Information & Ethics Committee on Feb. 2nd, 2017

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Thank you very much to our witnesses.

I have a couple of quick questions, if the committee will indulge me.

With regard to the effect of SCISA, if my interpretation or understanding here is correct, the tests made it a lot more clear and practical when it came to the sharing of information. I don't think we have really thoroughly discussed the issue of timeliness.

Mr. Burt, Mr. Rochon, and Mr. Roussel, in your agencies, how important sometimes is the timeliness of being able to share information? Does SCISA provide a more effective vehicle for the timely sharing of information?

[Stephen Burt]

Timeliness is a factor. Having said that, we don't live on 24 here. Generally speaking, as Mr. Rochon said, when you get a piece of information of any kind, it's the beginning of a process for an intelligence organization to try to run down exactly what that means.

Timeliness is a factor, but I guess I would submit that clarity is a big help when it comes to timeliness.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Mr. Rochon.

[Dominic Rochon]

Yes, I'd echo that. Timeliness can be important. Certainly having a framework that is understood and that provides a better understanding of how information can flow can only improve timeliness. That can only improve the process of information sharing over time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Mr. Roussel.

[Donald Roussel]

For us, timeliness is critical when it comes to a plane, for example, that's moving at 900 kilometres an hour, coming towards us with possibly challenging individuals. Things are moving extremely fast in some domains. In others they're slower, but they're sometimes more complex. I can give the example of some of the immigrant ships that landed in Canada. That was extremely complex. That was in 2010, and it involved pretty well all the agencies. Exchanging information and having domain awareness as rapidly as possible was key to the success of the operation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Mr. Roussel, my question to you then is this. Does SCISA provide your agency with a better framework insofar as timeliness is concerned?

[Donald Roussel]

Yes, definitely.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Thank you very much.

I would like to thank our witnesses for appearing here today. Your insights were very helpful.

Colleagues, we now move to our committee business. If you'll indulge me, we have some decisions that we need to make. It shouldn't be terribly complicated, so let's just get on to that.

We've been sent a letter by the chair of the Liaison Committee, which makes plans—

[Bob Bratina, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Are we in camera?

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

No, we're not. Do you want to be?

[Bob Bratina, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

No.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

I don't think there's anything here that will be terribly....

I received a letter from the chair of the Liaison Committee asking us if we have any committee travel. The subcommittee of liaison makes priorities and recommends them to the Liaison Committee for parliamentary committee travel.

I do not think we have anything. Should I respond? Unless somebody here has some ideas about a potential trip, I don't think we have anything to submit to the Liaison Committee for a request for travel. Does anybody foresee that?

No, so we'll just have our standard request of the standard committee amount for every study that we do.

Depending on the length of time that we're going to move on to PIPEDA, when we do, if we're going to hear from as many witnesses as have been submitted, we may actually have to ask for some more budget. I'm just letting colleagues know that. We should make sure that we have that discussion when we go to frame the length of any future studies that we have.

In terms of meetings, we have 26 meetings remaining until the end of June, excluding the last two sitting weeks of June, because we sometimes don't know when the House will adjourn.

We have witnesses this Thursday and witnesses next Tuesday for SCISA, and we have nothing booked, as you can see, for Thursday, February 9, and all the way through. We need to have some direction. We can continue asking witnesses to come on SCISA, or we can decide to wrap it up, move on with something else, and then provide some time. I'm getting the sense that we're done with SCISA witnesses, at this particular point. Do we want to bring in the ministers to close, or not? Is there no need? I'm sensing no need.

Then may I suggest that on February 9 we spend that day, or at least a portion of that day, giving priorities and instructions to the analysts for the draft report? Is that fine? Very good.

May I then suggest that with regard to Tuesday the 14th, through to the 16th, because we've already adopted a motion to study PIPEDA, I instruct the clerk to start inviting witnesses to testify on the 14th and 16th? That should give the analysts enough time to prepare a draft report.

When will we be able to have consideration of a draft report on SCISA?

[Chloé Forget, Committee Researcher]

Hugues and I discussed it. We thought that maybe we could have more time, and then study the report on March 7, if that is possible, if there's no sense of urgency—

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Is everybody fine with that? If there's no sense of urgency, then I'll instruct the clerk to start inviting witnesses for PIPEDA on February 14, 16, 21, and 23, unless other committee business supersedes. Is that okay?

Then we'll make a decision, post the break, where we come back for the consideration of the draft report, perhaps March 7. Does that satisfy members of the committee?

Mr. Dusseault.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

When would we have the report, the first draft? Is it on March 7 or prior to that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

The first meeting to consider the draft report would be on March 7. We would likely have the draft report in our hands several days before.

Mr. Dusseault.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Do we give instructions to the analysts on the draft report?

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

We're going to do that during part of our time on the ninth.

With regard to the meeting the 7th, which will be our last meeting, we have an issue with the number of people that agencies and departments want to have here. I'll let the clerk explain the issue.

[The Clerk]

As you can see, we have four agencies and departments that have been invited to come in. The total number of people who would be sitting at the table would be 10, and the room is fairly small. That would bring us all the way around....

On the part of foreign affairs, there seems to be quite a few people coming in. May I suggest that we might split the meeting into two panels of two organizations, and then spend an hour with each? That would solve our logistics issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

We do have room for 10 at the table, but it does become quite cumbersome to manage.

I'm sensing from the committee members that we're going to split the meeting.

Mr. Dusseault.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

I'm not opposed to that, but I don't think that the four representatives from the Department of Foreign Affairs will all intervene. It's rather rare, even when there are two, that the two witnesses intervene. They are the ones who proposed these four people. I have no objection to splitting the meeting into two parts.

[The Clerk]

If I may, Mr. Chair, I would add that people from the department's parliamentary affairs sector explained that this affected more than one directorate within the department and that it seemed important to them that four people be able to appear to answer the committee members' questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

I think we have consensus then.

Hugues, if you want to set it up that way so we only have a manageable number of people at the table, that would be great.

Thank you, colleagues.

We have to deal with future studies. We have PIPEDA on the table. We've adopted a motion on privacy and federal political parties as per the motion adopted on October 18. We did actually pass that motion. Do you want to start inviting witnesses for that study, or are we going to just leave that and have PIPEDA as the priority?

Okay, I'm guessing PIPEDA is the priority.

All right. There was good government response to the committee's second report, as per the motion adopted by the committee on October 18. Do we want to, at some point in time, as a committee, review the government's response to our report?

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

We could discuss that on the ninth as well.