CIA Activities in Canada - Later Development

Later Development

By 1964, the CIA also closely monitored the Canadian wheat industry, as the United States hoped to sell wheat to the Soviet bloc countries When the American embassy was seized by Iranian students in 1979, Canadian diplomat Kenneth D. Taylor was made the "de facto CIA Station Chief" in the country, but kept his new position secret from Canadians.

An indication of the United States' close operational cooperation with Canada is the creation of a new message distribution label within the main US military communications network. Previously, the marking of NOFORN (i.e., no foreign nationals) required the originator to specify which, if any, non-US countries could receive the information. A new handling caveat, USA/AUS/CAN/GBR/NZL eyes only, used primarily on intelligence messages, gives an easier way to indicate that the material can be shared with Australia, Canada, Great Britain, and New Zealand.

Aware that the Canadian Khadr family knew valuable intelligence about the inner workings of al Qaeda, the CIA hired Abdurahman Khadr to act as an informant and infiltrate Islamist circles. The CIA also paid the Pakistani government $500,000 to capture and interrogate his older brother, Abdullah Khadr, ostensibly torturing him to secure answers and confessions.

As of 2006, Canada had allowed 76 CIA flights to use the country's airbases, primarily in Nunavut and Labrador, to carry prisoners from the War on Terror to black sites overseas.