Evidence of meeting #26 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was sanctions.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Marc Miller Liberal Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC
When the threat exists, obviously this has to be done in a somewhat confidential situation to prevent the person from moving the money, in a very fluid transactional world, out of the country, or in some other fashion of obscuring the asset, in an effort to avoid detection and freezing, I guess. If there's a frustration related to the time period, that's a real hole in the implementation of the legislation, in my mind.
Supt Steve Nordstrum
I wouldn't describe it as anything to do with the legislation. I would just say that these types of realities are what we face every day in trying to be timely in our enforcement actions.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bob Nault
Thank you very much.
Madame Laverdière has a short question, and then I have a short one before we wrap it up.
NDP
Hélène Laverdière NDP Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Nordstrum, you mentioned a number of times that investigations are conducted based on an order of priority, which is normal. We understand that very well. That said, I was wondering how priorities were determined.
Since there has been only one prosecution in 25 years, does it mean that prosecutions under the Special Economic Measures Act are not considered priorities?
Supt Steve Nordstrum
Merci, Madame.
The prioritization process I described in my opening remarks really is based upon a totality of the facts. Our office of information management assesses all of the facts and assigns ratings pursuant to a benchmark of definitions. When the standing committee that I referenced sits to meet, prior to that meeting we're provided with the operational plan itself and a scoring matrix that we can look at. We can read it, we can put our minds to what all is entailed in that investigation, and then determine whether it's a tier 1, tier 2, or tier 3 investigation.
Over the past year and a half, in my current role, my experience is that the highest-priority files are Anti-terrorism Act investigations. They really are about potentially saving lives and getting to people who could perpetrate acts that will make the front page of the news. That is our job, and that's why we take it very seriously. That's not to say that SEMA or the other acts do not have a role to play, but as the other member said earlier, it could potentially be in the disruption, which is part of our mandate as well, to prevent crime, that the answer lies, rather than the prosecution.
In summary, I think the prioritization of files, the way it is right now, works, and we're getting our resources allocated to the right files.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bob Nault
I want to thank Superintendent Nordstrum, Sergeant Hart, and Madam Ring for a very good presentation.
I will remind the committee that we'll be inviting the Canadian Bankers Association to make a presentation to our committee. We'll be inviting the border customs folks to come and talk to us a bit about the whole issue of prevention vis-à-vis permits and how that works through the Special Economic Measures Act.
I just want to make the comment that it's the beginning of a very important and complex file. This legislation has many components to it. I want to thank the witnesses for doing their very best to lay it all out for us from a legal perspective, both financially and through the RCMP. On behalf of the committee, I want to thank you for that. We do understand the sensitivity of discussing ongoing investigations. I'm sure the committee is aware that we will confront that pretty much all through this process as we work our way through it. I want to encourage everyone to keep that in mind.
Again, on behalf of the committee, thank you very much.
I will see the committee back here on Wednesday.
The meeting is adjourned.