It was a rare opportunity to see behind the military curtain on Friday as a new facility opened at CFB. Kingston which houses “Joint Task Force X,” a military intelligence gathering and training centre.
Military officials, as well as politicians, were on hand for the ribbon-cutting ceremony and a chance for the media to tour some, but not all, of the building just off Highway 15.
Rear-Admiral Scott Bishop is the Commander of Canadian Forces Intelligence Command. He says the idea of human intelligence is really rather basic.
“It’s about talking to people and finding out what they know about the environment that we’re operating in. It sounds very simple but the information that the people give us is very, very important to our ability to do operations.”
Human intelligence operations include a range of activities such as source handling, interrogation and debriefing. The unit’s new home didn’t come cheap. It cost almost $52 million.
Construction on the building started late in 2015, and it’s scheduled to be complete next year.
“The government made a commitment to improving upon the resources that our men and women in uniform have and this is one of those examples of how we’re making sure that our military personnel have the tools that they need to do the jobs we’re asking them to do,” said Mark Gerretsen, Member of Parliament for Kingston and the Islands.
JTFX was created in 2009. This marks it’s first official home where the entire unit has been brought together.
Fittingly, the building is named after Sir William Samuel Stephenson, a Second World War master spy and 1st Colonel-Commandant of the Canadian Intelligence Branch.