Justice Committee on March 25th, 2009

[A/Commr Mike Cabana]

Thank you very much for your question.

There isn't an easy answer. I believe there has to be a multi-faceted approach. To go back to your original question, committees such as this one with elected officials clearly have a significant role to play. This is not an issue that law enforcement is able to address in isolation.

You made reference to the criminal organization legislation. It has been in place for a number of years. It would be timely to have a look at that legislation to see how it's been applied over these years and identify whether there are any changes that would be appropriate to facilitate and streamline the process.

But I go back to my multi-faceted approach. There are legislative remedies here. Part of that has to include the lawful access, which right now is a significant hurdle in law enforcement's ability to attack criminal organizations. We'd also have to look at the sentencing guidelines, which as you mentioned are part of the solution but not the whole solution.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Brian Murphy]

We will continue with Mr. Petit, the parliamentary secretary.

Mr. Petit, you have five minutes to ask your relevant questions.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This is perhaps a question for Mr. Cabana. I will lead up to my question and then I would like to hear your opinion. You have already discussed this and gone over the problem by answering the questions from my various colleagues, including those of the opposition.

I come from Quebec. In the last two years, there have been a lot of problems linked to drugs coming in through our national ports and airports, which come under federal jurisdiction because our agents are supposed to be there. I understood, from reading certain newspapers, that in Montreal, which is a hub for drugs, the business grosses something in the order of $2 billion per year.

I agree with Mr. Rezac on the issue of statistics, and you yourself talked about them earlier on during your testimony. Statistics always show what we are able to see. We are like St. Thomas: if we saw it, we put it into the statistics. Drugs with a value of $2 billion came into the country, but we did not see offences worth $2 billion being committed across the country. So our statistics do not necessarily show us what has is happening.

However, people like Mr. Rezac, a civilian from Vancouver, you, a police officer, and this lady who looks after police relations, have come to see us. That means that there are fears. If Mr. Rezac took the trouble to come from Vancouver to see us, it means that there are fears. Even if we do not agree with his entire message, we sense his emotion and concern. I have also sensed this fear in my own riding, expressed by elderly people.

Mr. Cabana, there is one question I wanted to ask you above all. I read your document in which you speak about the corruption of public officials, on page 4, and I quote: "These groups have also come to rely on the corruption of public officials ..."

We have a good bill that will protect good police officers, good judges and good witnesses. What are you referring to when you talk about the corruption of public officials? This intrigues me.

[C/Supt Mike Cabana]

Thank you very much, Mr. Petit.

Canada is no different from some other countries, but we have to be careful not to generalize. Criminal organizations have many resources at their disposal. We know, based on information that we have and on cases that had been brought to the attention of the public and the courts, that these organizations specifically target the members of certain agencies, including Canadian police forces, in order to make it easier for them to carry out their activities.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Do I have any time left, Mr. Chair?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Brian Murphy]

You have two minutes left, Mr. Petit.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

This is extraordinary.

I see that you are very prudent and that you are an experienced policeman. I have been intrigued by an issue for the past two years or so. We were informed about an investigation that was carried out in a foreign country, it was called "clean hands", or "mani pulite" in Italian, which tells us where this happened. The judges discovered that there were problems with some officials, etc.

When you talk about official corruption, are you referring to the kind of corruption that was shown on television, where judges were shot in the street because they were about to investigate public servants who had received money from the construction sector, for example, or from other sectors? That is what we saw on television.

[C/Supt Mike Cabana]

I understand, but once again, we must not generalize. My comments were not about any single specific situation. I actually meant that we must realize that even Canada is not immune to corruption. Following certain investigations and criminal prosecutions, we know that government employees, at both provincial and federal levels, were targeted by organizations and were corrupted over the years. We must have our eyes open to the facts, if you wish.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Alright.

Have I any time left, Mr. Chair?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Brian Murphy]

You have half a minute.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, I have a very brief question.

You have read Bill C-14, which deals with the protection of persons in the legal system. Do you agree? You know that the previous legislation was not very clear. Do you agree with the scope of this bill?

[C/Supt Mike Cabana]

Absolutely, sir. Your bill addresses certain gaps and shortcomings that were there and it will have an impact, I believe, on the corruption we are discussing here, and especially on the protection of employees.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Brian Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Petit.

This concludes our second round.

I'm rather at the will of the committee. Mr. Fast, I think, wanted to reserve a few minutes at the end of this meeting for some committee business, but there are a few minutes left, and short questions would be appropriate—maybe two-minute questions, if there are people who wish to put some.

If not, I would ask the participants to wrap up in a two-minute piece so that we could hear something that perhaps you didn't get a chance to explain.

Is there any objection to that? No? Good.

Mr. Rezac or Mr. Park.

[Darcy Rezac]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for receiving us. We received a very warm reception. We hope we can bring a west coast perspective to your deliberations. We know that your task isn't easy, and it's very easy to criticize the tough jobs you folks do day in and day out. We certainly respect what your purpose and mission is, and that's to do the right thing for the country.

We have a particular problem on the west coast and we need your help. We in the business community are prepared to work with you, we're prepared to work with the judges, we're prepared to work with the crown, police—everybody. This is an issue we would ask you to put on the agenda. Chronic and violent offenders are a serious issue in Canada. We would ask you to put it on your agenda and help us resolve this with all dispatch.

Thank you very much for receiving us.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Brian Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Rezac.

Mr. Cabana.

[A/Commr Mike Cabana]

Thank you, Mr. Murphy.

I'll keep my comments to two points and I'll try to be as brief as possible.

First of all, I want to reiterate the importance of the lawful access perspective. There is misunderstanding on the part of the public, based on some of the media articles I've seen over the course of the past few years. Law enforcement and intelligence officers, right now, merely want to be able to do in 2009 what Parliament intended that we be able to do back in 1974 when the original legislation was enacted. We need to bring legislation to today's standards to be able to benefit from or facilitate the use of today's technology. That's my first comment.

The second comment, which really hasn't surfaced in my responses when I was talking about the multi-faceted approach, is to deal with the importance for us of ensuring the enforcement community's ability to share information and intelligence between agencies, both domestically and internationally—there is an issue domestically as well. We need to realize that good intelligence will allow us to have early warning of what is coming down the road and will put us in a position to prevent some of the actions of criminal organizations.

In the legislative reviews, aside from lawful access there's also a need to look at some of the legislation put in place, sometimes several decades ago, governing the exchange of information—including the Privacy Act—to make sure that federal agencies can share the intelligence, among themselves and with the provincial and municipal agencies and vice versa. A gap exists now that is actually putting Canadians at risk.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Brian Murphy]

Ms. Sutton.

[Jean Sutton]

Thank you very much for allowing us to appear.

As an administrative tribunal, our legislation very clearly says that our first and foremost consideration is protection of society. In doing that we are making decisions on individual cases, and in that capacity we can already consider information that is coming forward to us. And we do consider information around gangs, whether they are gangs or organized crime, street gangs or institutional gangs. This is a major consideration.

But key to that is reliable and persuasive information. So I'm very pleased to hear...and I can testify that after over 20 years of working in this area, I have seen an improvement across the system for sharing information. But it is always and central to allowing each of us to do our work that we have to share this information in intelligence, and being at the end of the system, for the National Parole Board that is a major consideration because our decisions are only going to be as good as the information we have on which to base those decisions. So I wish you luck.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Brian Murphy]

Thank you very much.

I think I would be remiss in my extremely temporary role here as chair not to respect the interventions of both Monsieur Ménard and Mr. Dosanjh when they expressed to you from their point of view the need, for their benefit and our benefit, to have had some material. I also couple that with your statement that you would have been more than willing to prepare such a document. I would ask you—no power here to force you, of course—to submit documents, if you wish, that we can all read at our leisure after, if you wouldn't mind.

[Jean Sutton]

I'll be very pleased to do so.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Brian Murphy]

Power trip, as the parliamentary secretary says.

I want to thank you all for appearing.

Now we'll suspend briefly and reconvene for committee business.

[Proceedings continue in camera]