Finance Committee on April 23rd, 2015

[Garry W.G. Clement]

I totally agree with what the deputy commissioner said. Mike and I used to work together, so I know him very well. I know we bandied this about in my previous life with him.

I think part of the problem is that we should have seen some of this terrorist fallout coming. I think with a little bit of foresight and strategic planning, we may not have become caught as we did.

I was the senior officer on the Arar inquiry, and I am greatly concerned about this moving of resources as we're right back into the same situation Justice O'Connor commented on. Where is the level of expertise when you're dealing with this? It doesn't happen overnight. Those things are troubling.

As far as throwing more resources at it goes, again, I suggest that's great in theory. Where are we going to get those resources? Maybe this is where there has to be a more concerted effort to look at public-private partnerships and bringing in resources. Bringing a police officer up to a standard doesn't happen overnight.

I'll make one last comment. I lived through the regime of fenced funds in the integrated proceeds of crime. I think the value of that for you and for the public was that we were required to report back annually to Parliament. We had to show the efficiencies and the effectiveness. That is gone, and we're back to wondering about the development of expertise.

Just so you have a clear understanding of why I think rank is such an impediment, you have to understand that in order to get a raise in salary you need to be promoted. What ends up happening is that you invest a substantial amount of money in building up expertise. When a position opens up in another section for which the person is more than amply qualified, they're going to take it, and you can't fault them, because that's the only way we have. I did a study under Phil Murray. I believe skill-based pay is something that has to come in for white-collar crime.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Rafiq, you told us not to repeat the same mistakes the U.K. had made.

Right now, Canada is facing a serious problem. All aspects of basic research have been cast aside, and that includes social sciences and humanities research. I have here a Globe and Mail article about a group in British Columbia that studies issues related to terrorism, security and society and does research on radicalization. According to the article, the group's federal funding has been cut. That's just one example among many.

Did you experience that problem in the U.K.? Did you fix it? How did the government fix that mistake? How was the government able to address that research gap?

[Haras Rafiq]

If you look at the way the U.K. government has tackled this problem, it has made some mistakes. Post-2005 and the terrorist attacks in London, we developed a strategy that was called preventing violent extremism.

The governments at the time decided they would initially centralize and provide in the region of £80 million to £90 million and then focus that money locally through local councils and local governments to try to get people to work locally, and to empower a number of organizations to do the research locally and on a national level as well.

In 2010 when the last coalition government was formed, there was a review of that strategy, and it had changed from “preventing violent extremism” to “prevent”. That was to undertake a global, holistic approach to the way we tackle this problem, de-radicalize not just the violent side, when it becomes much more difficult to try to de-radicalize somebody, but to try to prevent somebody from becoming radicalized.

Unfortunately in 2010 and 2011, following a global economic crisis, the British coalition government decided to considerably cut the amount of funds they were going to provide in this area, all the way down from £80 million or £90 million a year to £1.7 million last year. That was a significant decrease, and many organizations had their funding cut.

Many organizations were in desperate need and looked for alterative ways of surviving. Some of the organizations went to countries in the Middle East and then eventually ended up buying into their philosophy and so actually became part of the problem and not necessarily part of the solution.

One thing we've had recently, since the development of ISIL and the foreign fighters who are going down to join ISIL and al Qaeda in Iraq and Syria, is the re-emergence of the belief that governments need to do more. Just before Parliament was dissolved, we had an instruction by our Home Secretary to increase the amount of funding and to increase the size of the “prevent” bureaucracy.

Herein still lies the mistake. They're still trying to increase the bureaucracy and keep everything in-house rather than going out to the community, and that is a serious mistake.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Van Kesteren, please, take your round.

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

Thank you all for being here.

I missed the week prior to our break, but I would say that on a personal basis, I find this the most fascinating discussion we've had yet, because we're really getting into the meat of the matter. I don't know where to begin.

Mr. Rafiq, I think you were honest in your evaluation toward the end. The danger of throwing money at a problem is, of course, that we build bureaucracies. Then, rather than treating the problem, we've created this whole structure that now demands to be fed, and that certainly doesn't help.

I don't have enough time, and I think we'd need hours to talk about this, but it would be interesting to hear your thoughts about how we should proceed. I don't want to be cutting, but I suppose you would probably argue that you haven't had enough time to prove that that would be the solution, but how has that worked for you?

The problem is we live in a free society where, as you so eloquently stated and I think it was stated as well by some of the other members, these people are able to just move amongst us. It's so difficult. We don't live in a society like China's in which people get caught, have a quick trial, and join the firing squad in the stadium on Saturday. This is a free society and we value those things.

Ms. Vonn, I think you put that out as well.

I'm going to get to my question, but I just need to get this out, because I know, having worked in this committee and in the ethics committee, that so often we heard from law enforcement that they need tools.

Mr. Clement, I have sons in the law enforcement profession, and we repeatedly hear that they need tools, and the tools they're specifically asking for are the tools we will provide in Bill C-51.

On the other hand, we have the civil liberty groups saying that we're going to impede on people's rights. This is a real problem. I think we recognize it's a real problem.

I'm just going to share something with you very quickly about police officers, and you know this as well. The rank and file, the majority of police officers, are not able to do this work because first of all, they're not trained, and, second, there are so many regulations and so many oversights that impede their work. So this is a real problem. This is something that is not easily remedied.

I have one last point and then I'll get to my question. We know that these groups go to certain areas. I've heard that from police enforcement as well. They will target areas around jails. They'll live in those areas. Even if we were to apply some approach to engaging our population, our young people, these groups know who to target.

I think this has been asked before and I'm going to ask anybody to jump in. Where do we find the balance between what civil liberty groups are asking for and the tools that police enforcement agencies have insisted on for years and years and years?

I'll start with you, Mr. Clement.

[Garry W.G. Clement]

I come at this having lived through two inquiries. It was great, because at that point everybody was playing armchair quarterback, and we had that luxury at the time. But I've had, obviously, years to think about this.

When I've looked through it, and I think this is what police officers today need, the reality is that if I'm given a choice of possibly making a mistake, and maybe not being 100% accurate here about this individual and having to answer a day later as to why I didn't take action and a number of people were killed, I'm going to opt for.... And I'm sorry if that offends this individual, but we're dealing in a human business.

You are never going to have 100% accurate information and the sad part of it is I can suggest to you that when the new inquiry comes out, this committee is going to be pleasantly surprised, because we are now going to be able to use the information we were prevented from using by our American authorities in the Arar inquiry.

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

Will Bill C-51 empower you to do those things?

[Haras Rafiq]

Yes, absolutely.

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

We heard from the police. We'll ask for the civil liberties group, and then I want to hear about the social aspects of that. What is the solution? Maybe we could go ahead and take a minute.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Take another minute each, please.

[Micheal Vonn]

I hate to sound like a broken record here, but the more extraordinary the powers, the more the legislation needs to be narrowly tailored, and the more we need effective oversight and review. We have waited since the Arar inquiry for that integrated review process. We are integrating the mandates of a number of different agencies in terms of their national security oversight, and we have no integrated oversight and review accountability mechanisms. Those have to be central.

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

Bill C-51 is the right tool. We need the oversight.

[Micheal Vonn]

I am sorry, but we don't support Bill C-51 as the right tool. I just want to make our perspective is clear.

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

Mr. Rafiq, go ahead.

[Haras Rafiq]

For me it's very clear. if somebody is about to break the law, if somebody is preparing to break the law and commit a crime, that comes under “protect” and not under “prevent”. That should be the police's responsibility. The police should get involved in protecting our communities and, if somebody has committed a crime, pursuing the criminals and ensuring that they face the due diligence.

When it comes to prevention, when it comes to people who are sympathizers and empathizers, we need effective programs of de-radicalization. We have them in the U.K. If somebody doesn't meet the thresholds for de-radicalization, we need processes of rehabilitation. These could be just young kids who are nine years old who are looking at videos and thinking they are very cool. They just need some critical thinking and some effective interventions.

Then we come to the wider part, which is societal. This must not come from the police at all. What we need to do as a society is to make Islamism.... President Obama made a speech which I thought was [Technical Difficulty—Editor], but he missed the point. He said that an extremist ideology is at play, but then he didn't name the ideology. What happened then? Other people—the far right, the far left, and everybody else—started naming the ideology, and people started thinking it was Islam per se.

We must be very clear on what it is we don't stand for as a society. We don't stand for totalitarian or fascist ideologies, and we know what to do against them. Islamism needs to be just as unpopular as Fascism and Communism have been. We need to educate and empower our civic society in schools and everywhere else to take that struggle forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I am sorry, you are out of time, Mr. Van Kesteren. You might try to come back to that.

Mr. Cullen, go ahead for your round, please.

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

Mr. Rafiq, in your testimony you said that while there has been a shift, there are still countries, nation-states, that spend money on radicalization. Is that correct?

[Haras Rafiq]

Absolutely, there are still countries that are supporting extremist and terrorist organizations around the world.

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

Let's talk specifics. Who are the leading candidates right now? Who is spending the most? Who is most involved? Can you give us just a short list, because I imagine there might even be a long list.

[Haras Rafiq]

My area of expertise is Islamist radicalization and Islamist terrorism. Certainly at the top of the list would be Qatar. Either directly—not so much as before, because of pressure from coalition partners, especially the U.S.A.—or through private individuals, Qatar is still funding both terrorist entities in places such as Mali and elsewhere and Islamist organizations in places such as Canada, the rest of North America, and the U.K. They would be very much at the top of the list.

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

Rather than a long explanation for each country, perhaps you can give us some of the other ones. I am thinking Iran, Saudi Arabia,...

[Haras Rafiq]

We have Iran and we have individuals in Saudi Arabia. We have some individuals in Kuwait, and mainly Middle Eastern countries. The two countries that I would say are not as bad as the others are certainly the United Arab Emirates and perhaps, in a fashion, Jordan. Actually, Jordan isn't as bad now as a country, but I would say all of the others are certainly playing their role.

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

This becomes, as we have said many times on all sides here, quite complex. We work in partnership on other issues with some of the countries you listed. Are we doing enough with countries like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, to whom we just sold some armaments from Canada? Kuwait we often use as a staging place for our planes. Are we doing enough to pressure those countries that we call allies one day and that are yet supporting the terrorists we are fighting on that very same day?

[Haras Rafiq]

No, I think we are not. I think we need to put more pressure on them. I think we need to exercise whatever tools we have at our disposal to actually make sure that they desist in this direct or indirect support for either Islamist or terrorist organizations around the world.

In many cases, some of these countries are fighting proxy wars. In the Middle East, for a number of years now, we've basically had a sectarian war taking place, where various countries have supported their version or their sect, and this has had an impact on the rest of us around the world. The real struggle, the real battle, is for the very soul of Islam in the Middle East.

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

Ms. Vonn, I apologize for missing your official presentation.

One of the concerns and questions we have is that as we see Bill C-51 being presented as an option, too broad a net is being cast. Essentially adding more hay onto the pile doesn't make the needle easier to find. I'd like Mr. Clement's comment on this as well

Mr. Christensen, we've heard from some of the financial institutions that collecting metadata doesn't necessarily always lead to what we want, which is more security, especially if you're storing it all and not cleaning it. You start to capture more and more people without increasing the security and safety of Canadians.

One key concern we've had is around the definition of terrorism. If that then broadens out, and if our ultimate goal is a safer and more secure society, how does the definition weigh into concerns about what comes next under the auspices of protecting us from terrorism, if we're now defining terrorist activity so broadly as to include anything that might oppose government policy or the collection of opposition to Canadian sentiment?