Canada’s top intelligence official said Thursday that the country’s domestic spy agency has disrupted multiple potentially deadly threats orchestrated by Iran and thwarted attempts by Russia to illegally obtain Canadian technology, offering one of the most explicit public warnings yet about foreign interference on Canadian soil.

Dan Rogers, the recently appointed director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), detailed the operations during a rare public address presenting the agency’s annual threat assessment. CSIS directors seldom take the stage, and Rogers’ remarks marked the first time the agency has confirmed intervening to protect individuals in Canada from plots linked to Tehran.

“In particularly alarming cases over the last year, we’ve had to reprioritize our operations to counter the actions of Iranian intelligence services and their proxies,” Rogers said. “In more than one case, this involved detecting, investigating, and disrupting potentially lethal threats against individuals in Canada.”

He did not elaborate on the nature of the plots or identify the targets, but the comments come amid rapidly deteriorating Canada–Iran relations. Ottawa severed diplomatic ties with Tehran in 2012 and last year designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization.

Rogers also warned that Moscow is actively using front companies in Europe in an effort to bypass export controls and obtain Canadian-made goods and technologies. He said CSIS has recently alerted several Canadian firms that entities attempting to purchase their products were linked to Russian intelligence networks.

“Those companies took immediate measures to deny the Russians,” Rogers added, noting the intelligence community’s concern over illicit procurement since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The CSIS director also spotlighted a surge in domestic extremist threats, particularly those targeting North American Jewish communities. Rogers cited several plots that the agency has helped derail, including one case close to Parliament Hill.

“Only a few kilometers from this room, in late 2023 and early 2024, two 15-year-olds were arrested for allegedly conspiring to conduct a mass casualty attack targeting the Jewish community in Canada’s capital,” he said.

Rogers added that since 2022, CSIS has disrupted at least 24 violent extremist actions, including the arrest of an individual attempting to illegally enter the United States “to attack members of the Jewish community in New York.”

The unusually candid speech comes as Ottawa faces mounting pressure to better address foreign interference and extremist violence, particularly following recent controversies involving Chinese, Indian and Iranian activities in Canada. Rogers’ remarks suggest CSIS is increasingly willing to speak publicly about threats it once described only in broad terms — and signal that foreign-directed plots remain a central challenge for Canada’s national security apparatus.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)