24 May 1957: Memorandum for the Minister

This “highly hypothetical exercise” outlines what potential steps the Canadians could take should the US reply fail to provide sufficient assurances. The note directly outlines the RCMP-FBI relationship and lists possible courses of action, including that the RCMP could be instructed to pass no information whatever or another agency could be found or set up to screen RCMP information before it is passed to US agencies.

But the memorandum concludes that all of the possible options “seem dangerous or at least unhelpful.” The conclusion is that the best course of action in the event that the reply is unsatisfactory will be to refer the question to the Security Panel—a federal government interdepartmental body created in 1946 that is responsible for internal security issues—for study.