Finance Committee on April 23rd, 2015

[Garry W.G. Clement]

When we started the integrated proceeds of crime initiative, we started out contracting accountants. We brought those individuals with the right expertise to the table to help us out. In these cases, because of their complexity—and I still get involved in white-collar crime investigations today—I rely on legal counsel. I rely on accountants. Why aren't we doing this in law enforcement? You can't hire or train somebody...whereas I can go out and immediately bring in somebody with accounting skills to be a value-add. The reason we are in constant training mode is that we are trying to build that up.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay, I appreciate that very much.

Mr. Dubourg, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Emmanuel Dubourg, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. McGuire, my question is for you.

In recent years, the Canada Revenue Agency has undertaken somewhat of a witch hunt against charitable organizations. According to Library of Parliament notes, the CRA revoked the registration of 1,612 charities in 2013-14.

You mentioned the CRA team responsible for audits. Were those registrations revoked because of terrorism, or simply because the charities in question engaged in political activities that conflicted with government views and practices?

[Matthew McGuire]

Well, I do think the terrorist financing directorate of the charities division has a good and useful mandate and one they've carried out well to counter terrorism. They've contributed internationally to studies on the subject.

Whether or not all the charities—I think you said 1,600—were related to terrorism, I can't say.

[Emmanuel Dubourg, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

You acknowledge that it is possible for charities to funnel money to terrorist organisations.

[Matthew McGuire]

I'd say without question they are.

[Emmanuel Dubourg, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I'm going to come back to Ms. Vonn.

Ms. Vonn, like us, you consider the privacy of Canadians to be extremely important. That's obvious, and your position on Bill C-51 is very clear. I'd like to know whether you would be favourable to the idea of Parliament overseeing CSIS and other organizations subject to the bill, such as FINTRAC?

[Micheal Vonn]

I do absolutely.

We're very much in favour of review and oversight. We bang that gong consistently. We support the recommendations of the Arar inquiry. We are disappointed that Bill C-51 did not include those recommendations. It's the obvious time for them, since we are expanding the powers. We also suggest that the legislation itself is not going to be remedied merely by oversight, but we of course support it.

[Emmanuel Dubourg, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Very good. Thank you.

Mr. Clement, do you agree?

[Garry W.G. Clement]

As I said, I see nothing wrong with oversight. I believe it's beneficial to everybody, as long as we don't create a bureaucracy. Let's make sure it's a process that's done effectively and efficiently. I think there's good cause for oversight.

We're in a new area, based on criminal activity or terrorist activity that none of us ever wanted to confront, so I think the timing is appropriate.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

Mr. Van Kesteren, go ahead, please, for your final round.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

I was looking for an opportunity to maybe wrap up some of my thoughts.

Mr. Rafiq, I appreciate what you were saying. The discourse started that this is not an unusual phenomenon, that this is something that transcends society in different areas. I beg to differ. I say that because if we begin to institute measures to de-radicalize.... I think we'd all agree that what's taking place in Islam today in that radicalization is something that we must guard against. I would suggest we put in measures do that, and I would hope you'd do the same thing in Britain.

We don't provide jobs. That's a mistake. We lay the groundwork in which economies can flourish, so that people can find meaningful employment. We offer good education.

I'm a bit of a libertarian myself. Ms. Vonn might like to hear this. I would argue that the government is doing those things and does those things very well. However—and this is the danger I see in what you're suggesting—if we begin to institutionalize some format to have people thinking in a certain way, I'm afraid Ms. Vonn might say, and I would certainly stand up and say, “I don't know about this”.

I'm a bit of a farmer. I like doing things the natural way, and maybe the government will at some point challenge those beliefs. I think we really need to focus in on a certain area.

Can you comment quickly? I'm going to ask Mr. Clement about some more terrorist funding after that.

[Haras Rafiq]

There are two things there. First of all let me shatter some misnomers. In the U.K. 47% of all the people who have been convicted for Islamist terrorism had a university education, and six of them were presidents of U.K. Islamic societies in the universities. Nearly 49% of the people who were convicted for Islamist terrorism in the U.K. had white-collar jobs and were integrated into society. So they had good jobs and a good education. That is not something that prevents people from becoming radicalized. There are always other grievances and other issues that radicalizers will use.

The other point's about thinking a certain way and de-radicalization. I would hope that any country that has a liberal, secular democracy would have a problem and want to de-radicalize people who, in an Islamic state or even in Canada or somewhere else, believe that anybody who changes their faith from Islam to something else should be killed. I would hope that they would actually try to do something about that either here or abroad. Also, anybody who believes that certain harm should be imposed on others should undergo some form of rehabilitation. I would hope and believe that these people would get the support they need, from an ideological perspective, to bring them back to some sort of normality.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Thank you. We're running out of time. I wish we could spend a little more time.

Mr. Clement, you mentioned the bike gangs. Is there some collusion between the bike gangs and terrorists? Is that starting to happen as well just for the money? We're talking about big dollars here.

[Garry W.G. Clement]

Not working in that world right now and not having that high-level intelligence available, I can only say that the drug trade is alive and well. Afghan heroin is flowing over here. Somebody is putting it out, and in a lot of our communities, as you well know, organized crime groups like the Hells Angels exert a lot of control.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

I would love to engage more but we're going to run out of time.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

On behalf of the entire committee, I want to thank all the witnesses for being here and for an outstanding discussion both here in Ottawa and in the U.K.

Thank you so much for joining us from London, Mr. Rafiq. We appreciate that very much. If you have anything further to submit to the committee, please do so and we'll ensure all the members get it.

Colleagues, just very briefly before we adjourn, can I get someone to move the budget you all have?

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I so move.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

So moved; all in favour?

(Motion agreed to)

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

I notice that the cost of a video conference is about the same as bringing somebody in from Winnipeg. Is it really that expensive to do a video conference?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Do you mean a video conference outside of Canada?

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Yes. Is that for the teleconference services?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

That's for all the services dealing with video conferences, as I understand it.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

And that's $1,200 for each one? That sounds like a lot.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

The $1,200 is the unit price.