” he said. “Chinese spies have tried to recruit Canadians with access to government plans, intentions, information, and military expertise through social media and online job platforms.”

Without specifying cases, Rogers said CSIS has been able to counter China’s recruitment efforts. And across a range of threats, he appeared to elevate, for the first time from a CSIS director, a growing focus on the use by foreign states of mafia-style networks.

“While I’ve outlined today threats of violent extremism, foreign interference, and espionage, I could say much more,” he said. “The threat of hostile hybrid and cyber operations against us continues to rise, and the nexus between criminal groups and state actors challenges traditional definitions and complicates our efforts to respond.”

Rogers also warned that foreign states continue to target individuals they fear could challenge their regime supremacy abroad through coercion and intimidation inside Canada.

“We’ve publicly discussed transnational repression by the People’s Republic of China, India, and others,” he said, noting that such operations disproportionately target journalists, activists, dissidents, and community leaders. CSIS, he added, “reprioritized our operations” this past year to counter Iranian intelligence proxies involved in plots that required “disrupting potentially lethal threats” against people in Canada.

Pointing to the threat of criminal proxies in the broader spectrum of threats, he said, “It will be important for CSIS and its national security partners to work closely together to understand the intentions and activity of foreign states, and to ensure our response uses the full range of government options.”

Rogers also cited rising activity in the Arctic, where “non-Arctic states, including the People’s Republic of China, seek to gain a strategic and economic foothold,” and said CSIS has observed both cyber and in-person intelligence collection targeting northern governments, businesses, and research projects.

He said CSIS increasingly engages Indigenous communities “with information that empowers them to take into account national security interests as they make decisions about economic and research opportunities with foreign companies and investors.”

To open his speech, Rogers turned to what he called one of the most alarming domestic trends: the rise in youth radicalization and the broader threat of violent extremism, which remains “one of Canada’s most significant national security concerns.”

He marked the 40th anniversary of the Air India bombing — the deadliest terrorist attack in Canadian history — as a reminder of the stakes.

“Worryingly, nearly one in ten terrorism investigations at CSIS now includes at least one subject… under the age of 18,” Rogers said.

Since 2014, violent-extremist attacks in Canada have killed 29 people and injured at least 60. Rogers said those numbers would be significantly higher without CSIS disruptions: since 2022, he said the Service has helped stop “no fewer than 24” plots, including Daesh-inspired operations involving a Toronto-area father and son and an individual allegedly planning to attack Jewish targets in New York.

Rogers highlighted several recent cases: a Montreal minor arrested for allegedly planning a Daesh-inspired attack; and two Ottawa teens accused of conspiring to carry out a mass-casualty attack on the Jewish community.

Finally, Rogers cautioned that foreign agencies continue targeting insiders across government, academia, and the private sector. “Intelligence services have long focused… on those with access to sensitive or classified information,” he said, but today “the targets are more varied,” extending to corporations and local governments whose influence and data “can shift the balance of advantage.”

Canada, Rogers concluded, must prepare for a prolonged period of geopolitical instability. Adversaries “monitor and seek to exploit any weakness or division that may arise,” and CSIS will need to “prioritize” to protect the country in an increasingly aggressive environment.