Justice Committee on March 11th, 2009

[Donald R. Dixon]

They would be all over the world.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

In terms of the 400 agencies that belong to CISC, are all those public police services as opposed to any private agencies?

[Donald R. Dixon]

Of the 400 agencies, these are law enforcement agencies specifically.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I'm just wondering in terms of your inability to answer one of Mr. Ménard's questions. We're going to be travelling. Are there people within those 10 provincial bureaus whom we could be bringing forward to the committee as we move across the country?

[Donald R. Dixon]

Absolutely. To connect all the dots as it pertains to criminal intelligence service, you would do yourself a great favour by stopping in to see a number of the bureaus. After this session here, secretarially we could respond back to you on agencies or bureaus we think would be a benefit to you, and then you can make your own decision.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

They will be able to give us information about tactical operations, obviously not specific ones, but generally what their tactical operations are.

[Donald R. Dixon]

As I think you noted in my opening comments, they are independent of us because they are under the guidelines of their provincial executive committees, but that's something you could have a discussion with them on, the same as the chair had the discussion with me and Bud before we started. If there's an opportunity for more clarification, and we could do that in camera, then we're willing to do that. Clearly, the provincial bureaus are in the same situation. They should be able to speak to you on tactical matters of interest.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I don't know if I've missed these, but I haven't seen any public reports from the provincial bureaus. Have I missed that?

[Donald R. Dixon]

The provinces themselves put out a number of publications.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Those are public?

[Donald R. Dixon]

Some are public and some are to their police constituency. For example, in the province of Ontario, where there are more than 60 law enforcement agencies, our Criminal Intelligence Service Ontario communicates with each of their partners through bulletins, annual reports, and things like that.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Those wouldn't be public. Those bulletins are kept within the agencies.

[Donald R. Dixon]

I know they publish within their partnership. I don't have any firsthand knowledge of their going public with documentation they have.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

In terms of the various crime areas or markets, as I think you put it, I didn't hear you say human trafficking. Are you doing that? I don't know if I missed that. Is that one of the categories?

[Donald R. Dixon]

Yes, I did mention it in passing.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Those are all the questions I have for now, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you, Mr. Comartin.

Mr. Norlock, you have five minutes.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, gentlemen, for coming today.

Some of my questions will be geared specifically toward my area--in other words, my riding and areas in eastern Ontario--but not necessarily, because I think they're representative of the rest of Canada.

Of course, organized crime and some of the things we read in the newspaper are generally situated in the large cities. I had a round table on crime in my riding, and of course I invited the chiefs of police of every police department, as well as victims groups and crime prevention groups, so the whole community relating to that. We heard from our police chiefs that some of the same things affecting big cities are affecting our smaller towns and cities. In my riding a couple of deaths have been investigated by the OPP that sure sound to me, when you read the newspapers.... In my old line of work, that is called the white intelligence you get from the newspapers, and organized crime would consider that white intelligence from their perspective--in other words, things that are available to the public.

Obviously some of your 400 agencies are small-town police forces. The feedback you're getting, the organized crime, the violence, the drugs, gangs, and guns we see in the city, are you seeing that? Are you getting that information from your smaller police departments?

[Donald R. Dixon]

Yes, sir, we are.

Also, to go back to the beginning of the question, when we speak of more than 900 crime groups, there's an ebb and tide there. That number does not maintain itself at that level. More than 150 or 200 are dispersed each year, but then other people follow in behind them. And speaking of dispersal or displacement, some of the major police departments have the ability to be extremely aggressive with some of their organized crime groups, but in some cases those organized crime groups move to other jurisdictions and re-establish themselves because they're no longer able to be productive in that area.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

So those other jurisdictions would probably be smaller municipalities?

[Donald R. Dixon]

Absolutely, hence the significance of our national computer database, with all of these crime groups; and as you've heard, there are more than 900 of them. It wasn't that many years ago that we really didn't know how many organized crime groups were out there. Now we've been able to identify more than 970 such groups, place them on a specific map, and analyze their activities to the extent that we can through aggressive and progressive law enforcement action. So as they move about, it is for the most part not unknown to us, because with all the municipalities that participate in a very meaningful way by putting their investigations onto the national database, that information is then available to every jurisdiction that is plugged into that system.

I ought to tell you that there are more than 250 such agencies that use that database each and every day. This year there were more than two million transactions on that database, and there are no fewer than 2,400 users who have the ability to log on and do their investigative research.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

In my riding is Canada's largest federal penitentiary, the Warkworth penitentiary. There were some changes, and a lot of folks don't realize what those were. It's a medium-security penitentiary. When it first opened, most of the inmates were people who had committed property crimes, frauds, etc. Today most of the people in that institution are, for all intents and purposes, the better-behaved murderers, etc.

What I'm leading to is the criminals in our correctional institutions who have an organized crime background. Is part of that information shared with regard to inmates? In other words, is Correctional Service of Canada involved in your group?

[W.H. (Bud) Garrick]

Yes, most certainly. When we speak about the members within Criminal Intelligence Service Canada, one of our key partners is the Correctional Service of Canada. We have a number of secondments of members of outside agencies who are working within our central bureau. We are very shortly going to have a member of the Correctional Service of Canada with us on a full-time basis at the national intelligence officer level, just as we have one from CBSA--the Border Services Agency--and one from the military police. We have a wide spectrum to reach out to, and corrections is certainly one of the key areas we're looking at.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Fast]

Thank you, Mr. Norlock.

We're going to move on to Mr. LeBlanc.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, gentlemen, for joining us today, and for your comments.

I'd like to follow up a bit on the very incisive questions that my colleague Mr. Dosanjh was asking when he ran out of time.

You alluded to a national or Canadian plan or model in terms of criminal intelligence. Perhaps you could expand on that, specifically with respect to technology, which you mentioned.

I have a sense that in terms of the tools that police forces need to really deal with the growing problem of organized crime, the laws haven't kept up in terms of ability to get search warrants. I know that since 2005 there have been proposals around modernizing investigative techniques, specifically with respect to intercepting cell phones, e-mails, BlackBerrys. The old tools, the old laws and regulations, and common law around search warrants, lawful access, etc., haven't kept up with the technology that organized crime is using.

What resources do you think are needed--financial and human resources, and more importantly, legislative resources--to deal with modernizing that regime?