Public Safety Committee on Nov. 1st, 2006

[Gary Filmon]

Coming from a former elected office myself and being familiar with the responsibilities that parliamentarians have to always examine and re-examine policy and structure in view of changing times, I think it's fair to consider a variety of different options. We have the benefit of meeting, as we just did about three weeks ago, with security and intelligence review agencies from all over the world to take a look at different systems. Indeed, they are very different. If you look at the countries of the world with which we interact, Canada's system is different from virtually every other one. Parliamentarians, or Congress, are involved to a different degree in some of the different oversight and review mechanisms.

I don't know whether there's any perfect system. I do believe the powers we have and the ability we have to do our reviews and respond to complaints work well. In fact, we're told by other countries in the world, almost universally, that they see a lot of merit in what powers we have and the way we're able to do our work.

Does that mean it's the best? I'm not sure at this point. Could we do more with a commissioner who is responsible across all of the different security and intelligence functions? There would be some advantages to that, but there might be some disadvantages. I think parliamentarians will have to examine that very closely.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

You were speaking about review. Do you intend to review the cases of the three men, where they were also imprisoned and interrogated in Syria?

[Gary Filmon]

I know the government is currently in the process of looking at that.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Would your agency be reviewing it?

[Gary Filmon]

Again, much like CSIS, we don't talk about the reviews that we're doing or contemplating doing. I will say that we will be guided, obviously, by any decisions or requests that may come from government, and I'll leave it at that.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

So are you saying that perhaps if this committee requests that you do review those three cases, you may welcome that kind of recommendation?

[Gary Filmon]

We always stand ready to do the work we're responsible for. If it is seen as something that ought to be done, then I think this committee would be happy to undertake it.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

We know that Justice O'Connor is doing the review on the RCMP, as the second report...but not CSIS or DFAIT. How do you think we could have adequate oversight for CSIS? Say, for example, there had been a lot of recommendations on disclosure, different practices, transparency, reviewing files, dealing with human rights, etc.--lots of recommendations. Would you be looking at whether CSIS would be implementing these recommendations and reporting back in a certain amount of time? How do you propose to deal with the oversights, especially related to the Maher Arar case?

[Gary Filmon]

Are you saying with respect to the RCMP or CSIS...?

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

CSIS.

[Gary Filmon]

Well, we are continually looking at different issues that arise out of all these recommendations and so on. We, for instance, did our own study this past year of a number of agencies with which CSIS has exchange of information protocols and agreements, ones that are known to have human rights issues. So we take everything based on what comes out of things such as this, and certainly we are prepared to examine anything and all things that pertain to CSIS's responsibilities and actions.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

This means you will actually look at whether the recommendations from the first report, Justice O'Connor's report...because there are quite a few recommendations...you will then comment on them and say that maybe in six months' time or a year's time these recommendations are going to be integrated into the practices of CSIS. You will comment on that?

[Gary Filmon]

First, we don't have the authority to demand of CSIS that they do it. That goes back to a Supreme Court decision. Our recommendations are not binding, but we do make recommendations and we will certainly examine any of those things that come out of the O'Connor report.

I believe we met on three occasions, I certainly made a presentation before Justice O'Connor's commission, and our staff did have a great deal of exchange of information with them. We are familiar with and certainly interested in all of the things that come out of his report. We will look at that report in the context of whether or not something should be done differently with respect to CSIS.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

You have time for a brief question.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Do you actually think there is adequate oversight of CSIS, or would you like to see that perhaps the oversight of CSIS could be expanded somewhat?

[Gary Filmon]

In a sense, this committee is part of the oversight of CSIS. As well, there is the Inspector General, who is essentially the eyes and ears of the minister, and us. As I've indicated, we believe we have the powers and the authority to ensure that we hold CSIS to account on any and all of the things they are responsible for.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you very much. We will now go to the government side.

Mr. Brown, I believe you're the first questioner.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Yes, and then I'm going to transfer it over to Mr. MacKenzie.

Thank you, Chair, and my thanks to the committee members for coming.

The reason I've jumped in now is that I want to follow up a little bit on what Ms. Chow was asking. I have been asking many of the groups, including CSIS and former Minister Easter, about a parliamentary national security oversight committee. How might you see that committee working?

You were talking a little bit about this committee being part of parliamentary oversight, but as this committee is incorporated, we don't have the ability to get at as many of the issues as you can as a committee. If there was a national security parliamentary oversight committee incorporated by Parliament, how would you see that working with your group?

[Gary Filmon]

I'm not sure. I'll be honest with you, we'd have to know what the powers and terms of engagement of the parliamentary committee are.

It's fair to say that when we go to meet with our counterparts throughout the world, any of the ones that have parliamentary or congressional committees of oversight don't have the powers that we do. Because of need-to-know principles and protection of national security information, they don't have the access that we do when it comes to any and all of the information in the databases, all communications, and so on, when we're investigating a matter with respect to CSIS.

So we'd have to know what the proposal is and whether or not a parliamentary committee would be given all of those powers. It's probably likely that they wouldn't. Therefore, we would have to establish a relationship in which our group, because of our access to the information, our top secret rating, and so on, would be able to work in a complementary fashion with the parliamentary committee. I think it's possible, and I think we'd have to work it out.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

You're sharing your time?

Mr. MacKenzie, you have the rest of the time.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

Thank you, Chair and members of SIRC.

Amongst other things, I think my friend Mr. Ménard mentioned the issue of the overlay of responsibilities, but maybe one of the problems in the whole scenario is how someone gets in touch with CSIS. I know that if you dial 9-1-1, you'll get a police agency. How would the average Canadian who felt they had information on security and intelligence find CSIS?

[Gary Filmon]

They have a website for sure. But let's face it, there is a matter of balance between accessibility and having a storefront operation. Very recently, in the case of the Toronto group of eighteen who are now in a process of going through a criminal proceeding—so we can't really talk very much about it—one of the threats that was undertaken was the possibility that they would do damage to the CSIS office in Toronto. That office was in a very visible location, although it was not easily accessible. So there's that balance that you want to keep between putting them at risk and at the same time making sure somebody can contact them.

We have the same desire. We have gone to greater lengths in recent times to try to make the knowledge of our existence more public and to make easier the ability for people to access us because they have concerns and complaints that they'd like to make as well.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

It might be easier to access you than it is for citizens--

[Gary Filmon]

Yes, I'm sure it is. I don't know what the right balance is there, because I think an argument can be made that they'd be putting themselves in jeopardy if they were too easily accessible and identifiable.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

The issue I have is that when the citizen says, “I think I have information that deals with international terrorism”, I think why the RCMP and other police agencies deal with it is because they're the agencies you can talk to. You can't talk to CSIS, you can't find a phone number for them, you can't get in touch with them to pass them some information, so it becomes very obvious why the police agencies then are the first line that deal with those issues.