Evidence of meeting #76 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was need.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
Thanks to our witnesses for being here today. My first question is for Ms. Vonn.
Ms. Vonn, in your opening statement you encouraged us to undertake a study on terrorist financing. Is that not what we're doing right now?
9:20 a.m.
Policy Director, British Columbia Civil Liberties Association
At the moment I thought we were debating a resolution as to whether the committee was going to undertake a study.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
9:20 a.m.
Policy Director, British Columbia Civil Liberties Association
I see. Well, then I suppose speaking to witnesses is an important first step. We have had witnesses present to committees before, but we're calling for the kind of evidence that would give the committee some basis to understand the efficacy of FINTRAC.
Other committees that have looked at this—and I'm looking at the Senate committee 2013 report in particular—have said that this evidence is simply lacking. So the creation of that evidence would be important for this committee and others in order to address what FINTRAC should be doing in terms of its mandate and resources.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
You alluded to the fact that the taking of information is too onerous or too great, but surely you agree that the government's responsibility is to protect its citizens.
9:20 a.m.
Policy Director, British Columbia Civil Liberties Association
Of course, so what we must do is get the information that is required. Over-collection of the information is what has been constantly cited in the OPC audits.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
So you have no problem with collecting information. You just think too much information is being collected.
9:20 a.m.
Policy Director, British Columbia Civil Liberties Association
That is the evidence of the audits to date.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
Thank you very much.
My next question is for Mr. Rafiq.
Mr. Rafiq, what new methods are terrorists using to recruit young people?
9:20 a.m.
Quilliam Foundation, As an Individual
Typically we look at the Afghanistan so-called jihad. We saw that the typical age of people going out to join that jihad was between 25 and 35. We're now finding within the western world—this is in North America, Europe, and Australasia—that the age range has come down to between 14 and 25, and approximately 10% of the people who are going out to Iraq and Syria are women. That's something, first of all, that's different, and I can discuss the reasons why. One of the key vehicles of recruitment we're seeing now is the Internet, social media, and online radicalization. As a caveat, I want to say first of all that an individual doesn't go online to buy a handbag or a pair of shoes and end up becoming a terrorist. What happens is that an individual needs to be looking for something, and a charismatic recruiter is what they find, or a charismatic recruiter will find them online and take them down the pathways.
I think the Internet, social media, mobile phones, Twitter accounts, Google, Facebook, etc. are new phenomena that we've seen more recently in terms of recruitment, and I think we are all still playing catch-up.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
Are those charismatic recruiters in other countries, or are they among us?
9:20 a.m.
Quilliam Foundation, As an Individual
Absolutely both. We live in a globalized world. One of the most effective recruiting social media accounts, until it was closed down on Twitter, was called “Shami Witness”. Nobody knew who this person was initially, but he was arrested a few months ago. He was an individual who didn't actually belong to al Qaeda, ISIL, or anybody else. He was a fellow traveller living in India and he was recruiting people and empowering people from North America, U.K., Europe, and around the world. There are also individuals who are living amongst us who will do this online and off-line, but there has to be some sort of individual direct contact, and usually that is with people who are living among us.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
My next question is for Mr. Clement.
Mr. Clement, how often does stopping the flow of money to terrorists actually lead to convictions?
9:25 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Clement Advisory Group
That's a very good question. There have been a number of studies, and the financial action task force, I think, has highlighted that. The one area in which we have been grossly inadequate, and I believe November's upcoming audit of FATF will bear this out again, is the whole enforcement side of financial crime. I think a number of factors have led to this, but if you look at enforcement and prosecution, I think it's important for this committee to understand there's a good case, if you have time, called the Chun and Lech case out of Montreal. I actually testified in that as an expert, starting in 1993. That case just went to conviction last month. This was not terrorist, but it was major organized crime with hundreds of millions of dollars of money laundered back to Cambodia. It took 12 years to get through a process. Think of the resources that are tied up for that. I can tell you that most of the original investigators have been transferred several times to get through this. That's the type of thing that is creating, I would say, the problems in our system.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
9:25 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Clement Advisory Group
I think the first thing we have to do is to make sure we have experienced prosecutors in law enforcement. That expertise will help expedite these matters, because it ensures that the product is professionally done and packaged and the prosecutors have an understanding of how to wind their way through. The process is complicated. I don't think that's happening today. In fact I know it isn't. I've done some work for a very reputable defence counsel, and I've looked at some affidavits filed by RCMP officers as experts, and I can tell you it pains me, because I'm still a very proud ex-member of the RCMP, and I think it is shoddy workmanship. We must have individuals who are highly experienced, and without them we will only continue on the path we're on. This is complicated trade-based financing. Knowledge of all of these factors isn't something you pick up in two months.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
What about the laws themselves, the tools that our law enforcement—
9:25 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Clement Advisory Group
I'll use an analogy that I used one time for former Commissioner Zaccardelli. When I was still in the organization, we often came back to Parliament, as you know, asking for more resources, and I can remember using the same analogy to the commissioner. I asked him if we needed more resources or were we in a constant training mode. I worked for a gentleman by the name of Rod Stamler, who, when we first started the proceeds of crime program far before we got the legislation we have today, said we should test the legislation we have, get it before the courts, get some common-law practices back and get some judges commenting on it so we would know where the gaps were.
I think that's part of the problem we're dealing with today. How many cases have we tested?
That's where the weaknesses are.
9:25 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Thank you, Mr. Saxton.
Mr. Dubourg, go ahead. You have seven minutes.
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
Emmanuel Dubourg Liberal Bourassa, QC
Good morning and thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd also like to say hello to my colleagues around the table, as well as the witnesses joining us today.
My first question is for Ms. Vonn, who talked about FINTRAC and the need for oversight, in her view.
Do you think FINTRAC has too much power? You used the term “over-collection” in relation to personal information. Could you talk about the situations in which peoples' civil liberties could be violated?
9:25 a.m.
Policy Director, British Columbia Civil Liberties Association
Certainly. I take this information from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, which has done audits on FINTRAC and has been extremely concerned about the over-collection and then retention of irrelevant information that is nevertheless highly prejudicial. Keep in mind that these are individuals who have now been flagged as suspicious, as money launderers or terrorist financiers, who are now enshrined, if you will, in databases in FINTRAC that have been subject to increased data sharing.
How this impacts individuals is of course very hard to trace, because as soon as you have national security privilege, which you encounter when you are trying to trace where faulty information that is prejudicial to you goes, you encounter a series of black boxes.
So the point here is that we have to be scrupulous about how we screen and flag people as being at risk, and then we have to be scrupulous about who we share that information with, because of course the prejudiced individual has been highlighted in more commissions than I care to point to. We point to Arar saying that this needs to be overseen in the most rigorous fashion in order to ensure that Canadian safety is not imperilled.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Emmanuel Dubourg Liberal Bourassa, QC
Thank you.
Ms. Vonn, I would assume that you've read Bill C-51 and are aware of the fact that data sharing will increase even more, if just with the Canada Revenue Agency.
Does it concern you that even more organizations will have the power to share information?
9:30 a.m.
Policy Director, British Columbia Civil Liberties Association
We certainly echo the concerns of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada as well as those of a number of organizations. We have our own concerns. The notion that simply sharing information should be the panacea for everything that is wrong has become ubiquitous. It is really incredibly problematic, not only from the perspective of security for innocent Canadians, but also from a security perspective. More hay does not make a situation in which it is any easier to find the needle. We need not more information but important and specific information, and so weeding that out is critical.
Bill C-51 is problematic for so many reasons, including the fact that our colleagues here in the U.K. have said that civic and social engagement is the key to ensuring that we don't have increased recruitment. Yet when we have the provisions in Bill C-51 that say that preventing the glorification of terrorism in general will prevent, as any number of security experts have said, the effective engagement of people predisposed, we have to make sure we're dealing with the unintended consequences of our well-meaning legislation, and I urge the committee to do that.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
Emmanuel Dubourg Liberal Bourassa, QC
Thank you very much.
My next question is for Mr. Clement.
We're talking about data sharing. But, against the current backdrop of globalization, how can we distinguish between legitimate business transactions and money-laundering activities?
9:30 a.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Clement Advisory Group
First of all, it is a difficult question to answer. In reality, I think the more experience you get, the better you become at it. As my colleague Matt has said, we go in and do a lot of reviews of these independent reviews. I have actually gone in, and I think without fail on every one I've done, I've recommended further reporting of suspicious transactions. That only comes from the fact that I've been doing this since 1983.
There is suspicious activity that becomes pretty clear if you look at it. I guess the best example I could give is if I am buying or sending money over to my parents, which occurs a lot, that becomes very easily recognizable. But if I'm an individual and I'm sending money from here and I have five other people at the same address sending money over to that same country, that is suspicious. That's the type of activity you need to look at.