Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 27th, 2022

[Cherie Henderson]

As I was saying, in any of these situations, if anything comes across our radar that we feel the RCMP or the appropriate police need to be advised of to ensure that they can do the appropriate protection and investigation, we share that. That is a constant, ongoing, back and forth process. There's no one specific date or time. It is something we are constantly working with.

We would never hold or sit on any information that we felt was necessary to ensure that we were protecting the security of Canadians. We go back and forth on a regular basis.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

From what I understand, you speak to each other daily or weekly and there was no one time when you said to yourselves that something was happening. Someone communicated with you, whether it was the Ottawa Police Service, the Parliamentary Protective Service, or even the RCMP. No one said to you that on that day, they were wondering what you knew about the upcoming events.

I am just trying to understand how it is possible to tell people how safe we are. I would really have liked to see the extent to which what you did, whether it was daily or weekly, might have reassured the people watching us. If you have dates to provide us, I would invite you to do so.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Ms. Blaney, you have six minutes.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the folks who are here providing testimony for us.

I will first go through the chair to Ms. Henderson. You said earlier that our threat level—I think I got this right—at this point, today, is at a medium. If that's the case, I'm just wondering if you could tell us what the threat was between January 22 and 29 and then from January 29 until the convoy was removed.

[Cherie Henderson]

From my recollection, the threat level in Canada has remained at medium. Since it became part of the regular process of setting the threat level following the tragic events of 9/11, it has been at medium.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

That's interesting to me. Is there a measurement for internal threats and then a measurement for external threats, or are those two things combined?

[Cherie Henderson]

The national terrorism threat level is set by ITAC, our integrated terrorism assessment centre. They have a very solid methodology that they use. I wouldn't be able to go into specifics and explain it to you. They set the terrorism threat level for the country, but they look at areas around the world as well that may impact us. They may not necessarily, but because we have so many Canadian interests all around the world, they want to make sure Canadians are aware of potential threats outside of the country. We can also engage with Global Affairs Canada, because on their website they list the various threat—

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you. That's helpful. You've answered my question.

We have heard, of course, that there are multiple jurisdictions, specifically around Parliament, and that sometimes figuring out who is in charge of what and when feels like a bit of a challenge.

I'm just wondering, from the perspective of your department, if it would be easier to deal with future events on this scale if they ever happen again? Having the jurisdiction expanded, would that make any significant difference in your ability to do your work?

[Newton Shortliffe]

When there is an incident of this nature, as I mentioned before, we usually join the intelligence groups that are created by law enforcement. Our primary counterpart for national security incidents is the RCMP. They are the designated lead for national security incidents, but of course, depending on where events occur, there can be issues with local police services of jurisdiction, who's doing what, and that sort of thing.

I know this was a very complicated issue during the crisis earlier this year, but for the service it would likely not make a very big difference, because our main interface is still through the RCMP and through their integrated security enforcement teams.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

On the other side of that, are there any concerns from your perspective with expanding the jurisdiction?

[Newton Shortliffe]

As I said just now, from a service point of view it probably wouldn't make a big difference one way or the other. We have excellent relationships with our partners, including local law enforcement, including the Ottawa Police Service, for example, the OPP and other organizations right across the country. I would expect those to continue, regardless of what structure is implemented.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you.

I've also heard testimony from this department today that threats across Canada are constantly assessed. If you're telling me that the threat level stayed at medium when we were watching people come across the country to disrupt our place of governance, I'm just wondering if there is any other way that you measure this, because it seems to me that this was not addressed as well as it could have been.

It didn't seem that the threat was taken very seriously until we were in a position where it was really hard to deal with it. I'm just wondering if you could talk about that. How is the assessment of threat made, and how does that work with the folks you work with in other departments?

[Cherie Henderson]

Again, it's ITAC that sets that national terrorism threat level, and it pulls the information based on what it sees across the country and in relation to its members. What the service does is when.... We are always looking for a threat of serious violence to overthrow or to push forward an ideological agenda. That is one thing we are constantly on the alert for.

That's where, when we are looking at national security, we look at a narrow section of the pie, because we are looking really at espionage and terrorism. We look at terrorism if there's an effort to engage or incite serious violence in order to achieve an objective. If we see anything, that information would be fed into ITAC, and it would use that in order to help determine whether or not it would change that threat level.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

I will now give the floor to Mr. Berthold for five minutes, and then Ms. Romanado will follow.

Mr. Berthold, the floor is yours.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses.

Ms. Henderson and Mr. Shortliffe, I would like to understand the process of discussions by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service with the police services, in particular the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the RCMP, a little better.

What level of information do you share with your police partners? For example, an investigation is underway concerning a national threat. We know that some police services are very cautious about disclosing their information so as not to interfere with their own investigations.

In the case of an event like the one we are talking about, what level of information did you communicate to the RCMP about the investigations underway, whether or not they concerned the events that took place in Ottawa?

As a general rule, what will mean that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service does or does not share information?

[Newton Shortliffe]

Thank you for your question.

I'll reply in English to make sure I'm clear.

The trigger for sharing information is related to whether we perceive a possible threat to the security of Canada. As you mentioned earlier, we investigate the activities of certain individuals who we believe may be engaged in threat-related activity.

As Ms. Henderson has said, this is a discussion that goes on all the time with our law enforcement partners, particularly the RCMP. This is done through a number of different venues. It is done at our headquarters level, through headquarters-to-headquarters meetings, where we discuss, for example, what can be passed officially that law enforcement might be able to use in their own investigations.

There's also tactically a conflation that occurs at the regional level between the regions and the integrated national security enforcement teams on specific individuals we are both aware of. This is to ensure that we are essentially not tripping over each other in our investigations and that key threats are identified.

One of the most important roles is that if we become aware of information that, for example, is a threat to life or a threat of serious violence, we will find a way to get that over into the hands of law enforcement so they can take action as quickly as possible.

Beyond that, we have challenges—

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Excuse me for interrupting you. It seems that different filters and various levels of approval are necessary before information is shared. It has to be determined whether the threat is in the short or medium term. There are several levels to go through before the information is passed on to the RCMP or, in the case at hand, the Parliamentary Protective Service. I imagine the level of trust between the two police services also has to be assessed before sharing that information.

[Newton Shortliffe]

Yes. We pass on information to the various levels, depending on the intended purpose of sharing the information.

On one level, we pass information at the strategic level, at the headquarters level, and that's where the official disclosures will occur. This is because we have to carefully manage what is provided from the service to law enforcement, mainly because of the intelligence-to-evidence rules that can make it very difficult for law enforcement to see a prosecution through if we have to withdraw information later on in order to protect our sources and methods of operation.

At the tactical level, though—

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

I am going to interrupt you again. I understand. Thank you.

You did answer and you confirmed that there are several levels to go through. When information is provided, it has first gone through several levels of approval at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS. A number of people have seen the information.

As a result, when the Special Joint Committee on the Declaration of Emergency received documents from the government indicating that while the convoy was in place, CSIS was not worried about explaining and sharing information with the public, we can understand that several authorities within CSIS had seen and approved that declaration.

[Newton Shortliffe]

If I have understood your question correctly, you want to know whether several levels of CSIS discussed threats in general, and yes, there were several discussions about this at various levels. Ultimately, there was a comprehensive threat assessment that gave us all the information.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Next is Madam Romanado.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Through you, I'd like to thank the witnesses for being with us today.

For the purposes of this study and focusing on whether or not the protection of the parliamentary precinct should be expanded, in terms of physical security we were talking about focusing on whether or not Wellington Street and perhaps Sparks Street should be closed to vehicular traffic, and whether the jurisdiction over the security of those streets should move to the Parliamentary Protective Service.

One of the witnesses who came forward, former Senator White, brought up a situation—we also heard it from the PPS—which was that during the illegal occupation, there were trucks parked on Wellington and there was no intelligence to understand what was in those trucks. One of the concerns was obviously that we all know what happened in Oklahoma City.

In terms of CSIS expertise and intelligence gathering, whether it be using cyber and so on and so forth, would CSIS be in a position to provide intel of that nature, given the fact that it's physically here on Wellington Street? I'm just trying to understand. Would CSIS have been able to ascertain what was in those trucks, given that you're not physically on the ground? It is the police who are on the ground physically. Unless someone is actually putting this information out there, I think it would be hard to assess. Is that correct?

[Newton Shortliffe]

Obviously I can't comment on specific operational activities that occurred, but I can speak a bit more generally about how we do our investigations.

We have a number of authorities under the CSIS Act. The CSIS Act permits us to investigate, to the extent that it's strictly necessary, threats to the security of Canada. We use a number of methods for doing that, including interviews, surveillance and things like that. We can apply for Federal Court warrants for intrusive techniques. To do a search of a vehicle, for example, would require a Federal Court warrant, and you'd have to be able to demonstrate that there are reasonable grounds to believe that there is a threat in order to get that warrant. That's in the CSIS Act.

The practical application is that sometimes we're in a position to provide useful intelligence and sometimes we're not.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you.

Given that the City of Ottawa essentially closed Wellington to vehicular traffic a few months ago, other than the parliamentary buses, which I think are able to pass in front and so on, it has eliminated that risk in the sense that vehicles cannot be parked on Wellington.

In terms of the coordination, we've heard a bit about how CSIS will be pulled in, or if you are aware of information that would be beneficial for the other partners to be aware of.... If the Parliamentary Protective Service were to take over the jurisdiction of, say, Wellington and Sparks, would having...I don't want to say “one less partner” to deal with, because obviously you'd still be working with Ottawa city police and so on and so forth, but would having a streamlined approach be beneficial?