Justice Committee on April 17th, 2023

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

What about an organization that does development work, has charitable status, is recognized by CRA as a charitable organization, but has not or does not receive government funding because it's not at a scale to do that? What would be “quickly” or “not quickly” from the perspective of that smaller charitable organization?

[Jennifer Loten]

If we're starting from scratch, if this is an organization that the Government of Canada has not worked with before, we would require a lot of the same information that we gather from normal project approval processes. There's no additional requirement for this authorization regime than what an organization would normally provide for project approval, so they would provide that, and we would be looking at those conditions.

I will say that I appreciate the concern about smaller organizations, but we're talking about projects that will operate in parts of the world that those kinds of organizations are much less likely to be equipped to operate in.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I don't know if that's always true. I think larger organizations—

[Jennifer Loten]

That's fair enough. It's not always true.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

—might be working everywhere in the world, but a small organization might have a particular geographic focus. You might have an Afghan Canadian organization that's working only on development in Afghanistan, so it's much smaller, but it's still working in Afghanistan, and it wants to work in Afghanistan.

You said that six months is “not quickly”, but that “quickly” depends. What would “not quickly” or “quickly” look like for that small organization? They have charitable status, so they're known to the government in that sense, but they are not a funding partner.

[Jennifer Loten]

Again, it's very difficult to provide a figure at this point. I'd like to be able to do that, but until we have the final product—what Parliament decides this legislation needs to look at—it's very difficult to say.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

What kinds of amendments could we propose that would make the final product facilitate a quicker turnaround time?

[Jennifer Loten]

Well, I think that's up to you. I don't presuppose to know where Parliament wants to go with this.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

No, no, tell us. If I want to propose the amendment that is going to make the legislation as quick as possible, what amendment should I propose?

[Jennifer Loten]

It depends on what the barrier is. We're looking at a wide range of applications, and I don't think there's a single amendment that's going to make this thing lightning fast. I will say that at this—

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Yes, this is frustrating, because you guys are the experts. Am I right? We're just lowly members of Parliament. We're asking you to provide us with some explanation of how this regime is going to work. You're telling us that it depends on all these factors, but you can't tell us which factors it depends on.

We're not getting much specific information here. We're going to be amending this legislation next week in some form, so we would like to know what we can put in the legislation that will guarantee rapid timelines for turnaround.

[Jennifer Loten]

I would like to see that, too: a rapid and efficient process. The reason I hesitate to provide an actual date—and I think my colleagues would agree—is that we're looking at different things from smaller organizations and bigger organizations. The kinds of things that would facilitate rapid approval are already in there. We're certainly not talking about a process that I expect will take a long time.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

However, you can't tell us whether there is an estimated timeline. You have estimated timelines for immigration. You have them for passports. You don't always meet them, to be fair, but there are standards of service out there for other kinds of things.

From my perspective, you didn't have to create this red tape-intensive process. You could have put forward legislation that generally recognizes a humanitarian exemption without an authorization regime, but you chose to go this route and we have the legislation we have.

Can you bring forward, in writing, subsequently estimated timelines and proposals for amendments that will allow us to move things along more expeditiously? Can you have those in writing this week, prior to our amendment deadline?

[Jennifer Loten]

I don't think so—not from us.

What we have put in front of you is a package that says, “This is what the legislation looks like.” What we can do is work on regulations and ways to expedite this once we have the full package. The measures you mentioned before are based on legislation that's finalized and exists. We can then, as public servants, create a process to implement.

What we've proposed represents the best solution to provide an expedited solution. Again, I regret that it appears as if I'm hesitating to tell you a deadline, but I think I'd be providing false information if I were to say, “It's going to take 24 hours,” or, “It's going to take a week.” We're going to make this happen as quickly as we can, based on—

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I'm not looking for either false information or no information. I'm looking for the answers. I hope we can get some kind of follow-up before Thursday, when we need to submit amendments in writing. We're on a tight timeline. There's a—

[The Chair, Liberal, Randeep Sarai]

Mr. Genuis, you're well past a minute over.

Ms. Dhillon, it's over to you for six minutes.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll continue with Ms. Loten.

How does the proposed approach in the legislation differ from the approaches taken in other countries, like the U.S. and the U.K.?

[Jennifer Loten]

I can start that answer off, then defer to my colleagues from Justice.

The first thing to keep in mind is that this is based on Canadian legislation. Immediately, it's going to be different from what our allies do.

I would also say the legislation we're proposing is based on creating an enabling environment within Canadian law, so organizations can operate. Right now, they are prevented from doing so wherever there is a terrorist organization in control. This will allow that activity to take place. Again, it's based on Canadian law. It's not based on the legal frameworks at play among our allies, which have, for example, a different definition of “terrorism” or “terrorist organization” and a different means of controlling access by terrorist groups to financing within their legal frameworks.

Now, I'll defer to Justice. They may have more to say about how it's different.

[Robert Brookfield, Director General and Senior General Counsel, Criminal Law Policy Section, Department of Justice]

I'll just say very briefly that other countries often have a conflation or difference between their sanctions and their criminal code regimes, so it's sometimes hard to compare. Notably, the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control, for many years, has had a lot of flexibility in interpreting its sanctions and criminal code provisions. For example, I understand Australia has interpreted its United Nations Act to implement its terrorism provisions. It therefore has flexibility, as we do under our United Nations Act.

I would say that the administrative and legal context in each country is different. The European Union has directives or regulations that then are implemented in member states' domestic law, all of which is to say that it's hard to do a direct comparison. Some countries have been more generous, sometimes to effectively do so through regulation that could be taken away, like the United States, which regularly issues and then removes regulations or directives related to its authorities. Other countries, such as New Zealand, have been a bit more crude, if you will, with just a general legislative carve-out.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

Thank you so much.

We've been speaking about terrorism as well. It's a huge concern. Could you tell the committee whether this would undermine our ability to combat terrorism in Canada and around the world?

The question is for anybody.

[Sébastien Aubertin-Giguère]

This legislation provides additional tools to allow us to better control the flow of money to potential terrorist organizations. It does not create new positive obligations, but it does create a regime—a mechanism by which these organizations can operate in complex situations across the world, where it is known there's a risk of money flowing to terrorist organizations. It's making sure we have better controls and oversight in order to know how the money is flowing, and also to help them by creating the right control mechanisms so they can operate in these regions.

Overall, it's a very positive impact on the fight against terrorism.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

Can you tell us that this proposed legislation won't cause unnecessary red tape? We need to help people around the world who are suffering. Can your department ensure that this does not become a burdensome process for these organizations? How can we ensure that there is expeditious processing of requests at the GAC and IRCC levels as well?

[Sébastien Aubertin-Giguère]

We're quite aware of the needs behind each and every application. The government has also provided funding in the budget to augment the resources and to dedicate to this new mechanism that's going to be in place. Obviously, the whole system will be geared up for an expedited process.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

I also understand that a Bill C-41 charter statement was tabled on March 21 and is available on the Department of Justice website. Can you please confirm that?

[Robert Brookfield]

I apologize. I should know that, but I will confirm that and get back to the committee. Yes, it should be there.