Evidence of meeting #54 for Public Safety and National Security in the 40th Parliament, 3rd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was information.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—La Prairie, QC
Does that mean it won't be able to do criminal checks?
Director General, Canadian Criminal Real Time Identification Services, Forensic Science and Identification Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Yes, it will. It will do both checks.
Director General, Canadian Criminal Real Time Identification Services, Forensic Science and Identification Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The system has to be updated.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—La Prairie, QC
So that means that a Quebec citizen could then contact a Sûreté du Québec detachment rather than the municipal police to request a print check.
Director General, Canadian Criminal Real Time Identification Services, Forensic Science and Identification Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Yes, or a private business that provides fingerprint submission services.
Liberal
Director General, Canadian Criminal Real Time Identification Services, Forensic Science and Identification Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Of course. So that's used for obtaining visas or for checks.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—La Prairie, QC
For example, for preliminary employment checks or checks of that kind.
Director General, Canadian Criminal Real Time Identification Services, Forensic Science and Identification Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Yes. That's the case as well.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—La Prairie, QC
What are the costs of that for a municipal police department? I'm not talking about small departments—because I suppose it would be extremely costly for them—but for regional services. There's one in my constituency, in the Roussillon RCM and in the Longueuil area. Those are the kinds of police departments that have a certain size. Are the costs affordable? We have no idea of the costs that might represent for them?
Director General, Canadian Criminal Real Time Identification Services, Forensic Science and Identification Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
It really depends on their needs, their systems and their servers. The costs and needs of the various police departments are very different. So I couldn't give you an answer on that point.
The price of a LiveScan is about $15,000 and it can vary widely depending on the needs of the police department, that is to say, for example, if a number of LiveScans are necessary or a server is necessary.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—La Prairie, QC
Once the LiveScan is installed, how much time does it take to adapt all the services, to hook up the system to yours and really start operating?
Director General, Canadian Criminal Real Time Identification Services, Forensic Science and Identification Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
That depends on the complexity of the systems linked to ours. It can range from a few days to a few weeks.
Director General, Canadian Criminal Real Time Identification Services, Forensic Science and Identification Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
There's also the issue of training that must—
Liberal
Director General, Canadian Criminal Real Time Identification Services, Forensic Science and Identification Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
With regard to linking it to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, that can take from a few days to a few weeks.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—La Prairie, QC
Do you train the officers who subsequently use the LiveScan? Do you provide the training?
Director General, Canadian Criminal Real Time Identification Services, Forensic Science and Identification Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
We train one person who subsequently trains the people who will be using the system.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—La Prairie, QC
So you train one person at the police department in question.
I was very struck--
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
You time is actually up. Thank you, Madam Mendes.
Okay, go ahead, Madam Mendes. I'll give you a few more--
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—La Prairie, QC
Just one tiny little question.
I was very struck by the 5,900% increase in demands. Why? Could you please elaborate on that?
Thank you.
A/Commr Peter Henschel
This is all an issue about public safety. It's the only way for us to ensure that somebody who has, in particular, had a pardon for a sexual offence and goes and does a legal name change--which is very easy to do.... It's the only way for us to ensure that those people get fingerprinted and that we catch them in the process. Otherwise, there's no way of guaranteeing that somebody who's had a legal name change but has also been pardoned for a sexual offence.... There's no way of identifying them.
What happens is that because the only way to do that is to then key off their gender and the date of birth, it means that anybody else who shares the gender and the date of birth of a pardoned sexual offender will be asked to submit fingerprints, and that's why the big increase. It's unfortunate, but it's a balance to ensuring that these people are identified and don't get access to the vulnerable sector.
Conservative