Polygraph tests emerge as key assessment tool for RCMP, CSIS recruitment

So you want to work for CSIS or the RCMP? For starters, you better not tell a lie, and don't do drugs. Those who hope to become an intelligence officer with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, for instance, Canada's top-secret intelligence agency, must navigate their way through CSIS' nine-stage candidate selection process, including a polygraph test, questioning about past drug use, and final clearance from an executive. The entire process takes six months to a year. The RCMP, in the recruitment of its police officers, has a similar policy, with multiple stages. Sgt. Nathalie Deschênes, an RCMP spokeswoman, said since November 2005 the force has used polygraph tests to help assess the reliability of its candidates. "More and more law enforcement organizations across Canada are using the polygraph," Sgt. Deschênes said. "It is used as a tool in the recruiting selection process. It's just one of the steps that the candidate has to go through. It's used to verify the truthfulness of the candidates." One recent candidate for a CSIS intelligence officer, who asked not to be identified, made it to a stage three "suitability interview," and said last week that the initial interview stages placed a significant amount of questioning on drug use. The candidate was asked about all past experience with drugs, and naturally, was tempted to not reveal everything. But lie now, the interviewers said, and they'll find out later at the polygraph test, which they warned about from the beginning. "They stressed, 'Whatever you don't tell me will come up in the polygraph test. So you might as well tell me now,'" the candidate said. "It was a little unnerving, because I didn't know whether I was supposed to tell everything or whether it would be used against me." One of the interviewers, she said, told her that another candidate revealed that he had smoked marijuana every day for eight years, but because he had not touched it for the past year, that was okay. CSIS, which calls itself a "drug-free workforce," has an official policy that says it does not hire anyone who has used illegal drugs within the previous year. Similarly, candidates for RCMP officers, Sgt. Deschênes said, may be rejected if it's found they've used illegal drugs within the previous three years. The RCMP's drug-use assessment, like CSIS, is also conducted throughout the interview process. One former CSIS agent told The Hill Times last week that admitting to doing hard drugs would probably ruin that candidate's chance of becoming an intelligence officer. "I have heard it said, informally, by members both in CSIS and the RCMP, that a little experimentation with drugs when one was younger is not an obstacle to being hired, but truth is, it's fair grounds for rejection of a candidate," the former agent wrote in an email. "The questions as they relate to the polygraph are a bit self-serving. If a candidate admits to have taken drugs, then he or she is screened out." However, Sgt. Deschênes said that the polygraph test is not intended to trick a candidate. "They are aware of the questions that will come up. It's not like we're trying to pin them in a corner or something like that, and we're not looking for people who have never made a mistake," Sgt. Deschênes said. The polygraph test at CSIS comes in one of the last remaining stages of the process, and involves a member of the executive. "You have to pass the whole security clearance process, and we're cleared to the top level. Everybody has that here," Barbara Campion, a CSIS spokeswoman, said last week. "The rationale is that if you work here, you are privy to information that a lot of other people are not privy to, and the point is that we don't want you to be in a position of being compromised or blackmailed, is what it boils down to. So the polygraph is a tool. It's only one of many tools," she said. "The polygraph asks questions based on your loyalty, reliability, that sort of thing." Ms. Campion said that polygraph tests are also part of the recruitment process for the Communications Security Establishment, Canada's national cryptologic agency, whose staff also require "top secret" security clearance. Polygraph tests are not used in the selection of candidates in other government departments and agencies, she said. Among CSIS' recruitment stages are a "psychological assessment" at the fourth stage, with written and tests; and at the sixth stage, a "national assessment panel," or an in-depth interview to explore candidates' motivations for working as an intelligence officer. Ms. Campion recalled the selection process she went through to get her job in the early 1990s, saying that she faced the same questions. "Have you used drugs? Which ones have you used? How many times did you use them? When was the last time?" she said. For 2008-2009, CSIS is expected to have a total staff of 2,423 full-time equivalents, including staff at its headquarters and regional offices. The service, Ms. Campion added, is "always" recruiting. sdoyle@hilltimes.com The Hill Times

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