In May 1991, the Intelligence Advisory Committee (IAC) with input from Environment Canada, the Defence Department, and External Affairs, produced a confidential document for the Government of Canada, called “The Environment: Marriage Between Earth and Mankind.”
The CIE confidential document consists of a series of papers previously issued individually by the Intelligence Advisory Committee. The various papers, addressing problems in different parts of the world, are chapters in the document. For example, Part 3 is about Brazil, Part 4 about the European Community, Part 5 about Africa, and so on.
Canada’s problems are mentioned in Part 2, “Overview”. The following excerpts are taken from Part 2.
“Controlling population growth is crucial to addressing most environmental problems, including global warming” (p. 9).
With respect to Canada, the document says (pp. 12-13):
“It is, because of its harsh climate and long distances, the most energy-intensive of the free-market industrialized nations. Canada is endowed with vast water resources, but with 90 percent of its population concentrated within a band up to 100 miles of the USA border, water resources in these areas are already being utilized to their fullest. Polluted water has become an everyday concern. …. Although Canada’s population is not large in world terms, its concentration in various areas has already put stress upon regional environments in many ways. Canada can expect to have increasing numbers of environmental refugees requesting immigration to Canada, while regional movements of the population at home, as from idle fishing areas, will add further to population stresses within the country.”
Although most of the environmental information in the CIE document could have been found through publicly accessible sources, it was nevertheless labelled “Confidential Canadian Eyes Only.” This document was mentioned, without being named, in a short Ottawa Citizen article of June 24, 1991, by Paul Mooney. I (Madeline Weld) happened to come across a clipping of Mooney’s article while rummaging through my paper files during the summer of 1998. I wanted to get a copy of the document, but since it was not identified and Paul Mooney had left Canadian Press, it took some time to track it down.
In December 1998, I sent a request for the document to the Privy Council Office under the Access to Information Act. My request was received by the PCO on January 6, 1999, which responded with an outright rejection dated February 5, 1999. I appealed to the Office of the Information Commissioner, and eventually received a document (released May 2, 2000) with large sections blocked out. I persisted in corresponding with the Office of the Information Commissioner asking for more information from the Privy Council Office. And indeed, I received a less redacted document from the Privy Council Office dated December 12, 2000. Although it too had content blanked out (see, for example, Part 8, the section on China), most of the text to was included. The reason given for the redactions was “injury to international relations.” I did not pursue the matter further.
As noted, most of the information contained in the 1991 CIE confidential document would have been accessible to someone searching publicly available sources. Apparently, alerting Canadians to deteriorating environmental conditions occurring in much of the world could be injurious to international relations. What is clear from the document is that further population and economic growth is not a path to sustainability in Canada or elsewhere in the world.
This document would have been submitted to the government of Brian Mulroney shortly after it had set a policy to take in very large numbers of immigrants annually regardless of economic conditions. Obviously, the document did nothing to change the immigration policy of Mulroney or any of his successors, Liberal or Conservative.
The “00” PDF in the list below contains the Ottawa Citizen article from 1991 and a letter dated February 12, 2001, from Information Commissioner John M. Reid, summarizing my efforts to obtain the document and declaring my complaint resolved. The “01” PDF contains the cover letter, dated December 12, 2000, from the Privy Council Office that accompanied the second, less redacted, document. The other PDFs all contain sections of the CIE document.
As far as I know, this document is not available online anywhere else.
