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Spying 101: The RCMP's Secret Activities at Canadian Universities, 1917-1997
If you attended a Canadian university in the past eighty years, it's possible that, unbeknownst to you, Canadian security agents were surveying you, your fellow students, and your professors for 'subversive' tendencies and behaviour. Since the end of the First World War, members of the RCMP have infiltrated the campuses of Canada's universities and colleges to spy, meet informants, gather information, and on occasion, to attend classes. Why they were there is the subject of a new book by Steve Hewitt. Spying 101 provides new insight on the previously secret operations of one of Canada's most powerful institutions and best-known national symbols, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. For more than eighty years, the RCMP and its younger counterpart, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), have been conducting covert investigations within the hallowed halls of Canadian universities in an attempt to discover 'subversive' activity among faculty, employees, and students, and, periodically, to hunt for spies and terrorists. Information has been collected on thousands of Canadians, including prominent individuals such as Pierre Berton, Peter Gzowski, Lotta Hitschmanova, and RenT LTvesque. Spying 101 offers a fresh examination of the relationship in the intelligence field between the RCMP and federal departments, such as National Defence and External Affairs, and its political masters, including Pierre Trudeau. Hewitt also explores the complicity of the RCMP in the handling of the anti-APEC protests at the University of British Columbia in 1997 and offers an overview of the current work by Canada's intelligence services at the nation's universities. Relying on thousands of pages of previously secret RCMP and government documents, and on recollections of participants including former members of the RCMP Security Service, Spying 101 offers a vivid portrait of a crucial, yet unstudied, chapter in the history of the world's most famous police force.
- GenresNonfiction
304 pages, Hardcover
First published September 21, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 1, 2026
Spying 101 is a well written, and engaging, administrative history of the RCMP's surveillance operations of universities during the 20th century, limited primarily by the paucity of primary sources.
Relying primarily on the limited RCMP records that are accessible, and interviews with a few former RCMP officers, Hewitt portrays the RCMP surveillance program as less "1984" and much more Don Quixote.
With no clear idea of what they were supposed to achieve, no real understanding of those they surveilled, and an administrative structure that prioritized output, not results, the RCMP was essentially tilting at windmills, desperate to find a soviet conspiracy that just didn't exist. Instead of finding this imaginary red menace, what they most achieved was creating an incredible amount of paperwork, that simply served to confirm how much time and effort was wasted.
Hewitt makes effective use of his limited resources to explore how widespread surveillance of universities began, how little it accomplished, and why it continued despite failing to achieve anything of note. He deftly highlights the RCMP's conservative, and stubborn, fear of "communist infiltrators" which led them to ignore actual communists in the hunt for hidden reds. He also explores how the administrative structure of the RCMP encouraged mass surveillance. With no clear goal or a real enemy, the RCMP surveillance program had no way to judge success. So, with no clear purpose, it relied on gathering everything, no matter how useless, in hopes of finding something to justify its budget. Promotions became dependent not on quality of intelligence, but quantity.
The major problem with Spying 101, however, is the sheer lack of useful sources. The RCMP destroyed most of the original records, and the state has dedicated incredible effort to ensuring what records remain, never see the light of day. Human sources are, unfortunately, likewise in short supply. As the author notes, few former RCMP officers were willing to help a historian likely to be critical of the organization, and the targets of surveillance showed little interest in helping the study of their enemy.
As such, while a well written history, any praise comes with the caveat that the work is reliant on a very limited source base. It is, functionally, an administrative history that devotes considerable attention to org charts, and record keeping systems. Hewitt simply lacks the sources needed to engage with topics such as: how surveillance or disruption efforts were experienced by students and academics, the rank and file culture of the RCMP, how these efforts intersected with broader politics, or how they overlapped with RCMP targeting of non-university based progressives.
Still, I recommend this for anyone interested in an administrative history of the RCMP during the cold war in Canada. If you are looking for a social, cultural, or even political history of the subject matter, however, I'd recommend looking elsewhere.
Relying primarily on the limited RCMP records that are accessible, and interviews with a few former RCMP officers, Hewitt portrays the RCMP surveillance program as less "1984" and much more Don Quixote.
With no clear idea of what they were supposed to achieve, no real understanding of those they surveilled, and an administrative structure that prioritized output, not results, the RCMP was essentially tilting at windmills, desperate to find a soviet conspiracy that just didn't exist. Instead of finding this imaginary red menace, what they most achieved was creating an incredible amount of paperwork, that simply served to confirm how much time and effort was wasted.
Hewitt makes effective use of his limited resources to explore how widespread surveillance of universities began, how little it accomplished, and why it continued despite failing to achieve anything of note. He deftly highlights the RCMP's conservative, and stubborn, fear of "communist infiltrators" which led them to ignore actual communists in the hunt for hidden reds. He also explores how the administrative structure of the RCMP encouraged mass surveillance. With no clear goal or a real enemy, the RCMP surveillance program had no way to judge success. So, with no clear purpose, it relied on gathering everything, no matter how useless, in hopes of finding something to justify its budget. Promotions became dependent not on quality of intelligence, but quantity.
The major problem with Spying 101, however, is the sheer lack of useful sources. The RCMP destroyed most of the original records, and the state has dedicated incredible effort to ensuring what records remain, never see the light of day. Human sources are, unfortunately, likewise in short supply. As the author notes, few former RCMP officers were willing to help a historian likely to be critical of the organization, and the targets of surveillance showed little interest in helping the study of their enemy.
As such, while a well written history, any praise comes with the caveat that the work is reliant on a very limited source base. It is, functionally, an administrative history that devotes considerable attention to org charts, and record keeping systems. Hewitt simply lacks the sources needed to engage with topics such as: how surveillance or disruption efforts were experienced by students and academics, the rank and file culture of the RCMP, how these efforts intersected with broader politics, or how they overlapped with RCMP targeting of non-university based progressives.
Still, I recommend this for anyone interested in an administrative history of the RCMP during the cold war in Canada. If you are looking for a social, cultural, or even political history of the subject matter, however, I'd recommend looking elsewhere.
March 24, 2015
Skimmed through during a slow day spent at the library. Incredibly interesting. Hewitt's predictions for the directions that the spy agencies will move are scary accurate.
October 2, 2018
Really interesting but also very detailed.
March 27, 2025
I bought this a while ago, having been a student politician in the late 80's. Contrary to the subtitle, the substantive content ends in 1984. Skimmed some content, but did not finish.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews