Information & Ethics Committee on Feb. 7th, 2017

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Thank you, everybody, for being here today, and thank you for waiting for us to finish our votes.

Mr. Linder, I do just want to give you an opportunity to perhaps expand or clarify one of the comments you made with respect to your department. You said in your brief:

IRCC is also responsible for conducting revocations of citizenship if a person has obtained citizenship by false representation or fraud with respect to facts which may render persons inadmissible to Canada on grounds of security.

I imagine that is no matter how naive or innocent the case may be. Would you mind expanding and perhaps clarifying some of those comments for us?

[Glen Linder]

With regard to citizenship revocation, essentially citizenship can be revoked if we have evidence that the person made a false or misleading statement, or committed fraud with respect to an element regarding admissibility. A ground for admissibility, for example, would be whether a person is a threat to the security of Canada. So if we later determined that there had been fraud, that the person had covered up membership in a terrorist organization at the time he or she applied for citizenship, we would be able to go through a process that would essentially allow us to revoke citizenship if we could determine fraud had been committed or misrepresentation with respect to what was told us at the time of application for citizenship.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Would something as simple as putting a different country as where they are from fall under that?

[Glen Linder]

No, not necessarily. It would have to be a grounds of inadmissibility that's listed under the act. It's usually regarding security, criminality, or public health, so a simple misrepresentation is not necessarily grounds for inadmissibility in itself.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

That would certainly be concerning, I would think as a Canadian generally, but it's fair enough, if that's your department's position.

For the rest of the table, there is a very heated debate surrounding the creation of SCISA. Many were concerned that the new information-sharing powers provided to our intelligence organizations were too broad and were not sufficiently accompanied by appropriate oversight mechanisms.

Could we get everybody to comment? Since SCISA has come into force have you seen any abuse of the new information-sharing powers, or misuse of them?

We'll start with Mr. Drake and go in order of the speakers.

[David Drake]

Thank you.

The answer is no. We certainly have not seen any kind of misuse of this. I would also point out that, of course, as I made clear in my statement, we deal with these issues with great attention to detail according to the law and individual agreements we have set up with other organizations. The answer is clearly no.

Thank you.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

To the second speaker, I forget who you are.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

It's Mr. Linder.

[Glen Linder]

I'm sorry. I'm going to ask you to quickly repeat the question.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

That's all right. Since SCISA has come into force, have you seen an abuse of the new information-sharing powers or a misuse of them?

[Glen Linder]

No, we have not.

[Gérald Cossette]

It's the same thing with FINTRAC. We haven't received or disclosed anything under SCISA.

[Terry Jamieson]

For CNSC, likewise, we have not received or disclosed and we've seen no misuse.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Again, we'll go in the same order.

Do you think this legislation helps our national security organizations do their jobs more effectively?

[David Drake]

I think, from our perspective, there is no question that it helps. It provides an additional tool. As I mentioned, it provides a general context in which to address these things positively, so I think it definitely helps us in our day-to-day practice, although we do not use it for absolutely all instances.

Victoria, do you want to comment on that?

[Victoria Fuller]

My only comment is that one of the benefits is that it allows for greater coordination across government departments, because more departments have more relevant information available in order to make decisions.

[Glen Linder]

I would agree with my colleagues from Global Affairs. As I said before, we do see it as helpful. We do see it as creating this dedicated service channel for national security information to be discussed and exchanged among relevant experts who have the appropriate security classification.

[Gérald Cossette]

From our standpoint, the legislation hasn't had any impact on our operation, positive or negative.

[Terry Jamieson]

Again, there has been no impact on either our mandate or our operations. But in terms of commentary, we would view SCISA as being a very efficient, effective, and consistent framework to facilitate information sharing across a broad range of government entities.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Perfect.

Under the Five Eyes alliance, we see information-sharing models of other countries. I'm curious as to whether anybody around the table has any experience with what those information-sharing models might be, and whether perhaps there are benefits we could obtain here in Canada to use. Does anybody have any experience with the Five Eyes?

[David Drake]

Thank you. I think this probably would be best addressed to CSIS.

Under SCISA, we don't share with the Five Eyes. My own level of contact with the Five Eyes is not specific enough to really be able to honestly respond to your question.

[Gérald Cossette]

It may not pertain specifically to SCISA, but when it comes to FINTRAC, in fact, we were created to prevent law enforcement agencies from accessing directly the information of Canadians without a warrant or a production order.

If you compare us, for instance, to other organizations or colleagues abroad, lots of organizations do receive the information, structure it, and leave it in their database, and then the database is accessible to all law enforcement agencies of that country. We do not do that in Canada. Basically, our responsibility is to make sure that the information that is disclosed responds directly to the mandate that was given to us by Parliament, so from that standpoint our regime is much more rigorous than what you will see elsewhere.

[The Chair, Conservative, Blaine Calkins]

Your time is up.

We'll now move to Mr. Blaikie for seven minutes.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much.

I'm going to ask a question that is similar to my colleague's, but I think also different. I apologize if I am being repetitive.

I know we heard from Mr. Cossette and Mr. Jamieson that they haven't used SCISA. I'm wondering if Mr. Linder or Mr. Drake has received or disclosed information under SCISA, and, if so, how many disclosures or receipts have occurred under SCISA.

[David Drake]

With your permission, Mr. Chair, I'm going to ask my colleague Victoria Fuller, from the consular area, who is a specialist in this area, to respond. Thanks.