Evidence of meeting #40 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was sharing.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Noon
Conservative
Noon
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for being here today and to your staff for preparing today, as well.
Mr. Blais, you mentioned your ongoing review of SCISA. I'll get you to quickly talk about what your timeline is, and the context. Are you seeing witnesses as well?
12:05 p.m.
Chair, Security Intelligence Review Committee
Do you mean the time frame for our research?
12:05 p.m.
Chair, Security Intelligence Review Committee
I cannot give you details right now, due to the fact that usually we plan our research for many years, but this research will be done this year. It's in process now, and I'm pretty sure it will be finished by the end of the fiscal year.
Unfortunately, the way we do that is we put that in our report to Parliament and to the minister; however, the minister gets it during the summer, and the House should be sitting when we file the report. This year the report was filed sometime in September.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
I'm curious about whether you are doing a lot of the same stuff we're doing, because we're going to present our report to the minister as well, so I'm just making sure we're not duplicating a lot of this.
12:05 p.m.
Chair, Security Intelligence Review Committee
Do you know something? We are independent. Our committee decided to review the impact of this legislation on the work of CSIS. I say that because it's important to know that it's not the minister who tells us what to do. We decided, because we believed it was important to review it.
It happens that Parliament is also reviewing, but....
December 8th, 2016 / 12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
Okay. I just wanted to clarify.
I'll also just clarify that the minister doesn't tell us what to do either. We decided on our own as well.
Following up on some of the questions from my colleague Mr. Saini on the other side of the table, I've asked a few of the witnesses here about some of the information-sharing laws of our allies within the Five Eyes. It seems that some aren't too sure of what they are. I'm under the impression that you guys would know what they are, so if there are aspects of our allies' information-sharing laws that we should adopt and consider, could the three of you, the different agencies, comment on what those would be?
12:05 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Communications Security Establishment Commissioner
I think we are, with all due respect, wandering away a little bit from SCISA, but anyway.
With regard to CSE, CSE has arrangements, or MOUs, with the Five Eyes partners—that's evident—but again what is important in those arrangements and MOUs is the fact that CSE stressed the point to its partners that it cannot target Canadians or people in Canada.
I think the partners have to be aware of that, in our case. It's vital. If not, we have a problem, because the National Defence Act is very clear that CSE cannot target Canadians and cannot target people in Canada. Therefore, this is the main issue we share with our partners.
12:05 p.m.
Executive Director, Office of the Communications Security Establishment Commissioner
I would add that the signals intelligence agencies have an agreement not to target each other's nationals and to respect the privacy laws of each of the five members. That's amongst the signals intelligence agencies.
12:05 p.m.
Chair, Security Intelligence Review Committee
For us, you should remember that in some areas when we look at protecting Canadians and the security of Canadians, foreign fighters are one example of Canadian people are travelling abroad in some area and, as you know, it's public. We discuss this matter in our report almost every year. Obviously, we don't have the same environment as my colleague, Mr. Plouffe, and in those cases we are very prudent in the way we share information among the partners.
However, it shows, nevertheless, the importance of having a strong and clear agreement about how we share this information, given the problems that happened in the past with sharing that information, particularly with other countries.
We are an importer. We need information, but we also provide some information. It's a give and take. It's important, and we follow that very carefully. We look at this every year. This is an important part of our review, and we discuss that in our report every year as well.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Blaine Calkins
Thank you very much.
We now move to Mr. Bratina, please, for five minutes.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Bob Bratina Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
In the public framework of SCISA, the following statement occurs:
Reasonable expectation of privacy enshrined in the Charter may be subject to reasonable limits where necessary to achieve an important objective, and as long as the limits impair privacy rights as little as possible.
Could I ask you to comment on the impairment of privacy rights, Mr. Plouffe?
12:10 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Communications Security Establishment Commissioner
Are you quoting from Mr. Therrien?
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
12:10 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Communications Security Establishment Commissioner
I guess at first blush what I would answer is that it is important and vital to have a balance between security measures on the one hand and the protection of the privacy of Canadians on the other hand. I know that this objective is not easily attained, but I think this is what it is all about. Security measures are important in our day and age, as we all know. It's vital for our country, but on the other hand, I don't think this should be detrimental to privacy rights.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Bob Bratina Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
We had the War Measures Act, which became the Emergencies Act. Has anyone in the group—and I'll start with you, Mr. Plouffe—reviewed it with the view of how it might affect any of the current protocols in the state of a declared war or any other overt emergency? Is there anything in the Emergencies Act that you are aware of that would even override the current protocols under which we're working?
12:10 p.m.
Commissioner, Office of the Communications Security Establishment Commissioner
To be very honest, I'm not....
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Bob Bratina Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
It's something of a concern, because it has happened in the past that the rights of individuals have been usurped by so-called emergencies, so I was curious about that.
12:10 p.m.
Chair, Security Intelligence Review Committee
You should know that when some intrusion is made that would go against the Charter of Rights, for example, it cannot ever be done without the authorization of a judge. The judge will apply the law of the land and will not set aside everything.
He will look at whether it's necessary to allow breaching somehow some fundamental rights, and as I'm sure you know, section 1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms says particularly that. It says that this charter could be infringed, if it's necessary, in some particular case. We forget that from time to time, but it's the case.
CSIS works without warrants when they're not necessary, but there's always.... This is an important point. Nobody raises it often, but it's important to remember that they never intervene without a warrant, and we look into all those warrants. This is part of our job, I would say. It's a major point to track down those warrants to see whether they're acting within the law.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Bob Bratina Liberal Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Mr. Evans, in the information that you deal with in relationship with the RCMP, is this a case of a daily review of files, or does somebody say, “Oh, Evans is on the phone”? How does your department work in terms—
12:10 p.m.
Senior Director, Operations, Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
You mean in terms of exchanging information?
12:10 p.m.
Senior Director, Operations, Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
When we initiate an investigation resulting from a complaint from a member of the public, or the systemic one that we're doing, the first step is to write to the RCMP, and they're required under the legislation to provide us with all relevant material.
There is a fairly elaborate process within the RCMP Act for providing that material to us. There are provisions in there that the RCMP can withhold certain information. I could go into a fair bit of detail, but it's largely a very co-operative relationship. We receive the information that we deem is relevant; if the RCMP has any objections to it, then there's a process in there for us to discuss it and elevate it. If the RCMP claims privilege over material, then we have to establish that it's relevant and necessary. That's our standard.
I can tell you that we've never been there under the new legislation. We normally can work these things out in a co-operative manner. We'll respect the RCMP's identification of privileged material or sensitive material. We'll go see it on RCMP premises, as opposed to bringing it to ours. There's a fairly elaborate procedure, but I have to say the RCMP have been very co-operative in providing us with what we ask for.