Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 2nd, 2015

[C/Supt Eric Slinn]

On your last point, absolutely not. We don't engage in espionage. It's not appropriate. We don't have authority to do that.

In terms of priorities, the RCMP is continually assessing its priorities. We've laid out our priorities with regard to national security, organized crime, and economic integrity. Our liaison officers align their activities—

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

You did not answer my question. It might be because of a problem with the interpretation.

Could your services be significantly improved to obtain relevant information about national security even before thinking of engaging in clandestine operations? Are clandestine operations now relevant or can you, through strictly legal means, improve the effectiveness of your services in order to obtain the information you require to ensure national security?

[C/Supt Eric Slinn]

The best way to do that is for our liaison officers to build strong relationships with those foreign law enforcement agencies. Once those strong relationships are built, information flows on a police-to-police level, which is acceptable. If you have strong relationships with your foreign law enforcement partners in theatre, at post, you will gain their trust and they will provide that relevant intelligence with the criminal nexus back to Canada. I'm satisfied that our liaison officers are efficient in that regard because their primary role is to build the relationships with law enforcement agencies in theatre.

Did I answer your question?

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

You are saying that any clandestine actions by Canadian officers on the ground would undermine the trust that you have built. Does that mean that any clandestine operations would first affect the effectiveness of your interpersonal relationships with the representatives of foreign police services?

[C/Supt Eric Slinn]

I'm not so sure I understand your question. If we're conducting an undercover operation in a country, we need the authority of that country to conduct it. If they're conducting undercover operations in that country by that law enforcement agency, that's their legal right.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

I am saying that, if a Canadian officer were to engage in a clandestine operation in a foreign country and he was caught or his operation was discovered, the effectiveness of your relationships with the police officers of that country would be affected. Is that correct?

[C/Supt Eric Slinn]

If we had no authority to do that in that country, absolutely, but we always ask for the authority of that country to conduct any undercover operation. We have no authority. Our undercover operators would be subject to arrest if they were engaged in such activity.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Thank you.

Let's talk about how dangerous these missions are.

Unfortunately, as we have seen in the past, especially in Lebanon, the headquarters of the French forces and the American forces, the U.S. embassy and the headquarters of the Israeli forces were destroyed on the same day. If you engage in operations that strictly and rigidly comply with the laws of the countries that welcome us, the level of danger is lower. However, I cannot help but wonder about the places where it would be very appropriate for you to deploy your police officers. I am thinking of Egypt, of other countries and certain regions in Colombia or Mexico. It would be in our interest to work with the local police to obtain relevant information. Is the non-deployment of those forces to those specific places a matter of fiscal restraint or a security imperative to keep your officers safe?

[C/Supt Eric Slinn]

There are a number of factors. First we look to which strategic countries are relevant to the RCMP and keeping Canadians safe. Second, security is a huge issue. We do not deploy our liaison officers to areas of the world that are particularly dangerous. There are places where we are already deployed that are dangerous; however, we work with our DFATD colleagues in providing security for personnel there. Security of the embassy is the responsibility of DFATD.

There are dangerous places in the world for our liaison officers, but security is always at the forefront of any deployment we do.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

That's very good. Thank you. Your time has expired.

Monsieur Woodworth, you have the floor, sir.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I welcome our witnesses.

Welcome to all the witnesses here today on this very important and timely issue, considering the way in which international threats are rising, not only in traditional ways, but new ways.

I'd like to begin by asking some questions around the recommendation found in paragraph 2.38 of the Auditor General's report. That recommendation suggests, “The Royal Canadian Mounted Police should assess the costs, potential opportunities, and challenges associated with greater participation in Europol.”

I'll begin with the Auditor General and ask a few questions, and then I'll go to the RCMP representatives.

Mr. Ferguson, I wonder if, without violating any confidentiality, you or your principal could describe for us a little more what precisely the Europol Canadian liaison officer does and how that is different from what other liaison officers do.

[Michael Ferguson]

I'll ask Mr. Barrett to give you more information. It is probably a better question for the RCMP. They can probably give you more details.

In paragraph 2.36, we point out that the one liaison officer working at Europol was participating in three of the 22 Europol thematic intelligence projects: synthetic drugs, payment card fraud, and outlaw motorcycle gangs. Those were the things they were working on through Europol.

I'll ask Mr. Barrett, though, if he has any more information for you.

[Frank Barrett]

I'd be happy to elaborate just a little bit on that.

There is a difference in what we saw. We did visit Europol, and we also, of course, saw many of the liaison officers in the different embassies. In the embassies they are working with local police organizations, sometimes the national police but mostly local police. They are reaching out and having all their contact there.

At Europol, in effect, there are something like 150 police organizations with one or multiple representatives all working in the same building. The idea is that they are each bringing intelligence from their own country. They are exchanging that information, and they do it in a formalized way through a series of working groups. They also have a lot of informal contacts as they get to know the other representatives from the other countries.

As Mr. Ferguson said, perhaps our RCMP representative could elaborate.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I would, in fact, like to do that next and ask the RCMP representatives to elaborate.

I'm struggling with what specific occasions would recourse be required to Europol that would be different from what any of the other 20 European liaison officers would do. I'm wondering if it's a question of preventive intelligence, as distinct from after-the-fact crime investigation. Is that the difference? Can you shed any light on that, Superintendent Slinn?

[C/Supt Eric Slinn]

Sure. First of all, Mr. Barrett could have a job at Europol afterwards; he's articulated it well there.

The beauty of Europol is that it's one building with numerous European law enforcement personnel. The other beauty is that it's loaded with criminal analysts, and each of those European representatives bring intelligence from their respective organizations and they feed it into Europol, which makes for more efficient investigations and allows you to get ahead of the game. It's really an access point. You have all the people herded in one location. There is a lot of sharing of intelligence, and then they create certain focal groups, certain crime groups. The RCMP has recently also added cybercrime, so we're participating in that focal group.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Are we saying that those 20 liaison officers in Europe do not have access to Europol? They can't access it, and only someone who is specifically accredited can. Is that right?

[C/Supt Eric Slinn]

That's correct. All the European Union countries have access to that. Canada is not part of the European Union. We're invited, but they have all access to the database. The way the intelligence works at Europol is that there are safeguards in place there, so if the RCMP wants to put intelligence into a database, if they want to put in the name of Eric Slinn to see if he's involved with any criminality, other European Union countries could look at that. They would get a hit on Eric Slinn's name, and they would be told to go to see the RCMP representative. They wouldn't provide any other information, but it's a form of linking law enforcement agencies together on a common goal. That is the beauty of having Europol there.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

I'm sorry, but the time has expired, Mr. Woodworth.

In the rotation we're back to Mr. Vaughan. You have the floor, sir.

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

I have just one question. On the concern that is starting to emerge—I think it was from a member opposite—about the notification process, is there a parallel notification that's not part of this evidence we're looking at today around terrorism? For example, if someone is arrested, the worry we have is that their civil rights may preclude notification to RCMP and other agencies that there has been an arrest or a conviction registered of a Canadian. We hear about the sex offender registry, but the attention and the issue that has probably seized many of us with the developments in recent months is around terrorism. Would that not be automatically filed across to RCMP?

[William Crosbie]

If it's somebody who is first of all charged with being a terrorist abroad that we become aware of because they come to us as a consular client.... It's not the foreign government that comes to us. It's the client who says, “I'm a Canadian. I want to talk to my government. I've just been arrested.” Then we would flag that in our system. We've asked all of our missions. If there is someone who is being charged with a serious crime, we flag that, but they've not been convicted in any way. We would then go through the public interest test as to whether or not information should be shared.

Remember, of course, the RCMP and our own other security agencies practising their own mandates are out there collecting and gathering information, so it would be very rare that we would be the only ones with information.

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

They're only one avenue.

[C/Supt Eric Slinn]

I would add, to highlight this situation, that in a police-to-police environment, if we've built those positive relationships with those law enforcement agencies in theatre, often those agencies will come directly to the RCMP and say, “We've just arrested an individual, and here's his name”, and we would go through the same process that DFATD does: determine the veracity of the information, look at it, and look for caveats. In fairness to DFATD, sometimes it doesn't come through that route. If we're doing our job effectively, it comes from police to police.

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

This is where the follow-up question is. If resources are frozen and if new agencies are not being created overseas, how do we broaden that network if the network in fact is being shrunk? If the liaison officers aren't present in areas where this activity is high, how do we network if we're not there to network?

[C/Supt Eric Slinn]

In the case of the RCMP, we leverage our five-eyes partners: the U.S., Britain, New Zealand, and Australia. We leverage our colleagues in like-minded countries very heavily to help us out in countries where we are not present. Likewise, we do the same for some of those other countries, because they can't be everywhere.

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

How often is the roster of locations reviewed, and how often are there changes made to those liaison officers' specific sightings in terms of the map we were shown?