Justice Committee on Feb. 16th, 2012

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

I have a simple proposal for you, and I want to make sure Mr. Harris recognizes that I was not trying to be sarcastic in my comments. I just wanted to make sure he understood where I'm coming from.

What advantage is there in keeping the definition or defining whether a person is in organized crime or whether that group is an organized crime group in the trial process? Wouldn't it be just as good to have it in the sentencing process?

I say that only because with the number of convictions that happen, if you did that during the sentencing process itself—defining whether that person is in the group or whether in fact that group is an organized crime group—it would then be exclusive to those 7% or 8% of people who are actually convicted of the crime in the first place. We could then use the government resources and courts to actually get more people into the trial process. Does that make sense?

[Supt Eric Slinn]

I'm not so sure that in law enforcement we're in a position to answer questions about the trial process. We're an integral part of it, but that's left to the prosecution.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

But you certainly confirm and agree that much of the work that's done has no benefit in the end, because we don't score that goal—we don't put people away—because of the procedure in the trial process.

[C/Supt Michel Aubin]

I think maybe I'll add one feature here. We've testified to this, and I've testified to it as well. The fact is when a criminal organization has been recognized as such through a court process, one of the areas in which we have a problem with law enforcement is having to again demonstrate that full evidence. The Hells Angels have been demonstrated to be such in one case, and if they are prosecuted somewhere else in Canada, again, we have to go through the exercise—

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Exactly.

[C/Supt Michel Aubin]

—of collecting the evidence, presenting the evidence, and making sure it's true time and again. So the position that was advanced, I believe in May 2009, was that we were supportive of listing criminal organizations once they'd been found to be criminal organizations.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

I agree.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Mr. Casey.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Chairman, this reminds me of some advice that was once given: sometimes it's better to sit mute and risk having people take you for a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

I have no questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Thank you.

Mr. Goguen.

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Okay, well, I'll take the plunge.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

The draft of this report dates back some time, and one of the recommendations it proposed was that the government amend its current provincial witness protection program to obtain the federal identification documentation without having to enter provincial protectees into the program.

The RCMP is not known to sit idle. Are you guys working on a framework? Do you see any kind of obstacle? Is this costly? Do you have any thoughts on that?

[Supt Eric Slinn]

I'm going to turn it over to Inspector Bowen, because he's the gatekeeper. He can probably give you more salient information than I can.

[Inspector Greg Bowen, Officer in Charge, National Headquarters, Human Source and Witness Protection, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

Thank you very much.

Being able to obtain federal documentation for provincial witness protection initiatives without having to enter people from the provincial initiatives into the federal program is a long-standing issue. Currently, the RCMP is working very closely with Public Safety. Public Safety and the RCMP are in agreement that that should be the case, and we continue to work towards responding to that in a favourable fashion through the legislative process.

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

It can't be something that's all that troublesome. You have the resources already to do this. It wouldn't be costly, would it? Nothing is without cost, obviously, but it's not a—

[Insp Greg Bowen]

No. To enter a protected person from a provincial into the federal program is generally regarded by a number of the provinces as an infringement on their ability to run their own effective programs; however, it's something we've done since 1996.

There are two elements to it. One, we would agree that it's very important that the provinces have the opportunity to obtain the federal documents to promote their own program interests. On a greater scale, the greater consideration for us, of course, is to ensure that whatever processes are introduced in the future, as we move towards reaching that goal, are done in a very secure fashion to promote the security of those people who assist us in the provision of the services we require.

[Robert Goguen, Conservative, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Thank you, sir.

That's good.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dave MacKenzie]

Madam Borg.

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Thank you to the witnesses for being here today. My first question is for Mr. Aubin.

In the previous version of our report that we want to update, it was divided into four sections, as you mentioned. One section contains groups that work on the international scene. The statistics we had previously indicated that there were 16 organizations. Now you are saying that this is 3%. Could you explain the difference?

It looks like there's been a slight increase. Is it because links with new countries have been established?

[C/Supt Michel Aubin]

If I may, the figure 16 and the 3% are referring pretty much to the same thing. It's the number of organizations that have an international reach or influence. I would simply like to make a distinction about their impact because we haven't talked about that. If their influence is local, they can have the same impact internationally. The categories depend on their degree and sphere of influence. For example, for 2011, we noted that 24 groups had been involved in international activities, which represents about 4%, while 262 groups were active interprovincially, which represents about 40%.

For the groups working internationally, we see that, from one year to the next, this corresponds to about 3% or 4% of criminal organizations that are listed in Canada. The organizations in category 4 exercise their sphere of influence locally and represent about 20%. We are currently looking at how we categorize organizations in the national evaluation to possibly go from four categories to three. A national discussion is under way to be even more specific in our categorization.

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

You're thinking about combining two categories? How will you do that?

[C/Supt Michel Aubin]

There is some difficulty in distinguishing between category 1 and category 2 because they both involve interprovincial or international activities. So we need to see to what extent these organizations dominate a market and how sophisticated they are. To ensure the process is clear, we involve all the analysts concerned across Canada. The analysts are currently looking at how we can refine this categorization to better inform the police services.