LOOKING AHEAD TO CIN/RCR ACTIVITY FOR THE REMAINDER OF 2025
Ladies and gentlemen,
The 2025 Canadian Intelligence Conference (CANIC 2025) will be held tomorrow, 17 June 2025, here in Ottawa (see https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/2025-canadian-intelligence-conference-canic-2025-new-date-17-june-2025-tickets-1035018938507?aff=oddtdtcreator). Planning and organizing that event has sucked up much of my bandwidth recently, but by next week, I'll be back to outline what could be an exciting time for CIN during the rest of 2025.
In the past few weeks, a number of new members have joined our ranks, many from the Ottawa area, but all with a serious interest in understanding the intelligence function in Canada. It is my view that we have reached a "critical mass" of professional practitioner talent that will allow us to engage each other in worthwhile dialogue and learning.
Beginning last year and continuing this year, we conducted a series of ad-hoc Virtual Intelligence Coffee Shop (VICS) discussions, in which a number of us gathered informally online to discuss a topic of interest, such as the Intelligence Analysis Community of Practice in government, and the need for a Canadian foreign intelligence organization. For those of us living in the Ottawa area, we have convened the Ottawa Intelligence Dinner Club (OIDC) on a few occasions, where we gather for a no-host dinner at a downtown venue and discuss an intelligence topic of interest over dinner. It is an evening of good conversation with informed professionals. Locations where there might be a concentration of CIN members (in due time), might consider similar in-person events.
CIN/RCR has played a role in organizing CANIC 2025, but we might consider other formal seminars or panel talks of our own in the future, either in person or virtually.
We also offer opportunities to make your views known on the CIN/RCR website, via the Blog and/or this Forum. We could do more to provoke discussions.
Another important point is that our CIN/RCR membership provides a significant networking for connecting across the enterprise.
In the next few days, I will send a more substantial note with more specific thoughts about our agenda for the rest of 2025, and ask you for your advice on specific intelligence issues you might like to see covered, in some form. Given recent government enthusiasm for a stronger, more economically and geopolitically robust Canada, I'm thinking there are opportunities ahead that apply to our CIN/RCR mandate to promote intelligence education across the country - the central issue being there is no real intelligence education in Canada... yet.
In the meantime, I welcome any and all advice on the way ahead.
Best regards,
Jim