Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 2nd, 2015

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Chair, on a point of order, I listened very carefully to Mr. Garrison's question. One of the challenges I think I need to raise here is relevancy. We're here specifically to study the Auditor General's report as it relates to transnational crime, so this is unfortunately not the discussion I believe we should be having.

We have here the chief superintendent who is an expert in the RCMP's transnational crime programs. I just leave it to you, Mr. Chair, to look at it in terms of relevancy.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

No, I hear your point, but what I heard, and someone can correct me if I'm wrong, was a question that related to something that may or may not impact the program we're talking about. Now, that's what I heard. If it's different from that, I am ready to reconsider. It sounded to me like it was in order.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Chair, talking about resources and whatnot would be in order if it had specifically to do with transnational crime, for example, if you asked about how we may work with Europol, but talking about national security, which is a slightly different topic, I think is very much off-topic.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Mr. Garrison, what are your thoughts? I'm listening.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

My question was about the resources available for transnational crime and whether he had been asked to reassign or divert any of those resources. It seems to me to be directly relevant.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

That's what I thought the question was. It therefore would be entirely relevant, in my view.

My ruling is that the matter is in order, but I would ask you, Mr. Garrison, to continue to make sure that the questions you're asking are germane to the report in front of us. As far as I'm concerned, I'm ruling that the question is in order and you may proceed.

[C/Supt Eric Slinn]

To answer your question, no, we haven't reduced our resources. Our international footprint is the same. However, what we continually do within the international program is assess where the greatest threats are. I can tell you that the RCMP opened up a post in Ankara, Turkey, last January. We opened up a post in Canberra, and in Panama City, to address specific threats to Canada. But the resources have not been reduced, no.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Thanks very much. I wasn't, of course, suggesting that they should be reduced.

In the report on plans and priorities for 2014-15 for the RCMP, it shows that in fact the planned spending for your program will be cut and the number of personnel will be frozen. We know that transnational crime is increasing. We know that there are increasing threats around the world. From those plans and priorities, how will your division cope with fewer resources, frozen personnel, and greater demand on the services?

[C/Supt Eric Slinn]

I can only speak to the international program which is not diminishing. It is maintaining its size. We're shifting our resources around, as I said earlier, to address the threats that are greatest to Canada. In fact, we've actually increased the program. Last January we added 10 criminal analysts. We deployed them to support the LOs so that we could get a better sense of the crime that's out there globally and how it may hit the country.

From that perspective, and I hope I've answered your question, it's status quo here.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

With respect, in your own plan it does show a slight decrease in your resources for the next fiscal year, but I'm taking your point that it may be so slight it's not significant.

[C/Supt Eric Slinn]

Not internationally, no.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Okay.

When you talk about the sharing of information, and the Conservatives have asked you a lot of questions about that, what I'm really wondering here is whether the problem has been a failure to communicate between the agencies rather than the legal obstacles to sharing.

In my own international work on policing, before I came here, I quite often found that was the problem when you tried to share information. There weren't really legal obstacles; it was the ability to talk to each other. It sounds to me like that's what you've been talking about here, that the larger problem seems to have been the way you tried to talk to each other about the information sharing.

[C/Supt Eric Slinn]

I think it's a bit of both. I wouldn't isolate it to one.

As my colleague from DFATD pointed out, it's a continual balance between the Privacy Act, the charter, the severity of the offence, and keeping Canadians safe.

It also is sometimes miscommunication on the issue of MLATs. When we work with DoJ, the police don't lay out the MLAT perhaps as correctly as we should, and it doesn't become as expeditious a process as it should be. I think it's a shared responsibility in a number of different ways.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Mr. Crosbie, are you going to add something? You have a minute.

[William Crosbie]

I don't think it is miscommunication. We have very different mandates.

The mandate of Foreign Affairs with respect to consular services is to assist Canadians when they're in distress abroad, including people who are arrested and detained. That mandate means that we have to preserve that information and we have to act to use that information only in the best interests of the client. We're not a law enforcement agency.

I think the O'Connor commission particularly made us all aware as civil servants that the mandates our departments have been given by Parliament under the acts of Parliament are ones that give us specific responsibilities. When those mandates come together, for example, in this case both in protecting Canadians when they're abroad but also looking after the public interest, then we have to have the procedures that help us to understand how those mandates can both be respected. It's a complex business.

When we pass on information to the RCMP, for example, we provide the context in which that person may have been found guilty of a particular crime in a foreign jurisdiction. We provide caveats as to how that information can be used. You can imagine there are many foreign jurisdictions in which the due process is not what we as Canadians would regard as due process. We want to make sure that we protect the privacy of the individuals while at the same time looking after the broader interests of Canadians in being protected from those who might do harm to them.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Sorry, but the time has expired now.

Mr. Aspin, you have the floor, sir.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Welcome, officials, to our committee.

I'd like to start with Chief Superintendent Slinn.

Overall it seems as if the audit done on the performance of the RCMP liaison officer program was positive. I note that the report concluded that the RCMP “established priorities for serious and organized crime, aligned its international programming with those priorities, and has the necessary systems and practices in place to address its international requirements.”

Perhaps we could start with a brief overview and your view of the general conclusions drawn in this report.

[C/Supt Eric Slinn]

I think the conclusions were very fair. They were on point.

If we look at the Europol issue, we're working on leveraging Europol for greater intelligence sharing and greater situational awareness. If we look at the performance metrics, that we didn't have quality performance metrics to measure the usefulness of the program to make better decision-making as to where we should have liaison officers or not, I think that was a very fair comment as well. As we've discussed quite a bit here with our colleagues at DFATD, I am very pleased about the direction in which we're heading and the processes that are in place there.

I'm very proud of what our liaison officers do abroad. When we compare them with our U.S. colleagues and our British colleagues who are much more robust and are everywhere, we can hold a candle to our colleagues and we're very well respected around the world for what we do with what we have. I think that was reflected in the report from the Auditor General, that we do very well with the resources we have.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Thank you.

The third recommendation was that the Department of Justice should work with its domestic and foreign partners to develop performance measurements to better monitor the timeliness of responding to requests for extradition and mutual legal assistance. This seems as though it might be directed more to Justice than the RCMP.

Could you share your thoughts on how it could possibly have an effect on your work?

[C/Supt Eric Slinn]

Navigating the labyrinth of legal paper work when you're dealing on the international stage can be challenging, but just as our colleagues at DFATD do, we work with DoJ. A case in point is that we bring the Department of Justice in on our pre-deployment training, which is three weeks. For every liaison officer that is deployed abroad, the Department of Justice comes in, presents to those liaison officers their expectations, what's involved in MLATs, how to fill out the proper paperwork. We're in constant contact with our colleagues at the Department of Justice.

Can we do better? Absolutely, but I'm confident that we're working seamlessly with our colleagues there.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

How would you describe the process over the years? Has it evolved to a better relationship with more understanding, more clarity?

[C/Supt Eric Slinn]

I think the relationship is always good. It's about individuals more than agencies. We've worked well. There are frustrations when you're dealing in international investigations, trying to collect evidence, getting evidence from other countries. That's the nature of bureaucracy. However, at the end of the day we collectively do our best to get that job done and ultimately to keep Canadians safe.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Thank you.

Moving along, we have Mr. Vaughan, who is with us again.

Sir, you have the floor.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Looking at the statistic that 17 out of 34 requests were denied and 17 out of 34 were accommodated, and putting aside the format in which the information was requested, in regard to the 17 that were denied, is there a pattern there that we should be interested in? Is there a pattern there that might speak to changes in the privacy rules that might make that exchange of information more efficient?