Evidence of meeting #130 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was tools.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Ambassador (retired), As an Individual
I'm aware of cases where we have brought witnesses in complex criminal investigations in transnational organized crime scenarios to Canada.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
The process to do that right now would probably not happen within two weeks, would it?
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
You can see the importance of legislation in this scenario to give flexibility, because time is of the essence. Would you not agree?
Ambassador (retired), As an Individual
Yes. The problem is that you need to know your customer. I think Ms. Symons has already alerted us to that fact. We might end up financing a terrorist organization by supporting an individual who is—
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Whoa. Let's take a step back, because it was very clear in the testimony we had last week from Ms. Lantsman that this would not go to terrorist organizations. This is like Crime Stoppers. This is going to the whistle-blower. This is going to the person aiding us. No terrorist organization is going to do that.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
For us to cross-reference it to that type of thing I think is unfair.
Mr. Rafiq, you were shaking your head. How do you see this working out, in your opinion?
Haras Rafiq Director, Secure Canada
Thank you to the committee for inviting me here.
I want to say this with as much humility as possible. I want to say this as one of the world's top 10 experts recognized in counterterrorism in the western world. I want to say this as the author of the countering violent extremism strategy that the U.S. has adopted, originally the PVE strategy in the U.K. I want to say this as an adviser to four and a half British prime ministers. I say “half” because one of them didn't last very long—bipartisan. I want to say this as the former adviser to the head of counterterrorism in Europol, Gilles de Kerchove. I want to say this as somebody who was not directly involved in Mr. Fowler's case, although he was in my orbit and my team's orbit. If my team and I—and I've been doing this for over 20 years now on the ground and in policy—had had these tools, we'd have saved more lives and would have been able to disrupt potential terrorist financing in the U.K. We would have been able to not only save lives but be proactive.
It doesn't mean that every single tool in the tool kit would have been used for every single case. That's why I was shaking my head.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
That's why I come back to this: It's up to the person who's making decisions at that point in time to decide which tool to use on that occasion.
Conservative
Liberal
Liberal
Omar Alghabra Liberal Mississauga Centre, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I want to once again thank the witnesses. It's been a really interesting conversation.
I want to direct my questions to Ms. Nölke and build on what MP Epp asked about—the political pressure. His point is that maybe once the debate on this bill dies down, it will no longer become a political football.
I respectfully disagree, because if I had a family member or a loved one who found themselves in a difficult situation, the first thing I would demand would be that my government apply these tools. Regardless of my ability to understand the complexity of the situation, I am emotionally invested, and I want the government to quickly use tools and impose sanctions, even though it may not be advisable in the situation.
Ms. Nölke, can you comment on that?
Ambassador (retired), As an Individual
Mr. Alghabra, you've said exactly what I wanted to say. Having the visible availability of these sanctions will increase the pressure to use them. We've seen that in other contexts, where there's been pressure to impose sanctions in particular situations and they've been pretty ineffective. It's one of those tools that can be politically useful, but practically not so much.
Liberal
Omar Alghabra Liberal Mississauga Centre, ON
The other part of the unreasonable expectation is that every Canadian family member who has a loved one in arbitrary detention now, whether it fits into “arbitrary detention in state-to-state relations” or it doesn't, still feels that the government must apply these tools immediately. You can imagine, whether the law is explicit or not, the expectation, which is sometimes unreasonable, that those family members, those Canadian citizens, will have that the government enact these tools immediately, in a potentially counterproductive way.
Ambassador (retired), As an Individual
I would agree with that assessment, yes.
Liberal
Omar Alghabra Liberal Mississauga Centre, ON
If there's an agreement that government has these tools already on the books but they're not explicitly put the way this bill does, then why do we need this bill? The only thing this bill does is increase expectations, unreasonable expectations, which could perhaps cause more heartache to family members who feel that the government is not using all the tools that are necessary, even though the government is and is being guided by the intelligence and information it has.
I think this bill might end up, instead of solving a problem, causing additional heartache for Canadians who have loved ones in a very difficult situation.
Ambassador (retired), As an Individual
That's why in my conclusion I said the answer is probably not a legislative one. The answer to strengthening our ability to respond to these incidents will be operational and resource-based. We need to break down silos that exist between departments and we need to streamline our response capability.
Ms. Symons's suggestion that we have a dedicated official who does nothing but deal with hostage cases is an absolutely valid one and I very strongly support it. Operational and resource-based responses would be better than legislative ones.
Liberal
Bloc
Stéphane Bergeron Bloc Montarville, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Saperia, I gather that your organization is firmly committed to fighting terrorism. You gave the example of a prisoner exchange that resulted in the release of three Iranians convicted of terrorism.
If I understood correctly, you applauded that prisoner exchange.
Doesn't that go against your organization's philosophy, which I assume is to take as many terrorists as possible off the streets?
Chief Executive Officer, Secure Canada
The reference I made was to Kylie Moore-Gilbert, an Australian who was released following that trade. What she was saying is that Australia did not have this kind of bill and she wished those tools had been available in Australia. What ultimately ended up happening to lead to her release was the exchange of three convicted terrorists. Her point was that she wished Australia had had the legislative tools that are being proposed in Bill C-353.
From my perspective, there is a significant difference between money going to the organizers of hostage-taking as a ransom and money going to peel off a bad guy who can be wooed and incentivized to walk away from his terrorist activity to start a new life. The incentivization could also go toward—of course, I'm being facetious here—the janitor who's not involved but might have intimate information of the case that might secure the release of a human being.
To my mind, it is worth exploring every possible tool. None of this is mandatory. This is discretionary.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ali Ehsassi
Thank you, Ms. Saperia.
For our last questions, we'll go to MP McPherson.
You have two minutes.