Evidence of meeting #33 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 person.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
No. Since some of the information comes from CSIS, if the person is not satisfied with the office of reconsideration, they could choose to appeal to SIRC.
If the person finds out that the information comes from the RCMP and is not satisfied with the office of reconsideration, he could appeal to the Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
In your brief here, you put that this offers a low-cost and quick approach to challenging a decision. What's the cost for somebody trying to find out how to challenge their—
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
There's no cost.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
That's comparing it to the Federal Court, where you have to have lawyers and wait for years—
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
No, there's no fee; it's free.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
Okay, it's just the way it's worded.
Take me through the reconsideration process. Is there any way the person speaks directly to any of the decision-makers during the reconsideration process?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
The person doesn't speak to the decision-maker. The persons who decide to put the person on the list in the first place comprise a committee of three: Transport Canada, CSIS, and the RCMP, at the senior level. They make the decision to put the person on the list. They will get a delegation from the Minister of Transport.
If the person goes through a reconsideration, the person doesn't speak to that committee. The applicant for a reconsideration speaks only to the expert adviser hired to listen to the case. This expert adviser in turn makes a recommendation to the minister to reconsider the decision, or not. That decision will be made and will have to be looked at again by the committee, given the new information.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
I can just imagine the frustration of somebody who is put on a no-fly list by mistake. Every 30 days you have to reconsider that list. Would this person go through this process over and over again?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
No, because we will set up mechanisms with the airlines. If the person was put on by mistake, and there is an easy fix--for instance, if when you book you provide your passport number or something like that--that shouldn't reoccur. We don't want repeating errors.
Liberal
Sue Barnes Liberal London West, ON
How satisfied are the airlines with this process to date? How much input is ongoing? Is the dialogue continuing between them? Because they're the ones who are going to be the most immediately affected.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
The airlines have been consulted since the very beginning of this program, and they are satisfied with the program now. They are asking us to accelerate its implementation.
Liberal
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
I have something, if you're done.
Is there some kind of an operations manual that's been developed for Transport Canada staff, and if so, could we have a copy of that for this committee?
Director, Security Policy, Department of Transport
We're in the process of developing our awareness material and our program material. Anything that we would be making available to the public and to people in terms of training awareness, I think we could make available.
Generally we don't release offhand our operations manuals for doing inspections and those sorts of things if they include things like security measures. But for material related to awareness and so forth, we're certainly working at that, and we could make that available.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
I should add quickly that the people who will be doing that are being hired now. This office doesn't exist. We're setting it up today.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Okay.
Is it just the name that will appear on the no-fly list? What if that name is spelled incorrectly? What if you have a name like mine and several letters are mixed up?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
There will be aliases.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
When the list is made, we will provide aliases, because many names have various ways to be pronounced or to be written. It will be--
Conservative
Assistant Deputy Minister, Safety and Security, Department of Transport
It could.