Public Safety Committee on Feb. 15th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Good morning, everyone. This is meeting number 54 of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. Today is Tuesday, February 15, 2011.

Before we introduce our guests this morning and the topic to our committee, I would say that we're going to have an opportunity to see lots of you today. This committee meeting will go until 11 a.m. and then this evening we will meet until 11 o'clock tonight. We will have dinner coming in tonight.

One of the things that our clerk has done, because there are a number of witnesses who we have invited for tonight, is he's going to pass around a listing sheet of those who have been invited, just to let you know at the present time where we are on answers to our invitation to appear. There are a few who have declined, and until we get the final numbers my understanding is our clerk will be continuing to follow up on some of these today. So this will change, but this will at least give you a bit of an idea, an indication of who will appear this evening on Bill C-59.

This morning we are here and we are having a briefing on the Canadian Police Information Centre, commonly known as CPIC.

Appearing as our witnesses we have, from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Peter Henschel, assistant commissioner of the forensic science and identification services; Charles Walker, director general of the Canadian Police Information Centre, forensic science and identification services; and Guylaine Dansereau, director general of the Canadian criminal real time identification services, forensic science and identification services.

Our committee wants to thank you for responding to our call to appear. It was a motion that was brought forward, I believe by Madam Mourani—not a motion, but at least a topic. And I think it's a topic that interests all of us here today.

We appreciate your attendance. I'm not certain if you have an opening statement that you'd like to give, a little bit of a briefing on the good work that you do. Then if you would entertain some questions, we would be very appreciative.

Mr. Henschel.

[Assistant Commissioner Peter Henschel, Assistant Commissioner, Forensic Science and Identification Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak before this committee today.

I am pleased to appear before the committee in my role as the assistant commissioner, forensic science and identification services. My area of responsibility includes two key services that are the primary focus of today's committee hearing, the Canadian Police Information Centre, known as CPIC, and the Canadian criminal real time identification services, which we call CCRTIS.

Accompanying me are Chief Superintendent Charles Walker, director general of CPIC, and Ms. Guylaine Dansereau, director general of CCRTIS.

I would like to begin by clarifying the roles of CPIC and CCRTIS for the committee.

CPIC is a system that stores and retrieves law enforcement information submitted by authorized agencies. The CPIC system allows authorized police services to access several databanks primarily for law enforcement purposes. One of these databanks is the national repository of criminal records, which contains criminal record data maintained by CCRTIS. The repository contains approximately 4.1 million criminal records, and more than 500,000 criminal record files are updated and maintained annually by CCRTIS.

CCRTIS provides Canadian law enforcement and judicial services with certified criminal record products that meet a high standard of quality and certification. As criminal records are an integral part of law enforcement and the criminal justice system, they must be maintained with a high degree of accuracy and security.

Additionally, over the last decade criminal record checks have become an essential component in civil screening applications such as employment, vulnerable sector positions, adoptions, and travel documents such as visas. In order to better manage and facilitate the civil screening process, many organizations have also engaged the services of third-party companies to act as intermediaries.

The increased reliance on criminal records for criminal justice and civil screening purposes and the requirement for timely responses place an enormous burden on the national repository of criminal records, which was a paper-based manual system. As a result, a major Crown project, called Real Time Identification, or RTID, was initiated to automate the criminal record system.

While the development of RTID continues, significant components of the criminal record system still require manual processing, which is time- consuming. Additionally, the national repository of criminal records also has a significant backlog of criminal record files awaiting updates. Although the RCMP has allocated as many resources as we can to this important function, the backlog continues to present significant challenges.

Other factors have contributed to the length of time it takes to complete civil screening applications. In late 2009, CPIC audits revealed that some Canadian police agencies were disseminating criminal record information, obtained form CPIC, in contravention of the Criminal Records Act, the Youth Criminal Justice Act, the 1987 Ministerial Directive on the Release of Criminal Records, and CPIC policy.

As a result of these breaches, the RCMP issued a directive to all Canadian police agencies to abide by federal legislation, policy and directives. Although this change had an impact on the criminal record check practices of several organizations and increased the time required to complete some civil screening processes, it was necessary to ensure compliance with the law, the protection of personal information and the accuracy of the verifications.

In January 2010, the RCMP established a working group that included representatives from Canadian police services, federal and provincial public safety departments, and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. The goal of the working group was to develop potential strategies to reduce the length of time required to complete civil screening processes. On August 4, 2010, following these consultations, the Minister of Public Safety issued the ministerial directive concerning the release of criminal record information by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. This directive focused on safeguarding the release of criminal record information while still allowing police agencies to work with 30 civil screening companies through memoranda of understanding.

In consultation with the federal-provincial working group, the RCMP subsequently issued a new policy to implement the ministerial directive. The policy includes a new option for individuals to self-declare criminal records for name-based criminal record checks and vulnerable sector verification. This measure significantly reduces the requirement for individuals with criminal records to submit fingerprints. The requirement for vulnerable sector verification is to be completed by the police service of the local jurisdiction where an individual resides. There are also standardized processes for releasing criminal record information to individuals. And there is a requirement for the submission of fingerprints for certified criminal record checks and for incomplete name-based criminal record checks and vulnerable sector verifications.

One of the most important aspects of civil screening is the safety and security of vulnerable persons. Vulnerable persons, as defined in the Criminal Records Act, “are in a position of dependence on others; or are otherwise at a greater risk than the general population of being harmed by persons in a position of authority or trust relative to them”. As such, police and public safety officials across Canada have a special responsibility to ensure their safety.

In July 2010, the RCMP became aware that pardoned sex offenders who had obtained illegal name changes could potentially avoid being linked to the pardoned sex offences during the vulnerable sector verification. To address this issue, the CPIC system was enhanced and now requires individuals to submit fingerprints during vulnerable sector screening if the individual's gender and date of birth matches a pardoned sexual offender record. This does not suggest that the individual has a criminal record or has been pardoned for a sexual offence. Rather, it is a mechanism to confirm identity and to establish that the person does not have a pardon for a sexual offence.

It is important to note that the fingerprints are used by CCRTIS to confirm the identity of the individual and are immediately destroyed once the verification process is complete. While this process has caused frustration, it is necessary for preventing a pardoned sexual offender who has legally changed names from gaining access to vulnerable persons. The only alternative would be to require fingerprint submissions for every vulnerable sector verification, a process that would overwhelm the current manual system.

Although this change to CPIC was necessary to better protect vulnerable persons, it clearly resulted in unintended consequences. Prior to this change, CCRTIS received an average of 130 fingerprint-based vulnerable sector verifications a month, which were all processed as soon as they were received. Since the change was implemented, CCRTIS is receiving an average of 7,675 fingerprint-based vulnerable sector verifications a month, a 5,900% increase.

Despite redeploying additional personnel to process these verifications, we are not able to maintain our previous turnaround times, as the volume of transactions exceeds our capacity. The result has been that it can currently take up to nine weeks before we're able to process a paper-based fingerprint verification. We believe that this delay is unacceptable, particularly when an individual's employment depends on a vulnerable sector verification and the individual does not have a criminal record or a pardon for a sexual offence.

As such, we examined alternative approaches to streamline and shorten the process. Last October we modified the real-time identification system to enable policing partners to electronically submit fingerprints for vulnerable sector verifications via live scan devices. They can also receive responses electronically. This RTID enhancement significantly reduces or eliminates the wait times. For example, when an individual does not have a link to a criminal record or a pardoned sexual offence, which is the case in 85% to 90% of cases, the electronic fingerprint submission and response can be completed in under five minutes. Currently more than 20 police jurisdictions in Canada are connected to the RTID system for vulnerable sector purposes, and the number of electronic fingerprint submissions are steadily increasing.

Nevertheless, only about 15% of fingerprint submissions for vulnerable sector verifications are currently submitted electronically. We continue to work with our policing partners to encourage them to invest in RTID technology for the electronic processing of civil fingerprint submissions. It is our belief that the long-term solution for civil screening is to make all vulnerable sector screening fingerprint-based once police services have had the opportunity to connect to RTID.

Meeting the safety and security needs of the Canadian public and our policing partners is of great importance to the RCMP, and we will continue our efforts to provide efficient and high-quality certified criminal record products to our clients.

We appreciate the opportunity to meet with the committee today on this important topic and hope that these opening remarks have helped to clarify some of the intricate and complex processes involved with criminal records and civil screening.

We look forward to answering any questions that you may have. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much for your testimony. You were the only presentation, is that correct?

Okay, we will move to the first round of questioning, seven-minute rounds.

We'll go to Mr. Holland, please.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

And thank you to the witnesses for being here today.

I have a number of concerns from constituents. I'm going to go over those in a moment, but before I do, one of the things that was brought to my attention, in fact just yesterday, is the national police service. There's now a shortfall of about $28 million in the funding from the federal government for the various services provided by the national police service, and CPIC is obviously a recipient of some of that funding. The RCMP is now having to make up that cut of $28 million by the federal government, and I'm concerned about how that's going to be made up.

I know you have been bridging it by utilizing vacancies and saving money that way. But what's the plan to ensure we don't see a further degradation of service? Obviously it's not just CPIC. We have the national sex offender registry and some other extremely important things. I don't know if you can speak to those others, but I'm concerned about the implications of that funding shortfall.

[A/Commr Peter Henschel]

First of all, I don't think it's a funding cut. It's more an issue of the costs rising for national police services, be it through additional legislation or technology costs, and those sorts--

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

If I could, maybe for clarity, the figures I saw show that the RCMP was expected to pick up about a million dollars or something—over a million dollars. That figure has now risen to over $28 million. I mean, it's hard not to see it that way, but however you look at it, you guys have to find $27 million that you didn't have to find several years ago.

The question is, how do you overcome that? How are you going to ensure there isn't a degradation of service from that?

[A/Commr Peter Henschel]

It is accurate that over the last few years the RCMP has supplemented the national police services budget from carry-forward it has in its operating budget to cover any shortfall. Going forward, given the financial situation that governments find themselves in across the country, this is not necessarily sustainable.

We have undertaken a national police services renewal and sustainability initiative to look at various options for national police services moving forward. It's focused around governance and ensuring that our policing partners are engaged in the process of determining the priorities for national police services. It's also working with the provinces, territories, and the federal government in determining the best way forward for national police services. We're really working at strengthening governance around national police services.

In response to your question on how we're going to manage the shortfall, I think there are probably various options to be looked at. That's part of what we're doing with this initiative, to work with our various partners and stakeholders to determine the best way forward.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

As a comment before I go to my next question, I would see that there are three options. You could cut from some other portion of the RCMP, you could cut from the national police service, you could download some of these costs onto the local police services, or the federal government could restore the funding.

I would submit that the latter, particularly given the importance of what you do, would be the best option to go with. The work you do is extremely important, and I thank you for it.

The concern I've been having a lot in my office is with people seeking either a volunteer or employment opportunity and they need to get a criminal record check. The time lag has been increasing lately, and part of the reason that has been given--I just want to verify that it is the case--is that since January 2010 the local police offices are no longer able to issue police records to persons requesting them. Is that the case?

[A/Commr Peter Henschel]

No.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

That's incorrect, okay. That would come back to us.

Let me just describe a couple of situations. In a situation where somebody has no notes on their file there isn't a problem. But if there are notes on the file and the person gets back that request saying the person may or may not have a criminal record, yet there are no further details given, you can imagine for somebody who's going in for an employment opportunity, if there's no additional information provided there and it just says that this person may or may not have a criminal record, that becomes a major barrier to employment.

Can you tell me what you can do to alleviate that or to address the issue?

[A/Commr Peter Henschel]

Are you talking about the vulnerable sector specifically here, or in general?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

No, in general.

[A/Commr Peter Henschel]

It's just in general, okay.

I think the short answer is that in the absence of somebody providing fingerprints and that being checked against the fingerprint database, we're doing name-based checks. The response on name-based checks will always leave some room there to say that based on the information, there's no known criminal record information. But unless you take the fingerprints from somebody and submit them to get a certified criminal record product, we cannot say with absolute 100% certainty that the person--

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

But you can understand, because that process can take four to eight months.

I have a situation with a constituent who, as it turns out, had the same name as somebody else, so there was this request to come in for fingerprints. They were seeking an employment opportunity and they got something back saying this person may or may not have a criminal record. They couldn't, frankly, get a job, because they were supposed to submit this. And now all of a sudden it's raising all kinds of questions about this person and they're told that it's going to take months to get an answer. So it becomes a major barrier to employment, and this is for somebody who's never done anything. This is for an innocent individual.

How do we get out of that, where we're having people who are seeking employment or volunteer opportunities and having those shut down because the process is taking so long?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Holland.

[A/Commr Peter Henschel]

We very much understand that concern. It's one that we face every day. We get correspondence every day on that. We take it very seriously, and that's why we've made the changes we have to the real time identification system. It is now possible for police services to hook up to us electronically and, for somebody who doesn't have a record, to have that response basically instantaneously.

What happens is people submit their fingerprints electronically on a live scan machine. That comes in to us, that's automatically checked against our fingerprint holdings, and if they have no record they get a response. And if the police service is hooked up electronically to receive the response, they can have a response in two or three minutes.

The solution is there now. We understand the frustration, we understand the challenges this was causing, but the solution is now available and we're running it in more than 20 police jurisdictions. Halton police, for example, is fully automated, so they actually also receive the response. They usually have a response in about two minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Henschel and Mr. Holland.

Madam Mourani.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you very much for being here today to try to inform us.

My questions will focus more specifically on public safety rather than employability, to which I'll return later.

Based on the information I've obtained, when someone is arrested, no matter in what Canadian province, a C-216 form is completed. You subsequently receive that form from the police station that arrested the individual. Am I right?

When you receive that form, you open a file with an FPS number and you enter fingerprints and so on. It should normally contain fingerprints and everything. In a way, that form is returned to the police stations so that they can return it to you afterwards, depending whether charges are laid. Am I wrong? Does it work like that?

[A/Commr Peter Henschel]

Yes, that's the way it is.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

I understood that the form is not systematically returned. Not all the police agencies return it to you. Certain provinces don't do it, even if charges are laid. Sometimes people aren't even required to go to the police station to provide their fingerprints. In fact, they are required to do so by law, but they don't systematically do it. After they have been charged, if they receive no sentence except perhaps for a fine, they don't necessarily go and have their fingerprints taken. Consequently, these people never enter your system.

When the C-216 form isn't returned to you after a few months—I was told it was after approximately 18 months—it appears the file disappears from your system as though it had never existed. Is that true?

[A/Commr Peter Henschel]

To respond to the first part of your question, there's no law in Canada that requires the police to submit fingerprints when people are charged with criminal offences. It is required under young offenders legislation, but in general there is no law that requires police to submit fingerprints.

So to have a criminal record in Canada.... We'll only open a criminal record and add to the criminal record for fingerprints to be submitted with the charges, or whatever took place. That is the only way we can guarantee that the person who has the record is who they are. A lot of people use aliases or other people's names. Fingerprints are the only way to make sure we have an accurate record for a particular person.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

One thing really intrigues me. Let's suppose you open a file with a 216 form and that the police department doesn't return it to you. If the 216 form isn't returned within 18 months as provided, that is stating that the individual has been convicted or not convicted, that the charges or sentence has been withdrawn and so on, the file disappears from your system. Is that true?

[A/Commr Peter Henschel]

It stays in our system. We'll eventually follow up with the police department.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

That's not what I'm told.

[A/Commr Peter Henschel]

What you've been told isn't true. We keep that document, the 216 form.