Public Safety Committee on Feb. 15th, 2011

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

But you agree with me that for many, if not most, of the organizations who are involved in coaching of children or cub scouts or those types of organizations, it is becoming fairly standard that they're requiring this type of information.

[A/Commr Peter Henschel]

Yes.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you.

I'm not a technical person at all, but I do understand that the cost of a scanning device, for LiveScan, costs between $12,000 and $16,000. Is there other periphery equipment that's required to get online, or is it just a matter of buying this scan and hooking it onto the Internet? Is that all you need to do?

[Guylaine Dansereau]

It depends on what they need at the police agency. Let's say all they need is a LiveScan. The LiveScan is equipped to be connected directly to us without other than a line with us. You don't need to have a particular website or server if it's only one LiveScan. If there is more at the police agency, then there is an interface information or a system that will be required.

[C/Supt Charles Walker]

Just to clarify, this doesn't run over the Internet. It runs on a secure national police services network that the RCMP provides.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you for that clarification.

I only have two police forces in my constituency, Edmonton Police Service and the RCMP St. Albert detachment. One of them, I understand, is using LiveScan and the RCMP is not. Is that a local decision by the RCMP detachment, or is there some sort of schedule or rollout plan for the RCMP detachments and when they're going to come on board?

[A/Commr Peter Henschel]

I probably don't have that information, or I'm not aware. That's sort of another area of the organization that's responsible for what happens at the detachment level. I wouldn't have an answer for you right now on that particular point.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Anybody else?

Can I infer from that decision that the decision is not going to be made by Ottawa; that the decision is going to be made either by K Division or by somebody at the local RCMP detachment in St. Albert?

[A/Commr Peter Henschel]

That's probably more likely, but certainly it's something we would be encouraging to RCMP detachments.

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Those are my questions, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you. You have two minutes left.

Does anyone else have a question?

Madam Mourani.

[Maria Mourani, Bloc, Ahuntsic, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

It's actually the Liberals' turn.

Mr. Kania, did you want...?

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Sure.

You were indicating that this is reliable, and that's fine, and I do want to ask you about potential improvements that have occurred.

In April of 2000 I understand the Auditor General of Canada noted that the computer system on which you depend was out of date and overloaded. The report noted that people could not access it, and this compromised the safety of police officers and impeded criminal investigations. What's happened with that computer system?

[A voice]

Was that CPIC?

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Yes.

Obviously the Auditor General was talking about technology in particular, in terms of the computer system.

[C/Supt Charles Walker]

And the date of that particular OAG report, again?

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

April 2000.

[C/Supt Charles Walker]

A lot has happened with CPIC since then.

CPIC has been the subject of a major crown project called CPIC renewal, which has since been completed. It essentially took the system, which has been online since 1972, and gave it a complete replatforming.

There are certainly no issues with the availability or the response times of CPIC for police services across the country. Last year CPIC processed 250 million transactions, and it was available essentially 99.5% of the time.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

So in response to any questions from the Auditor General at this stage, you would say that all of that's been remedied and updated.

[C/Supt Charles Walker]

With respect to CPIC, absolutely.

[A/Commr Peter Henschel]

I think that report may have also referred to the automated fingerprint identification system, and as part of RTID that has been replaced by new generation technology, which has made great strides.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Okay.

In terms of the reliability of the system, I'm not questioning you, but I am going to ask about this decision. There's an Ontario case, the Crown v. Horne, 2009. Are you aware of that case?

Justice Fairgrieve noted in that decision that the court was unable to obtain the full list of criminal records because of backlogs in CPIC. It was indicated that backlogs at that point extended to over a year and a half. Obviously you know that somebody's criminal record in the past is taken into account for sentencing in the future.

In that particular case, it was noted that between eight and eleven convictions had not been included in the person's criminal record at the time he was being sentenced. That obviously is a problem. If you are going to take into account somebody's past criminal record, you need to know what that is at the time of sentencing.

Maybe you could address that.

[A/Commr Peter Henschel]

There are two issues. The first is that the criminal records aren't necessarily up to date. As I mentioned, there is a backlog. However, if we get a request before sentencing—the police or the prosecution come to us and ask us to update that—we will update that, and we'll do it overnight. Whatever needs to be done, that criminal record file will be updated in time for sentencing.

What happens, though, as well.... And as I mentioned, there have been media reports in the past about how somebody's been sentenced and the prosecution couldn't prove previous convictions, when everybody in the jurisdiction knew this person had been convicted for whatever offence it was. When we've had cases like that we've checked our system, and we didn't have fingerprints submitted for those offences.

That's the other piece: a fingerprint has to be submitted for every time someone is charged. If fingerprints aren't submitted for that charge, we cannot add it to the criminal record. That is the only way we know that the person is who they say they are. If that isn't done, the person may have been convicted of a criminal offence, but it won't show up on their criminal record.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

In this particular case, the judge noted—and whether he or she knew properly, I can't comment on that—it was because of a year-and-a-half delay in terms of the records.