Evidence of meeting #68 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 rcmp.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
You would chair the meeting, and you would assign responsibilities at that meeting.
Director General, Immigration Policy and External Review, Canada Border Services Agency
On the inadmissibility immigration consequences, we would be the lead.
If it has something to do with who is sanctioned or with somebody wanting to get off the sanctions list, that would belong to Global Affairs.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Okay.
Would Global Affairs take the lead in calling a meeting if it's something that involves more than one or two departments, or would it be Public Safety?
Director General, Immigration Policy and External Review, Canada Border Services Agency
With respect to the immigration provisions, we will call the interdepartmental meetings if there's an issue with the administration of the inadmissibility provision. If it's an issue with respect to who is listed or delisted, Global Affairs will. I know from experience that our colleagues at Global Affairs have called interdepartmental meetings when there's an issue with interdepartmental coordination.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Even though they don't necessarily have the responsibility—because nobody does—they take the lead. Is that fair to say?
Director General, Immigration Policy and External Review, Canada Border Services Agency
Yes. I would say it would go to them. They have in the past, I know, when the sanctions were—
Conservative
Director General, Immigration Policy and External Review, Canada Border Services Agency
That's correct.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
My next question is for the RCMP.
You talk about capacity and having enough capacity. We just had auto manufacturers come through here—CBSA might be involved with this—and they were complaining about theft of vehicles in the region going through the port of Montreal, and the CBSA and the RCMP were unable to stop it. If you don't have the capacity to stop something as simple as stolen vehicles being exported out of Canada, how do you have the capacity to take on something more complicated, like what we see in this type of legislation?
C/Supt Richard Burchill
As it pertains to vehicle theft specifically, a lot of the vehicle theft entry into the country or exit out of the country is the mandate of the police of jurisdiction. The RCMP doesn't have a federal mandate with the car theft issue per se, but we do work with our policing partners and use our connections and our multi-jurisdictional international contacts to—
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Here's an example, though. If you don't have a mandate, if you don't have clear lines defining who's responsible, it falls through the cracks. Is that fair to say?
C/Supt Richard Burchill
What I would say is that it's not that we don't have a clear responsibility. Where the RCMP is the police of jurisdiction, we certainly do. What I'm saying is that, as the federal police force, particularly in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, we would work with our police of jurisdiction partners to effect any kind of auto theft investigation—
C/Supt Richard Burchill
—which is separate and apart from a federal policing mandate for sanctions evasion, where we're working with financial crime at a federal level. The resourcing for that particular function would be different. We're not saying that we don't have people to do it.
C/Supt Richard Burchill
We're saying that, as with any organization and being a large policing organization, we have competing priorities within federal policing. We do give sanctions evasion priority.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Don't we have that same issue, then, in regard to items that are on the sanctions list or people shipping items that would be on the sanctions list where you get into jurisdictional issues as to whether it's federal or provincial or whether it's CBSA? How do you resolve who has jurisdiction?
For example, let's say I stole a car and I'm going to ship it to Russia. Who will be the one to prosecute? Who will be the one to stop it? Would it be CBSA? Would it be the RCMP? Or would it be provincial police?
C/Supt Richard Burchill
With respect to the question about who would have jurisdiction, where sanctions evasion is concerned, the RCMP has jurisdiction on those investigations. If we require assistance from the police of jurisdiction, outside of us being the lead on those investigations, we would certainly engage that help, but we do have the mandate for those investigations.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Do you find it awkward or hard when you're not an established unit that's there consistently in regard to sanctions? Is this something that Canada should have in place at all times instead of just when we feel that we need to bring it into a different group? Should we have a sanctions department? I'm not sure what you'd call it. I know you were talking about the financial crimes agency, but that's been announced and never brought forward.
Is there the capacity to actually do this in the long term? For example, if we see aggression coming out of Asia into the Pacific, do we have the ability to actually go into our supply chains and say, okay, these items are all sanctioned? How would we do that? Who would provide that information? Would CSIS provide the information? Would the RCMP provide the information to GAC on whom to target?
Conservative
Supt Denis Beaudoin
Yes, as I said, there's legality behind it. We don't provide any information to Global Affairs as to whom to target or whom to list.
Conservative
Supt Denis Beaudoin
No, I'm not talking about evidence. I'm talking about information for them to decide who gets designated. I think this is a policy decision. This is why the RCMP—
