Public Accounts Committee on May 26th, 2009

Evidence of meeting #22 for Public Accounts in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was rcmp.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Chapter 1, National Security: Intelligence and Information Sharing of the 2009 Status Report of the Auditor General of Canada

Supplementary Estimates (A) 2009-2010: Vote 15a under FINANCE

Committee Business

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Sheila Fraser Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada

Marie-Lucie Morin National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister and Associate Secretary to the Cabinet, Privy Council Office

Suzanne Hurtubise Deputy Minister, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness

Louis Ranger Deputy Minister, Department of Transport

Tim Killam Deputy Commissioner, Policing Support Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Guylaine Dansereau Director, Canadian Criminal Real Time Identification Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Marc Grégoire Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security Group, Department of Transport

Clerk of the Committee Ms. Joann Garbig

4 p.m.

Deputy Minister, Department of Transport

Louis Ranger

Yes, I would. It's not just lessons learned; it's also things we've done. Two very specific measures were taken. I mentioned one in my introductory remarks: the background checks on airport workers, which is something that was done following and as a result of the Air India accident. But also, there is the matching of passengers and baggage, which is something that was identified as a very specific issue and which we have had in place for many years as a direct result of and as a lesson learned from Air India.

4 p.m.

Liberal

Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON

However, according to the Auditor General's remarks, the report says that “Transport Canada and the RCMP did not give full information to each other” and “Transport Canada may be granting clearance to high risk individuals for work in secure areas”. It also says, “As noted in our report, Transport Canada does not see its role as preventing criminal organizations from infiltrating airports.”

Now, that's just incredulous. Can you please tell me why there is no information sharing and what is going on? Why are the silos not breaking down? How can you talk about reliability of information and the transmission of information, which is what the Maher Arar inquiry was demanding, a reliability of information and seeing that it is shared properly? Plus, there is this non-coordination between the two departments.

4 p.m.

Deputy Minister, Department of Transport

Louis Ranger

We've come a long way. The Auditor General looked at the process we had in place. There was an initial MOU. There were difficulties on both sides, with us having difficulty in sharing private information and the RCMP not being able to access all the databases, but we've come a long way. As we mentioned, on April 8, we did sign an MOU that addresses both sets of issues.

For example, on the privacy side, we now seek very explicit consent from applicants in terms of being able to share with the RCMP detailed information on not only their own history, but on history regarding their spouse, and also consent regarding to what extent the RCMP can share that information with others. We now have the consent of the applicant, which has cleared the way and has come a long way to addressing the privacy issue.

4 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy

Thank you.

Madame Faille, sept minutes.

May 26th, 2009 / 4 p.m.

Bloc

Meili Faille Bloc Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC

Thank you Mr. Chairman.

My questions will in the main be on the issues that my colleague raised.

The Privy Council officials mentioned cyber threats. Can you tell us whether or not National Defence, Transport Canada or any other departments have also received cyberthreats?

Can you tell us about the telecommunications monitoring systems? Are there currently any investigations into these systems?

My colleague also raised the issue of intelligence reliability and intelligence management security. Can you also talk to us about that?

4 p.m.

National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister and Associate Secretary to the Cabinet, Privy Council Office

Marie-Lucie Morin

Thank you, Ms. Faille.

In my opening comments I did refer to cyber threats that are a danger to government installations all over the world as well as installations belonging to industry, the private sector and the non-governmental sector.

Of course we want to protect ourselves against these attacks. For security reasons I cannot refer to specific cases in which we could have been victims of these attacks. I can only tell you that we are very aware that these threats exist. We are currently developing policies to deal with these now and in the future. We know that we'll be living in a world where the "cyber" aspect will become more and more significant.