Getting access to RCMP ‘Native extremism’ files took 4-year fight

Library and Archives Canada (LAC) told CBC Indigenous it would need nearly four years to consult on a request to see 50-year old secret records from an RCMP program that spied on so-called “Native extremism.”

“Consultations with [Canadian Security Intelligence Service] are necessary to ensure that LAC does not inadvertently disclose sensitive information that is exempted from disclosure, including information that could pose real dangers to national security,” Crown lawyers wrote in a court brief in 2024.

The fight began in 2022 when CBC Indigenous reporter Brett Forester used Access To Information (ATIP) to ask to see a file created by the RCMP Security Service, which monitored hundreds of Indigenous people during the 1970s, stored at the archives.

LAC ignored his request.

Forester, a member of the Chippewas of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation in southern Ontario, said he grew up acutely aware of “state surveillance and the state repressive apparatus” that was exposed at the Ipperwash standoff of 1995. 

He became curious about the history and origins of police spying and intelligence gathering on Indigenous groups amid several events in 2020 tied to the “Land Back” movement.

“I started thinking to myself, well, if this is still going on, if they’re still harbouring concerns that Indigenous people could represent a national security threat ….what were they saying in the past? And that’s where this all began.”

The CBC Indigenous reporter persisted and submitted four new ATIP requests asking to see a handful of dossiers focused on Indigenous political organizations kept by the Mounties’ “Racial Intelligence” section.

Forester was told it would take LAC 1,398 days to consult with CSIS.

He complained to Canada’s Information Commissioner who agreed the delay was unreasonable and ordered the materials be released.

LAC, and lawyers for the Minister of Canadian Heritage, went to court in 2024 seeking to overturn the order and for more time to review and censor the material.

“Release of information which could lead to the identity of a human source would not only put that individual in danger but would also have a negative impact on the service’s present-day human source program,” CSIS said, according to LAC’s court filing.

Canada’s Information Commissioner sided with Forester and argued the government was potentially “fearmongering” in its bid for a delay.

Files now posted online

Ultimately, Crown lawyers withdrew the court challenge and Canada’s national archive expedited Forester’s case, bypassing a massive backlog of other ATIP requests, releasing the requested RCMP “Native extremism” materials in late 2025.

LAC has posted the files he requested on its website, available at the links below.

WARNING: The documents contain untested claims and may contain outdated or offensive language.

“Those materials are important today because they confirm allegations that have been unproven for the last 50 years,” said Forester.

A team of journalists at CBC Indigenous and CBC Investigates have published a series of stories based on the released documents showing RCMP use of wiretaps, surveillance and paid informants to infiltrate legitimate Indigenous organizations.

Forester says LAC still holds thousands of more pages of secret files on other Indigenous leaders and organizations which he is now requesting through ATIP to be released publicly. 

“There are dossiers on every other Indigenous organization,” he said.

“So what does the file on the Manitoba Métis Federation say? What does the file on the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations say? What does the file on Inuit Tapirisat of Canada say? We’ve really only scratched the surface of what this program did.”