Public Safety Committee on March 1st, 2012

[Michael Nuyen]

For medical and legal reasons, the vendors across North America and even Europe are not making devices that cannot be cut off. In a medical emergency, they are all under legal liabilities. They make it so that the devices, while robust and not easily taken apart, can nonetheless be removed in a medical emergency.

You need the compliance of the individual to work with this technology. They need to avoid cutting it off, and they need, in some cases, to interact with the equipment every day to recharge it.

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

If you don't mind my interrupting—

[Michael Nuyen]

The response—

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

I'm sorry, but we're very limited by time.

We can't always be certain, but generally speaking, if a bracelet becomes detached, it would be because it was removed by the person, not because there was a malfunction.

[Michael Nuyen]

That's correct. What I didn't get into is all the tamper-detection mechanisms available in today's technology to alert authorities that it has been removed or tampered with.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Norlock.

We'll move to the opposition and to Mr. Scarpaleggia.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Nuyen, you seem to be talking about zone configuration as it relates to the reliability of the technology. Did I understand correctly that it's one of the services you're offering? It's more than just putting a bracelet on someone and having some sort of control or box or receiver so that the law enforcement authorities would know where the person is. That would be almost a retail product, the kind of thing you could buy at Canadian Tire, I suppose, but it sounds as if what you do is more complex. You tell CBSA or Correctional Service of Canada that if they're trying to limit the person's movements, maybe they should be drawing the line here rather than there. The configuration will have an impact on the reliability. Is that correct?

[Michael Nuyen]

Because of all the moving parts and the interaction with software, the field performance issues that arise will depend on a number of factors. If the intent is to alert authorities that a person wearing a GPS tracking bracelet has entered a zone he should not be in, a simple oversight in configuring that zone could mean that the person wearing the ankle bracelet, taking public transit and going along the usual route that they take, could cross into a zone without even being aware of it.

They have no control over that. The training involved in properly setting up a GPS tracking program is considerable. The officers are well trained to define their zones carefully. They avoid setting up zones where their client would be expected to travel. If we're trying to limit entry or we want to be alerted of entry into a park or school, if you make your zone three or four times the size of that park or school, and if the person is travelling through that area, it is very easy to generate an alarm even though he did not enter the park or the school itself.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Is that a technical issue requiring your services, or is it just a question of the officer looking at a map and saying that this circumference is too large? Is it a technical issue that involves the coverage that telecommunications towers have in a particular area? You wouldn't want to chance the signal breaking. We can sometimes live with losing contact on our cellphones for 30 seconds when we're driving through the countryside, but I imagine it would be important to not have that kind of break in transmission.

[Michael Nuyen]

Yes, that's correct. Again, the GPS tracking technologies give us alerts when communication has not been established properly.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Okay.

Mr. Caton, I understand that at the federal level you're dealing now almost exclusively with CBSA. Is that correct?

[Eric Caton]

That's correct.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

What kinds of signals are you getting from CBSA? Is your business with them expanding? Is it pretty much status quo? Are they asking you to bid on more tenders? Are they showing a keen interest in this technology? What's your sense?

[Eric Caton]

My sense is that they are waiting for political will to make decisions.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

It's an interesting answer, Mr. Caton. We're “waiting for political will”. What do you mean by that?

[Eric Caton]

They're waiting for some direction.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Essentially then, there have been questions as to what the purpose of this study is, and it sounds as though it's to give impetus to expanding the use of electronic monitoring at the federal level and, more specifically, with the CBSA. Would you say that may be an accurate statement?

[Eric Caton]

I wouldn't....That's beyond my purview.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Okay.

For how many cases at the moment is CBSA using your technology? How many people are being tracked by CBSA?

[Eric Caton]

At this time, I'll only say that there are fewer than 10.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Fewer than 10?

[Eric Caton]

Yes.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Okay. That's interesting, actually.

I guess that's pretty much it for my questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Scarpaleggia.

We'll now move to Mr. Garrison. Mr. Garrison, you have five minutes.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for appearing.

I must say I was a little disappointed with your written presentation, because it doesn't really focus very much on the actual technology.

Just to be clear, I'd like to ask you both a couple of questions about your background, since your brief talks a lot about public policy and rehabilitation.

Can you both tell me how you came to be associated with this company, and what your personal backgrounds and expertise are, especially as it might relate to rehabilitation and case management?