Public Safety Committee on March 31st, 2009

[C/Supt Gilles Michaud]

Basically, since I arrived in national security eight months ago, my observation is that we live this on a day-to-day basis. All employees across the RCMP with the national security criminal investigation live the impact and the adjustments that we've brought to our program on a day-to-day basis.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you.

Mr. Oliphant, please.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you.

Gentlemen, thank you for appearing before us today. I respect the fact that you are representing the institutions you belong to and that you are senior enough in your organizations that you are appearing before a standing committee of the House of Commons.

I hope you respect the fact that I am representing my constituents, one of whom was detained and tortured, most likely as a result of some of the deficiencies in your organizations. That is why I am here today. Mr. Justice Iacobucci did indeed find that the agencies, particularly CSIS and the RCMP, were deficient in your actions, and most likely those inefficiencies, deficiencies, and failures led to the detention, and likely to the torture, of several men.

I'm wondering if today you are in agreement with Mr. Justice Iacobucci's recommendations.

[Geoffrey O'Brian]

I am pausing because I am, frankly, listening to the held breath of a number of government lawyers, with whom we have all sat down and....

I do in some ways apologize, because it's not an easy position. But the fact is that three individuals are suing the government and individual agencies for several hundred million dollars. We have been informed that anything we say here that could have the least impact upon those cases will be used.

Frankly, our instructions, therefore, are not only slight, they are completely and utterly clear: we cannot in fact discuss anything that would indicate that the government is either in agreement with all of the findings or comment specifically on any of the findings. That's why, in my opening remarks, I tried to phrase it generally.

With respect to your constituent, with respect to any constituent, I would hope that you, as a member of Parliament, would draw to their attention section 41 of our act, which says that any person can complain to SIRC about any act or thing they believe the service has done. I think that's.... I mean, there are very few countries in the world where you can actually do that.

Now, the reality, of course, is that the person will not necessarily find out the information against them, because that's the nature, again, of our organization. But they can be assured that someone outside the organization, someone hopefully with credibility, with complete access to all of the service records, will examine what the service has done. If that person has been affected, there will be a finding.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

I'd like to hear from Mr. Michaud on that.

[C/Supt Gilles Michaud]

I was asked to keep it short. I can only echo the comments made by my colleague from CSIS in respect to the position that I am in this morning.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Commissioner Zaccardelli took advantage of parliamentary privilege and issued an apology at this committee days after the O'Connor commission. Are any of you today willing to take parliamentary privilege, which we extend to you, as the Canadian government does, to make apologies?

[Geoffrey O'Brian]

I'll do that, because, frankly, that is, if I may say, slightly above my pay grade.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you.

[C/Supt Gilles Michaud]

I'm not in that position this morning.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Okay.

I have a question for Mr. Leckey regarding CBSA.

What changes have been made with respect to training of agents since the O'Connor and Iacobucci commissions?

[Geoff Leckey]

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to use some of my notes.

In terms of the recommendation that the agency should have written policies stating that investigations must not be based on racial, religious, or ethnic profiling, we've implemented mandatory training on diversity and race relations as part of our port-of-entry recruit training. Every entering officer, every border services officer, receives this training to ensure that all CBSA employees use professional and equitable service when dealing with people and clients in the diverse and multicultural environment within which they operate.

We've developed mandatory online diversity e-training for all border services officers. Many of the CBSA's regions--there are eight of them--develop and deliver diversity-related training events relevant to their specific communities.

We participate in the interdepartmental committee of the cross-cultural round table on security--

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

I'm sorry, Mr. Oliphant's time is up.

Mr. Norlock, please.

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

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, gentlemen, for coming this morning; whether you wanted to or not, you're here. I appreciate that. I think we all do.

I'd like to begin with some of the questions that Mr. Ménard asked. The way in which I will put most of my questions will be for the edification of Canadians who may be watching and who might be misled by certain terminologies--not, probably, on purpose, but just because it's just the common nomenclature.

The first question is for Mr. Leckey. It has to do with Mr. Ménard's question concerning Canada Protect. Mr. Ménard referred to a no-fly list. Would I be correct in saying that the no-fly list is the U.S. regulation, and Canada Protect is the Canadian legislation, concerning people who are on a list and we have concerns about?

[Geoff Leckey]

In terms of general usage, the no-fly list refers to the American list, which is quite large. The Canadian list known as Passenger Protect is a completely different list. Incidentally, CBSA has no input into the composition of that list.

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

Who would have compilation of the list?

[Geoff Leckey]

I'm not the final authority on this, but as I understand it the decision is taken by Transport Canada, acting on advice from CSIS and the RCMP.

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

Would that be correct, Mr. O'Brian, Mr. Michaud?

[Geoffrey O'Brian]

Yes, it would be.

[C/Supt Gilles Michaud]

Yes. It clarifies my answer from this morning as Transport Canada having the final authority.

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

Thank you.

There were some questions that you were answering concerning checks on people. These have to do with NCIC checks and CPIC checks. For the edification of the folks at home, NCIC is the U.S. equivalent of the Canadian Police Information Centre, is it not?

[C/Supt Gilles Michaud]

Yes, it is.

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

When police officers make checks on people, when they do a CPIC check they can request an NCIC check at the same time. What happens is that the Canadian data bank is searched and at the same time, through an agreement with the United States, we check their data bank as to the criminality, or not, of a person who is checked. Is that not correct?

[C/Supt Gilles Michaud]

I would believe so.

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

Okay.

Also, when people do a check, because there was a suggestion that somebody might have been charged but not convicted.... In the CPIC regime there is a classification of a person who is charged but not convicted, and the person who is making that check is advised that the person is on the charged list but not convicted. Is that not correct?