Canada-China Relations Committee on Feb. 4th, 2020

[Janet Henchey]

I couldn't say for certain what the repercussion would be, but there would be a risk that it could bring the treaty to an end. It could vitiate the treaty.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, AB]

Okay.

It's strange to me that Mr. Manley would propose such an idea. He's a former minister of the Crown. That's interesting.

I appreciate your testimony.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Mr. Warkentin.

We now have Mr. Fragiskatos.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses.

Mr. Chair, my colleague used the word “strange”. What is strange is that the opposition, now in referencing Mr. Manley and earlier, I think, although he wasn't mentioned, Eddie Goldenberg, the former chief of staff to Prime Minister Chrétien.... Mr. Manley was a minister when I was in high school. Mr. Goldenberg was chief of staff when I was in grade 6 or 7.

Let's stick to the facts. The facts, I remind my colleagues across the way, are that the Prime Minister has been unequivocal and our government has been unequivocal that a prisoner exchange is not something that is being considered or would be considered for a number of reasons. First and foremost, as Mr. Warkentin alluded to in his comments—he actually opened the door to this—it would set an awful precedent, so why would we go down that path? Individuals are free to write op-eds and contemplate different scenarios. If we're serious about policy, it matters what the Prime Minister has said. It matters what the government has said. The government has been very unequivocal in all of this. I think it's important to recognize that.

To the witnesses, I'm interested in the technical issues surrounding extradition. Perhaps you could go through a few things for us non-lawyers on the committee just so we can understand them better. What type of information is typically sought in mutual legal assistance requests? You opened the discussion on that. What sort of information are we talking about?

[Janet Henchey]

Mutual legal assistance is to assist prosecutors in different countries to access evidence for criminal prosecutions. There's a wide variety of things that could be sought to be of assistance in pursuing a prosecution. It could be witness testimony; it could be documentary information. A lot of the time it involves Internet service provider information, such as telephone records, texting records and email records. That's increasingly important in criminal prosecutions. It may be access to a particular item—a murder weapon, for example—that could be transferred across the border pursuant to a mutual legal assistance request.

Those are the general types of things. It could be anything, basically, that is relevant as a piece of evidence in a prosecution.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Okay.

I'm looking at the slide deck. Maybe the answer is obvious, but I still think it's interesting. On page 10, there's a wide gap, year over year, between the number of requests received and the number of requests made. Is there any information you could pass along as to why there is that gap? Is it just a matter of how the treaties work out?

[Janet Henchey]

I think it's just a question of population. Canada is big geographically but relatively small in population. We have treaties with countries all around the world. If we add up all the crimes being committed around the world versus the crimes being committed in Canada, there will be more requests coming to us than requests that we'll be making.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

I thought so, but it's good to get that on the record.

Obviously, you cannot comment on the case of Ms. Wanzhou. I understand that, but Canadians are still following this issue along and do have questions. The issue of double criminality, that requirement, has come up. Can you tell the committee the purpose of this requirement in our law and about cases where the courts have said it is not satisfied?

[Janet Henchey]

The purpose of double criminality is the basic principle underlying extradition. A country does not want to send somebody from their territory to another territory to be prosecuted for something that they don't consider to be criminal. If a country has an offence that we would not recognize in criminal law, we wouldn't extradite somebody for it, and vice versa. This is applicable all around the world. All countries apply this principle of double criminality to extradition. It doesn't matter if you have exactly the same offence; it's the conduct we look at. If what the person did would be considered criminal in your country, then that will satisfy double criminality and will allow for the possibility of extradition.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

With one minute left, could you tell us of cases where the courts have said that this has not been satisfied?

[Janet Henchey]

I don't have any examples directly in mind.

It happens very rarely, simply because we assess the evidence before we bring it before the court. We don't bring cases before the court if we think there's insufficient evidence for the judge to find double criminality.

Occasionally there might be a gap in the evidence where it doesn't quite meet the test for a particular offence. But as I said, it doesn't happen frequently.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

In the 20 seconds left, can I just ask this? In the course of a decade, how many people does Canada seek to extradite to other countries?

Then we'll go to Mr. Bergeron.

[Janet Henchey]

That's a good question, which I'm not sure I can answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Perhaps you can get back to us on that.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Could I get the breakdown of countries [Inaudible—Editor]?

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Mr. Albas is also asking, if you have it, for the breakdown of countries that we've requested extradition from. If that's possible, please give that to the clerk later on. Thank you.

Monsieur Bergeron.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

I am interested by this concept of reciprocity regarding crimes committed in a foreign country, to potentially have an equivalent in the Canadian justice system. That of course applies to extradition cases, but also to cases of visa issuance or entry allowances for Europeans, among others.

For example, we had the case of President Puigdemont of Catalonia, who was refused entry into Canada under the pretext that he was accused of a crime that, frankly, on a global scale, is a bit outdated: the crime of sedition. The authorities are apparently checking whether there is an equivalent in Canadian law.

Be that as it may, let's come back to the specific case we are discussing. I know that the first step is the International Assistance Group, which is in charge of determining whether a tentative order for arrest should be issued. In its assessment, does that service try to figure out what the equivalent in Canadian law is or does it simply receive the country's extradition request and decide whether it is justified, in which case it would go ahead with the extradition?

[Janet Henchey]

I can advise that when we receive a provisional arrest request, they provide us with a summary of the evidence. We don't get the actual evidence at that stage, just a summary. We assess whether or not, in our view, it would meet the criteria for double criminality. If it doesn't, then we wouldn't proceed to seek a warrant for provisional arrest.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Okay. It will be looked into. That is what I understand.

[Janet Henchey]

We assess it before—

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Okay.

[Janet Henchey]

The first step is to assess it and be satisfied that we think it's possible that this evidence is going to justify the issuance of an authority to proceed down the road and whether it meets the criteria for urgency that would allow a judge to issue a provisional arrest warrant. We review it, and in some cases we refuse to seek the warrant.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

So the International Assistance Group looked at the fact that Meng Wanzhou is being accused of having violated U.S. sanctions against Iran, sanctions that Canada does not even apply. Under the circumstances, on what basis was it decided to follow up on this request of the United States?

[Owen Rees]

We can't discuss a specific case.