Overview
- In late August FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X that Canadian agencies that did not reject CBC guidance on calling 9/11 “terrorism” would “no longer have a friend in this FBI,” prompting alarm among Canadian officials.
- CBC News revised its internal guidance on Aug. 28 to allow reporters to describe the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorism without requiring attribution after public backlash.
- The New York Times and other U.S. outlets reported that Patel’s FBI canceled meetings with RCMP counterparts and temporarily limited parts of the FBI–RCMP relationship, though the pause was described as specific and short-lived.
- The RCMP opened internal inquiries and, according to The Globe and Mail, those probes so far have not found signs that intelligence sharing between the two forces was interrupted, creating a factual dispute with U.S. reporting.
- Because the FBI and RCMP routinely share intelligence on terrorism and cyber threats, the episode has heightened concern that political pressure could affect operational ties and it may increase scrutiny of how security cooperation is used between the two governments.