Public Safety Committee on June 10th, 2008

[A/Commr Raf Souccar]

Absolutely, yes.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

I believe the important part of your answer--I think it's necessary to remind people who are watching this, so that they know exactly what you were referring to--is that it could be in the newspaper, but if the impression is that the police didn't do something about it, it's because they actually did do a threat assessment on the information, or an assessment as to its criminality, and made a determination that in this particular case, and we're talking hypothetically, there would be insufficient grounds to begin an investigation, and that, at the same time, having regard for the individual you may be investigating, the investigation itself could be construed in some quarters as a sign of something having been done wrong.

Would I be correct?

[A/Commr Raf Souccar]

You would. Reacting to newspapers or gossip by unleashing a massive investigation is not what we do. We verify what it is we do.

Information comes in. We accept any type of information that comes in. As I said earlier, we depend on everybody, on the general public. Public security is something that rests with all of us. We encourage people to come and talk to us. If anyone has any information that could be of concern to us, we would welcome that information. But we don't accept it and unleash an investigation right away. We need to verify its accuracy, its reliability. That's how we differentiate between gossip or unreliable information versus reliable information that is worthy of the next step, which is investigation.

[C/Supt Bob Paulson]

Perhaps I could add something here.

I think it's important for the committee to understand the level of complexity that attaches to investigations in today's environment. There's a need to respect the various statutes, the most important ones being the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Privacy Act. All of those provisions give us the level of living we like here.

I'm not complaining; I'm just illustrating for you that it is a complex legal and process environment that we have to manage, and it's not well managed in the public arena.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

That's exactly the direction my question was going in. I was going to bring up those two very important acts that every citizen, from the highest position in the land down to.... Well, we're all equal. We all have a responsibility, number one, to each other, to make sure that we respect each other's rights. Even more so, as police officers and holders of the authority to arrest and detain, you have to ensure that anything you do doesn't do more harm than the accusation or the potential information.

Going down that line--I was just asked a question by one of my colleagues--it's the responsibility of every one of us, if we know something, to bring that information forward. But when we do realize that we have crossed the line, when we do realize that we may have exceeded our authority or that we have made a mistake, we have to do the responsible thing. We have to take responsibility for it. We have to take it upon our shoulders to right the wrong.

I think one of the things we need to talk about, since we can't talk about the specifics, is that some of the individuals in this case have.... I mean, the minister has resigned his position and done the right thing. But I think it's necessary for every citizen to realize that we have to take responsibility and do the right thing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

I didn't detect a question there.

Ms. Barnes.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you very much for appearing today.

I understand the difficulty behind what you can say and what you can't say, but maybe you can answer this in general.

We're talking about security clearances, but that's not the only way in which the RCMP interacts with the minister. For instance, can you tell me whether or not the RCMP would accompany a minister on international travel, say, or in his functions even inside the country, on a one-on-one basis?

[A/Commr Raf Souccar]

Not generally. It depends on the minister, and it depends on any threat assessment that may be conducted on the particular minister, as to whether or not they require any type of security. If that threat assessment is conducted and security is required, it's then assessed at what level it's required, and they would be provided with a security package commensurate with that assessment.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Assuming that the RCMP has a threat assessment and there is an accompanying RCMP officer, would that RCMP officer be fully briefed about the minister he is with, and the people you anticipate being around that minister?

[A/Commr Raf Souccar]

The security team would be briefed on the nature of the threat assessment, not on the minister's personal life. If he's accompanied by someone, certainly that person would be known to the security detail.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

And if there was any concern about that person, what would be the procedure that you would expect of your RCMP officer in passing on that information?

[A/Commr Raf Souccar]

What type of concern are we talking about--a security concern, a threat?

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

If the RCMP officer who was accompanying the minister was aware of, say, some interaction with people that would raise a level of concern, what would you expect, in your normal protocol, for that officer to do with that information?

[A/Commr Raf Souccar]

I just want to make sure I follow your question. If there is a concern that the person with the minister--

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

I don't want to get into the hypotheticals, but say the RCMP officer saw people who would have been known to you, and be of interest to you, from a security point of view--whether it was organized crime, whether it was other individuals. What would you expect that RCMP officer who was with the minister to do with that information in your normal procedure or protocol?

[A/Commr Raf Souccar]

I think--exactly as I detailed earlier--if that concern was known to one of our officers, the potential security threat would be assessed to see the validity of it, how it relates to the activity taking place, such as travel, and how it relates to security issues, whether it's the classification of documents, as we talked about earlier.... Whatever the nature of the threat is, it's assessed. Based on that, a determination is made whether or not to notify PCO.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

You said earlier that if you had information, you would go from the range of doing nothing to turning the information over to the proper source.

Is there any other instance, other than you not seeing a security threat, in which you would do nothing? In other words, you would have to be assured, yourselves, that there is no threat; that would be the one and only reason that you would do nothing with the information.

[A/Commr Raf Souccar]

I'm not sure I follow the question.

[C/Supt Bob Paulson]

Let me take a crack it, because it's important that we understand the protective function of the officers accompanying those ministers for whom there has been a threat identified--the protective function that they must perform.

If, in the course of those duties, they observe behaviour which is criminal, it doesn't matter who's doing that, they're duty-bound to uphold the law. If they observe conduct of people around the dignitary, that's not altogether uncommon, because in those travels the dignitaries often interact with wide cross-sections of our communities, which unfortunately sometimes contain criminals. We agree with Mr. Ménard that organized crimes and terrorist groups try to access influence, try to access our institutions, so there's that component.

But we shouldn't confuse the protective duties of the officers on the road, apart from their natural sort of basic police responsibilities, with this other interaction with people on the road. We would expect that if officers observe suspicious conduct that would raise their suspicions, if perhaps organized crime or a terrorist group is trying to influence our institutions, they would raise that with us. And as the deputy said, we would engage in an investigation.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you.

I don't think you quite answered my question. What I was trying to get at--

[C/Supt Bob Paulson]

It's not for lack of trying.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Yes, I realize, so I'll try to rephrase it one more time.

You said that you would go from doing nothing with the information to moving it along.

[C/Supt Bob Paulson]

What I was talking about there was the range. When I said doing nothing, we would perhaps assess the information as being “so what” information--it's none of our business and we've got to let that go.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

And that's the only reason. I just wanted you to put on the record that there would be no other reason that you would do nothing.

[C/Supt Bob Paulson]

No. I'll let the deputy talk about that, but we may do nothing because we want to protect an investigation. We may do nothing in terms of advising people, because that would infringe upon the integrity of such an investigation or an investigation in the future. That may be a condition too.