Canada Allegedly Gutted a '97 Report That Recommended a Border Strike Force Targeting PRC Triads. Now Washington Wants Action.

OTTAWA, Canada – The author of the controversial Sidewinder report—a joint 1997 RCMP-CSIS study alleging that Chinese Triads linked to Beijing’s intelligence and influence networks had infiltrated Canadian cities and ports, including Vancouver—has come forward with new details on CSIS’s alleged directive to destroy key documents and suppress the report’s explosive draft, which had the backing of a senior RCMP officer.

In hindsight, the RCMP leader’s complaint—that Sidewinder’s recommendation to create a multi-agency task force to counter Chinese crime infiltration of Canada’s borders was ignored—now looks tragically prescient.

Michel Juneau-Katsuya, the former CSIS intelligence officer who authored Sidewinder, told The Bureau that he created three identical binders documenting the report’s findings, each meticulously cross-referencing intelligence from CSIS, foreign sources, and the RCMP. One binder was given to a senior CSIS official responsible for intelligence production and dissemination, as well as developing national and international intelligence-sharing partnerships. According to Juneau-Katsuya, this official ordered the destruction of the evidence binder, likely because he deemed it too politically sensitive. A second copy went to the RCMP, while Juneau-Katsuya kept the third—until his own agency confiscated it before he could turn it over to SIRC, the intelligence watchdog tasked with reviewing Sidewinder and allegations of its suppression in Ottawa.

“I was interviewed by SIRC,” Juneau-Katsuya said. “I had a chaperone next to me to make sure I didn’t say too much. But that didn’t stop me.”

“I told SIRC I had produced a binder,” for the CSIS executive, who had “ordered the destruction of the report and all the evidence we had,” he added.

Juneau-Katsuya said he was later forced to turn over his own binder of evidence.

“After the meeting, I returned to my office, and my director at the time ordered me to hand over my binder. I protested, saying it was meant for SIRC,” he recalled. “He insisted. I had no choice but to give it to him. SIRC never got it.”

Reflecting on the suppression of Sidewinder, Juneau-Katsuya believes the CSIS executive “ordered the destruction of the report because he saw it as too explosive and he did not want to have to defend it—not good for his career.” As for SIRC, he said the supposed government watchdog became a “lap dog” that ensured Sidewinder's evidence was buried.

Retired RCMP officer Garry Clement corroborates elements of Juneau-Katsuya’s account, recalling how he was questioned about intelligence that he and former Canadian diplomat Brian McAdam gathered in Hong Kong—findings instrumental in triggering the Sidewinder review. Clement told The Bureau that, like Juneau-Katsuya, he had urged the RCMP to launch a full investigation into Sidewinder’s intelligence.

“I totally recall stating that the information would require a full investigation,” Clement said.

SIRC documents reveal that an RCMP Chief Superintendent supported the forceful June 1997 Sidewinder draft, which named Hong Kong tycoons like Li Ka-Shing and flagged major firms such as Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. and China International Trust Investment Corporation (CITIC), a state-owned investment company. However, CSIS leadership disputed its findings and, according to a 1999 SIRC review, destroyed related documentation—an action the committee criticized as an “overly expansive interpretation” of transitory records.

Clement and Juneau-Katsuya identified the RCMP official who supported the June 1997 Sidewinder report as Chief Superintendent Richard Proulx, who oversaw national security operations.

The accounts of Juneau-Katsuya and Clement—apparently the first time either has spoken on the record about SIRC’s review of Sidewinder—align with a Globe and Mail report citing a May 4, 1998 letter from Proulx. In the letter, Proulx raised concerns that the rewritten Sidewinder draft had been altered so significantly that it misrepresented the original findings.

“It becomes clear that a substantial amount of information contained in the original project has been altered, sometimes inaccurately, and in some cases removed completely,” Proulx wrote.

He objected to CSIS’s decision to eliminate all of Sidewinder’s recommendations, including the creation of a multi-agency task force to counter China’s state-backed criminal influence. The original report had reportedly proposed a joint intelligence unit involving CSIS, the RCMP, Customs and Immigration, and officials from Canada’s foreign affairs and international trade ministries.

CSIS, in a letter responding to Proulx, acknowledged its rejection of Sidewinder’s key findings:

"The service did not and does not support either the findings or the focus of the original draft, produced under the banner of Project Sidewinder," CSIS reportedly wrote to Proulx, then director of the RCMP’s Criminal Intelligence Directorate.

According to the SIRC review, the final version of Sidewinder, issued in January 1999, arrived without recommendations and was shared only with top RCMP officials and select government insiders, effectively concluding the probe. Instead of a national security overhaul or the creation of the multi-agency task force Sidewinder originally envisioned, the report was quietly buried.

Now, more than two decades later, Washington is pressuring Ottawa to implement exactly the kind of organized crime strike force that Sidewinder originally proposed. As U.S. President Donald Trump threatens sweeping tariffs over Canada’s failure to curb fentanyl trafficking and transnational smuggling, long-forgotten Canadian intelligence is once again coming under scrutiny.