Evidence of meeting #18 for Public Safety and National Security in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was csis.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:10 p.m.
Chair, Security Intelligence Review Committee
I'm just informed that they're in the phone book under “CSIS”--
4:10 p.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
4:10 p.m.
Roy Romanow Member, Security Intelligence Review Committee
If I may make a brief intervention in support of what our chair has said, CSIS is embarking on an outreach program to various communities to explain their functions, and that it is an intelligence-gathering organization, not a police investigatory agency. So there is greater accessibility and openness in that regard.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Dave MacKenzie Conservative Oxford, ON
I was just trying to make the point that I understand why the RCMP and the police agencies are involved. CSIS is not available on 9-1-1, so if you have an issue, you can go to the police agency.
The other question I would like to ask is this. When I looked at the complaint decisions in the four reports, two of them would seem to me to be human resources, personnel issues. Is this something that does in fact take up a reasonable amount of time of SIRC, that is, dealing with internal personnel issues?
4:10 p.m.
Chair, Security Intelligence Review Committee
It does, both internal issues with respect to employees and issues with respect to denial of security clearance, and those are frequent matters of complaint that we investigate.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Dave MacKenzie Conservative Oxford, ON
My last issue is this. I think since 1986 you've turned out a tremendous number of reports--it looks like 170-some-odd. Do you go back and review what CSIS has done as a result of your reports?
4:10 p.m.
Chair, Security Intelligence Review Committee
The answer is yes. Because our recommendations are not binding, we're very conscious of trying to persuade them that we had good reasons for them, so we do that by examining former reports and taking, shall we say, a checklist of matters to make sure that they do either give us satisfactory answers or do implement our recommendations.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
I just have a matter of clarification as to the questions that just took place. If someone from the public had a concern, they'd generally go to the police. How would they know whether they should go to the police or to CSIS with some information that they may have come across? How would you explain to the public what the advantages are of going to one agency or the other?
4:10 p.m.
Chair, Security Intelligence Review Committee
I guess that's why, as my colleague said, they're trying to do more outreach, because it is difficult even for us who are knowledgeable to define the difference. Basically, the RCMP and police agencies are gathering information for evidentiary purposes for criminal prosecutions, whereas CSIS is gathering information that somebody is talking to somebody about something that might have terrorist implications, or that might put us in danger, or put our society in an insecure position. So it's quite different, really, but it's also very general. If somebody believes a crime is taking place, then obviously the police service is where they go. If it's not a crime, but it's a matter of.... You can imagine putting it in the context of 9/11, and people talking about wondering why these folks are taking flying lessons and they're not interested in landing--this kind of thing. It's information out there, and somebody is curious about it and might be able to connect some dots if they put it together with other information that somebody had. That's the kind of thing that gets passed along to CSIS.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
I think it's good to get this on the record.
Now we'll go to the second round.
Mr. Chan.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Raymond Chan Liberal Richmond, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's very reassuring to see such distinguished membership on the committee. Thank you very much for putting yourselves forward to participate and come to this committee.
4:15 p.m.
Chair, Security Intelligence Review Committee
Thank you, Mr. Chan.
I should also say that your government appointed all of us.
4:15 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Raymond Chan Liberal Richmond, BC
Over the last few weeks our committee has been very much on top of how to improve our security service to protect Canadians, particularly the innocent Canadians who were tarnished in this country.
One thing that has really bothered me from the very beginning of the Arar case is the behaviour of the American government and the inability of our government to not only protect or stand up for our citizens, but even get information from the American government on why they're doing it. I don't know whether this falls within your mandate, but I sure want to share that concern with you and members of the committee to see how we can protect Canadians abroad.
There is increasing knowledge about what the American government is doing with secret detention centres all around the world. It's not only innocent people in the United States who are being targeted; they're working on anyone. Anyone anywhere in the world could have been put away by them and subjected to torture and that kind of thing.
On the Arar case, I'm not trying to be partisan, but when Mr. Harper, our Prime Minister, said he wanted the Americans to come clean on this issue and the response we got from the Americans was a letter saying they won't do it again, that's not reassuring at all. When the former CSIS director was here, we asked whether they had asked the American security services what prompted them to deport Mr. Arar to Syria, and they didn't share any of that information. We asked and they didn't care. Right?
At the end of the day, how can we as the Canadian government protect our citizens? How do we go on from this point to find justice for Mr. Arar for maltreatment by the American government? I don't know if you can comment on that.
4:15 p.m.
Chair, Security Intelligence Review Committee
On your first and principal point, with respect to our duties and responsibilities as they apply to CSIS, this committee sees as its principal mandate that we are the balance point between the public's right to live in a safe and secure society and the individual's human rights that need to be protected at all times.
I think what you're really asking for is a political statement. This committee didn't give political responses or react in that way in the past, and we won't be doing it now. Our mandate is CSIS and any and all of its actions and activities, and unfortunately--or fortunately, as the case may be--we have to stick to that.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Raymond Chan Liberal Richmond, BC
I don't expect the committee to make a political statement, and I am trying not to make a political statement here as well, but at the same time, I think it is important for the country to start paying attention to that. Because your committee deals with the security of Canadians, it might be relevant that you start looking in that direction, at how to protect innocent Canadians abroad.
November 1st, 2006 / 4:20 p.m.
Chair, Security Intelligence Review Committee
Our mandate, as we've talked about, with respect to even the Arar case, was to examine the actions and activities of CSIS. We couldn't go beyond that to examine, for instance, the RCMP's actions, let alone go to a foreign country and examine their actions. So we have to stay at that.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
We'll have to move on to Monsieur Ménard.
I think you have to be sensitive as to what you can answer and not answer here, and I appreciate the fact that you are doing that. Thank you.
4:20 p.m.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We've dealt a lot with the past but I also want to look at the future, especially at the cooperation that we should be able to obtain from the communities that should best be able to identify terrorist threats if, indeed, those threats come from the world of extremists, whatever they may be. Several exist today in the world.
What steps has the Canadian Security Intelligence Service taken about its relations with the Muslim and Arabic communities of Canada? Mr. Romanow had started answering such a question from Mr. McKenzie and I like you to expand on this.
4:20 p.m.
Chair, Security Intelligence Review Committee
As my colleague Mr. Romanow has indicated, CSIS is doing its best to do an outreach. In fact, in places like Toronto, we had the discussion with them just a short while ago about their involvement in the various different communities that may be sources of or affected by terrorist acts and may be a focal point of attention with respect to terrorists or suspected terrorists.
Their outreach includes holding community sessions where they let the community know what they are doing, where they encourage the communities to work with them, because certainly, as they have indicated to us, people in the communities don't all want to be tarred with the brush of being a source of terrorism or insecurity to Canada.
We have recently, on our website, included a translation in Arabic with respect to our complaints and review process so that we are reaching out to a community that at times feels, I think, that they are being put upon by negative attention, and so on.
CSIS is certainly doing the same thing, attempting to become linguistically and culturally sensitive to more communities. We encourage that in terms of our meetings with them and our discussions with them.