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Illustration by Marley Allen-Ash
The story of my family is a Tom Clancy novel.
The evidence for this thought, collected by my uncles from my late father’s bedroom closet, lay at my feet: membership certificates for the Association of Counter-Intelligence Professionals and the International Association of Law Enforcement Intelligence Analysts, a training certificate from NATO, and a commendation from former prime minister Jean Chrétien. But it was the gold-framed logo of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Canada’s spy agency, that riveted my attention. As I stared at it, everything I thought I knew about my father – federal civil servant, aspiring mystery novelist – fell away like ash from the end of a cigarette after a deep drag.
As I scrutinized the trove that was rewriting my family history, a giggle brewed, a burp of mirth that encapsulated the absurdity of the situation. My gaze drifted from one item to another, then to my husband, Chris. Bemusement gave way to incredulity. Dad couldn’t really have been a spy … could he?
The discovery happened in late 2019 during what was supposed to be an ordinary visit with family in Meaford, Ont., the south Georgian Bay town where my father was born, where he retired to and where his funeral was held that spring. I expected to reminisce about Dad with his brothers while sorting through his personal belongings, a day of sentimental retrospection about a man I had always thought was an open book. Some open book he turned out to be. His professional accreditations announced that he didn’t work for the Ministry of Multiculturalism in the 1980s and 90s as he had always told me he did. He really worked for CSIS … for CSIS! I longed to be able to confront Dad with the new-found truth.
I had to settle for talking to Chris. By early evening, we were back home in Toronto and I was free to ask the question that felt too silly to voice earlier.
“Was my father a spy?”
Chris’s response was matter-of-fact. “I think he was a boss of spies. He must have been pretty high up to be recognized by the prime minister.”
So Dad wasn’t simply a covert foot soldier; he was likely their superior. How was that possible given his university degree was in education? Another, more unsettling question pushed to the fore. It was about the years 1967 to 1970, when my parents and I lived in Grise Fiord, NWT (now part of Nunavut). The Cold War was raging and neither the Americans nor the Soviets were respecting Canada’s sovereignty in the High Arctic. Were we in Grise Fiord so my father could collect intelligence for the Canadian government?
Chris thought so. “Your dad was probably recruited out of university because he fit a certain profile.” Chris figured that profile was of a young family man, a schoolteacher just starting out, with whom the Inuit would have been comfortable talking about local comings and goings, about anything out of the ordinary. Dad’s teaching job was no doubt real, but he was also expected to be a government mole. Chris’s knowledge of spy recruitment protocols impressed me. He must have read about them in a Tom Clancy novel.
As Chris talked, a slideshow of the photos documenting our tenure in the North ran through my head. In one, my mother and I sat on a komatik that was hitched to a pack of huskies. In another, my father knelt next to me as I stood beside our snowmobile – my snowsuit making me look like a toddler-sized gingerbread man. Those beloved photos, once innocuous, had gained a new dimension.
So had the stories my father used to tell me about those years – how my first words were in Inuktitut, not English, and how, when we first moved from barren Grise Fiord to comparatively lush Edmonton, I developed a temporary fear of grass. Another story detailed Dad’s only attempt at igloo building. The finished product was overly tall and leaned to one side: a northern schoolteacher-cum-secret agent’s homage to Pisa’s famous tower.
What went on behind the scenes of the photos and tales? Were they a façade for clandestine activities, or were they simply portraits of an ordinary family living some place extraordinary? I didn’t know what to make of my new reality. It felt as if I had opened a portal to the literary world of John le Carré (as a covert operator, my father would have been more George Smiley than James Bond). That night, I lay awake while visions of Spy vs. Spy comics danced in my head.
Morning came, and with it, the realization that getting answers to all my questions would be difficult. Making an access to information request was my best bet, but every time I tried to formulate the request, memories of Dad intruded. They were vignettes of him reading to me from Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, and of the two of us talking about our favourite Star Trek episodes, memories that made me smile and cry at the same time.
I decided my search should wait until I finished grieving the loss of my dad. For now, the mystery endures.
Lisa Richardson lives in Toronto.
