Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 2nd, 2015

[William Crosbie]

For us, there are a couple of key elements that would improve the process. I mentioned partly the completeness of the request. Another element of that is training our consular officials to red flag cases, for example, involving child sex offenders so that they come to the headquarters, and then we can make a determination, working among our experts, as to what we should do with those particular cases. When we do examine those cases and bring the experts to bear and determine that there's a public interest in the information being shared, then we do so with the RCMP, and we provide the appropriate caveats and the context in which the individual has been found guilty. I think we're on the right road to do this.

The additional thing we're doing is that we have a process now where we're going back to all of our data banks and looking at all of those Canadians who have been charged and are imprisoned to determine whether or not the prison charges were specifically for child sex offenders, and then making decisions about whether or not that information will be proactively shared with the RCMP. In all those cases we notify the Privacy Commissioner as well. We provide that information, again, with the caveats and the context.

We're not just sitting and waiting for the RCMP to come to us. We have a proactive process now by which we will share the information.

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

With privacy laws and the relationship between organized crime and terrorism changing, in terms of the horizon, what can we anticipate in terms of pressures on the departments to figure out how to bring new rules, new processes, into place to make sure that those two dynamics don't meet with the same sorts of delays we currently see?

[William Crosbie]

I think between Foreign Affairs and the RCMP and other agencies that have an investigative authority, we have the mechanisms in place. We can share the information.

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

Again, it's a changing set of rules and regulations around privacy.

[William Crosbie]

The Privacy Act still has to be respected. Remember: the Privacy Act does not mean that you can't share information.

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

No.

[William Crosbie]

It does mean that you have to go through a very deliberate test to weigh privacy concerns versus public interests. The RCMP, of course, also has the ability to come to us with a request for information. I think we have the mechanisms, but we need to make sure we're using them and that we have people trained so that they can be used to their utmost.

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

The report talks about delays. Are the delays being driven by an increase in the number of cases or the fact that resources are not being put in place?

[William Crosbie]

Was that the mutual legal assistance, the delays...? I don't think it was with respect to the consular cases.

[C/Supt Eric Slinn]

I don't think so on the consular cases, to my knowledge.

I think Bill has accurately depicted what's going on. If we look back to six months ago, we didn't have this working group. We weren't looking at the changing environment.

It is a changing environment globally. We're seeing more criminals travelling abroad and more criminals hiding. But the fact is that we have this working group, that we're moving forward, and that from the RCMP's perspective, we're putting more articulation around why we need to get the information. There is a greater understanding and a greater appreciation of weighing all the factors to get to what I would say yes...getting that information.

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

You seem to...?

[Michael Ferguson]

I was only going to point out as well that I think in terms of timeframe where we focused in mostly was in terms of extradition and the mutual legal assistance, and the fact that there was a need there on the part of the Department of Justice to examine the reason some of those were taking as long as they were taking. I think that was the main piece we were talking about: the timeframe that it took to process something.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Thank you. That's almost to the second.

Mr. Falk, you have the floor, sir.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you, Auditor General, and also you, Mr. Barrett, for the report.

Mr. Crosbie, if I may, I'm going to ask you a few questions about the report. You answered one of them, I believe, and I just want to clarify that I did get the right answer as to how our consulates are not always notified by foreign countries when a Canadian is arrested.

[William Crosbie]

Yes, that's right. A foreign government is not under any obligation to inform us if a Canadian has been arrested, in the same way that we don't automatically inform other countries if one of their citizens is arrested here. It's the citizen himself who controls that, who decides whether or not they want to communicate with their own government. Of course, that's an important protection, because there are some countries that would like us to tell them when we have imprisoned someone here or may be providing some assistance to them. We don't necessarily want to do that.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Okay, but when you do become aware of situations like that, you are often privy to all kinds of information. I know there has been a tension expressed here between privacy concerns and the sharing of information. Is that a major tension that exists within your department?

[William Crosbie]

Well, I wouldn't say it's a tension within our department. I think it's a question of a mandate that we have, which is different from a law enforcement agency's. For example, the statistics we gather or the information we gather is just that someone has been arrested and/or detained. We don't necessarily note down what the charge is, because we're not necessarily interested in what the charge is.

One thing we are doing is going back through our databases to find out what information we do have on those who have been convicted, so we could more clearly identify cases that are or could be of interest from a public interest perspective, and those are ones we would share with the RCMP.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Okay. I think you used the word “proactive” about the sharing of information. What is your litmus test for doing that?

[William Crosbie]

There are two ways in which we share information, consistent with the Privacy Act.

One is through a request from the RCMP coming to us—it's an investigating agency—seeking specific information from us. That's under paragraph 8(2)(e) of the act.

Under paragraph 8(2)(m), we can determine that there is a public interest in sharing information about a Canadian who is being charged abroad. We will look at, for example, what the person is being charged with. If it is a child sex offence, it's an offence in Canada. There is a public interest in that individual. But, for example, we would take into account where the individual was arrested and the process he went through to be found guilty. We take a look at that country and its judicial process. Is it one we think is fair and is going to give someone a fair trial? We may pass the information on to the RCMP, saying, “Here is our record of the judicial process in the country where he was convicted; this is the human rights report about what has gone on”, or “this is our evidence that the individual has been subject to torture”, which may be something we become aware of. These are all factors the RCMP themselves would be asked to weigh before taking the information further.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you. That helps.

The recommendation I'm asking questions about specifically talks about the sharing of information between your department and the RCMP. Certainly they do very good work there. Sometime ago we met here with officials from the CBSA, CSIS, and the RCMP. They met on a weekly basis and exchanged information in a formal setting.

Is there a formal periodic process in place in which you do that?

[William Crosbie]

There is an interdepartmental working group on child sex offenders, which includes all of those agencies and Foreign Affairs. I can't say it meets on a regular basis. It meets every so often to review collectively what we can do to try to prevent these crimes from occurring, and then since 2011, when the new act was brought in, to ensure we can pass on information, for example, about someone who has been convicted of being a child sex offender abroad. Then the RCMP can determine whether that individual will go onto the registry of sex offenders.

Is it the RCMP which controls that?

[C/Supt Eric Slinn]

Yes.

[William Crosbie]

Right. The new act permits that person's name to be put on the registry.

That's a new fact for us. It gives us direction from Parliament, that Parliament wants us to help the RCMP identify those individuals so that they can make a determination about whether they get put on the registry if and when they come back to Canada.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Thank you. Time has expired.

Monsieur Giguère, you have the floor.

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

The RCMP international police has the mission to prevent and detect crimes committed in Canada and those committed abroad that have an impact on Canada. One of its priorities is to ensure national security.

I noticed that you had a limited number of officers on the ground, roughly about 40. One particularly important question comes up in relation to this. Has all the work of that force reached a limit of effectiveness to the point that it is necessary to engage in clandestine operations?

Your operations are strictly legal and have a certain degree of effectiveness. They follow diplomatic conventions and the laws of the countries where you are a guest. Right now, have your operations reached a peak to the extent that you now need to engage in clandestine operations, such as wiretapping, spying, corruption and surveillance in foreign countries?