Information & Ethics Committee on May 9th, 2022

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Mr. Chair, does that mean then that Mr. Green would move a dilatory motion to adjourn debate on the motion?

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Yes. We would adjourn debate on the motion until such time that we have the text. In the meantime, we go to Mr. Green.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

That's correct.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Are there any objections to that?

We'll go ahead with Mr. Green for two and half minutes. Hopefully, we'll have the itemized pieces for the motion.

Go ahead.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to be clear. When we talk about the use of IntelCenter, we had the collection of a database, or at least access to a database, of 700,000 images of what this company called “terrorists”. Who they were, how they were determined to be terrorists and the accuracy of the company's information was basically impossible to assess.

The RCMP didn't reveal why or how they used this system. We've heard earlier testimony, Mr. Chair, that it stopped, and quite rightly so.

My question through you to Mr. Sage is this: Does that information remain within the intelligence files of the RCMP or other security agencies? We know much of this information is shared through systems like CPIC.

[C/Supt Gordon Sage]

We would have to follow up on the answer and provide the information for you, because I do not know.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I want to state for the record, before Mr. Sage is relieved of his very unfortunate duty of being before us here today, that the original person who was suppose to be here, his supervising director, was not here.

I want to be clear for the record. Mr. Sage, I'm going to put this question to you one last time: Are you familiar with Marie-Claude Arsenault? Is that the retired person who is your predecessor, yes or no?

[C/Supt Gordon Sage]

Yes, it is.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I just want to state for the record, Mr. Sage, that it is my perspective that you afforded your predecessor more consideration in their right not to be named in a situation that is really public information in a public forum than the billions of people who have had their images compiled and analyzed by this AI technology.

I want to also acknowledge while we're here that the interim director was Dr. Roberta Sinclair. Is it correct that she was the acting director general?

[C/Supt Gordon Sage]

Yes, she was.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Again, Mr. Sage, noting that you are new to this, I'm to understand that you weren't in this department prior to this. You were somewhere in Alberta. I respect that. I'm not going to double down on you.

The challenge we have in providing this type of new technology to our security frameworks, our intelligence agencies and our police is that there's very little oversight and willingness to share basic information and to have that duty of candour.

Mr. Chair, I'll leave that comment there because I don't want Mr. Sage, who was unfortunately put on the hot seat today, to leave here thinking that this was by any means personal. It was not. The person who he reported to who was here last time....

We've heard from my good colleague, Mr. Bezan, that we will be duly putting a motion. I'll just do it right now, Mr. Chair. I move to have the commissioner, Brenda Lucki, appear before this committee for the purpose of getting answers.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Your motion is also in order. It's straightforward. I hope we don't have to wait to have that translated in writing.

You have moved to call Commissioner Brenda Lucki. Is there any debate?

Go ahead, Ms. Khalid.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Chair, if it's okay, I would appreciate if we could deal with both of these motions after we've gone through our rounds that we've committed to.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

In other words, you're asking for a suspension of debate on Mr. Green's motion to allow time for one more round of questions.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

If I've calculated it properly, I believe we just have two more questioners, which is about 10 minutes total.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

No, we would have 15 minutes, with five, five, two and half, and then two and half.

Bells are likely to go in about 20 minutes. Time allocation has been moved in the chamber, but it appears that we are just beginning the 30-minute debate period on that. We might not even have bells. I don't know. We'll see.

We're getting a little bit irregular here. I would be happy if there's unanimous consent to proceed that way. We can do another round of questions and then deal with both motions.

Mr. Kurek, go ahead quickly, please.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would suggest that we move to debate the motions. If they can be disposed of quickly, then we can complete—

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Fair enough. However, we were going to wait, and we had suspended debate on Monsieur Garon's motion pending a distribution of it in writing, which of course must be in both official languages.

Is that...?

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

He moved it and it was in order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

I understand that, but we then agreed unanimously to suspend debate on it, and a vote on it, until we had it in writing.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mine's basic. Let's continue on that one, and by the time that happens—

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

If there's no objection....

Go ahead, Monsieur Garon.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Actually, Mr. Chair, we agreed to finish the round of questions that was already in progress, so that the motion could be written and translated. It's a matter of minutes. We could debate the NDP motion and then debate our motion. I think the timing would be appropriate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Okay. If there's unanimous consent, we'll proceed directly to debate on Mr. Green's motion, which is to call Commissioner Lucki to appear at committee.

Is there debate?

Go ahead, Ms. Khalid.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

I just want to seek some clarification as to how that would impact the motion we passed last week on having the three extra meetings.