Public Safety Committee on Feb. 15th, 2011

[Guylaine Dansereau]

If it's for a vulnerable sector, it is the jurisdiction of the local police. If it's for any other type of employment, it can be done at any police agency, as well as by private companies that are connected directly to our automated system for submitting fingerprints for civil purposes.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Correct, so I'll ask it another way. If somebody who went to the Port Elgin Police Department, which is a municipal service that would not have the technology, and they need to get a job at the Bruce Power Nuclear Generating Station, they would have to take it currently by paper and let it work its way through the system, right? That's the way it would work today?

[Guylaine Dansereau]

If it's not for a vulnerable sector, which requires local police jurisdiction.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Correct. So if they wanted to get a job, if they were required by Bruce Power to have this done before they were able to get an offer to hire, would they be able to speed the process up by going to Waterloo or London to have this done? Because currently, sometimes you have to wait 30 days or 90 days to have this thing completed.

[Guylaine Dansereau]

On paper, yes.

[A/Commr Peter Henschel]

For something like that, there are other mechanisms available for them to either have them taken through one of the private fingerprint companies that has LiveScan.... We wouldn't have anything against them if they went to another police service that has it, but it would obviously be something where that police service would have to be in agreement to do it. But it certainly wouldn't prevent them from doing so.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

How long does it take for a police service to adapt the technology and do a test and then become fully online with you guys? From the time they purchase the technology to the time it's implemented, what's the turnaround time?

[Guylaine Dansereau]

It depends on the complexity, on if they require one piece of equipment or multiple, if they have servers. It could be a matter of days or weeks.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

A matter of days or weeks. That's good to see.

As you see this continuing to grow and roll out, how many different units do you see per 100,000 people? Do you have a ratio now, or a target that you're working towards?

[Guylaine Dansereau]

It depends on the need of the police agencies to identify how many units they require. It depends on the geographical areas as well, or it depends on the volume they have at their police agency.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Is there an RCMP mandate that you would love to see whereby by 2013 all police forces from coast to coast would be embracing this technology? Or have you set that mandate yet?

[A/Commr Peter Henschel]

I think that would be very difficult. Certainly right now we're encouraging police services to do so. We've had discussions at one point with our partners to say maybe we'll put a cutoff date and say by such and such a date we're not going to support maybe paper-based processes, but I think it's premature to say that right now. We know that, as you mentioned, there are many rural areas in the country, so there are many different situations that police services work under and we want to make sure that we're as inclusive as possible.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Henschel.

Now we move to Ms. Mendes.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning to you all and thank you for being here today.

I would like to start with a question concerning fingerprint checks outside Canada. I don't know what your organization's responsibility is in the case or someone who applies for Canadian citizenship.

Let's take the case of a permanent resident who has started the process to acquire citizenship. For some reason, he is asked to submit his fingerprints. He goes to the RCMP office—in Montreal in this case—and submits his prints. Four years later, he's still awaiting a response. I know this isn't necessarily your responsibility. I suppose you have to check certain information with a whole series of agencies outside Canada. However, can you explain to me a little how this works and the process a citizen has to go through to get some idea of what's causing the problem?

[Guylaine Dansereau]

I can explain that as regards the RCMP. There are a lot of other stages that Immigration Canada deals with. In our case, we will do the fingerprint check or check to see whether the individual has a criminal record.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

In Canada?

[Guylaine Dansereau]

In Canada. If the individual has lived in other countries, we ask our INTERPOL office to check with those other countries to see whether there have been any other charges or criminal records under the laws of the countries in question. Then, depending on the procedures and laws of the other countries, there may be a considerable delay before we can get the information.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

That's what I thought with regard to the case I mentioned, but I'm nevertheless going to check it.

I'll ask you a second question about submitting these fingerprints. Is the Sûreté du Québec linked to you through LiveScan?

[Guylaine Dansereau]

As regards civil checks, the provincial police are able to obtain new systems in order to do that.

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

That doesn't mean—

[Guylaine Dansereau]

It's currently doing it. LiveScans are used for two reasons: criminal checks and civil checks. With regard to civil checks, the Sûreté du Québec is currently—

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Installing—

[Guylaine Dansereau]

Pardon me?

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

It's doing it, installing the system.

[Guylaine Dansereau]

Yes, getting the system so it can do that.