Access to the Inside: An Assessment of 'Canada's Security Service: A History'

Unlike most countries, Canada has no comprehensive scholarly history of its main security intelligence agency, the Security Service of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The one extensive history is John Sawatsky's Men in the Shadows , an admirable study written by a thorough journalist with excellent sources. ¹ Although it was written over a decade ago, on some topics such as the RCMP's persecution of homosexuals in the public service in the 1950s and 1960s it has remained the authoritative source until very recently. ² But Sawatsky's work was aimed at a popular audience and it was written before the Access to Information Act was passed in 1982. And that Act has revolutionized the study of security intelligence in Canada.