Evidence of meeting #44 for Public Safety and National Security in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was terrorist.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

John Davies  Director General, National Security Policy, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Michael MacDonald  Director General, National Security Operations Directorate, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness

5:20 p.m.

Director General, National Security Policy, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness

John Davies

Okay. As you know, Public Safety is a portfolio, so the Canada Border Services Agency, the RCMP, and CSIS are all essential core parts of the security intelligence community. Outside of the portfolio, certainly the Privy Council Office has a strong coordinating role, but it also has an assessment capacity itself, which is part of counter-terrorism strategy. The Department of Defence and the Communications Security Establishment—CSEC—are also major components of the security intelligence community, as are Immigration Canada and Transport Canada. It's hard to mention a department that is not somehow related to the security intelligence community. Normally we talk about 12 or 15 as having some kind of capacity in this, even though it may be small relative to the mandate of that department. For some it dominates; obviously, for CSIS, it is their mandate.

I'm not sure if I'm answering your question very well, but it is a big community. A lot of our time is spent getting them in one place, getting them on one page, and moving them in the right direction. It is very much geared toward partnership. People are generally on the same wavelength and want to go in the same direction. But as you can imagine, there are a lot of complexities to any policy initiative that we have.

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

Mr. MacDonald, I think, had a bit of an answer as well.

5:20 p.m.

Director General, National Security Operations Directorate, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness

Michael MacDonald

Very simply, oftentimes the easiest way to capture this is to compare it to an onion. The security intelligence community has layers, and departments and agencies are central to the core, or they find themselves on the outside. It also includes policy and operations. For example, you have core collectors of intelligence—CSIS, CSEC, and DFAIT for certain types of intelligence—and then you have the Department of National Defence, the Canadian Forces, and the Canada Border Services Agency.

Then you have consumers of intelligence, certain departments that will provide policy advice to their ministers, including Transport Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada, Health Canada, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Agriculture Canada, and Natural Resources Canada.

Then you also have the assessors, who assess the intelligence. There are the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre, the Privy Council Office's Intelligence Assessment Secretariat, the intelligence assessment division. The Canadian Forces has a chief of defence intelligence.

The community is large, but there is a core—and I've listed them—of those who collect and analyze information, and the objective of a member of security intelligence is to advise government. That's the core CSIS mandate. The community is larger the more you go to the outside of the layers of the onion. It easily covers 20 departments and agencies.

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

Thank you very much, Mr. MacDonald.

I think I saw Monsieur Rousseau or Mr. Scott.

Go ahead, Mr. Scott.

5:25 p.m.

NDP

Craig Scott NDP Toronto—Danforth, ON

Do we have the full five minutes, because I'd like to share my time with Mr. Rousseau?

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

You have till 5:30.

5:25 p.m.

NDP

Craig Scott NDP Toronto—Danforth, ON

Okay, good.

Could let me know at a minute and a half to two minutes—

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

Okay, I can try. I have to leave enough time for the chair to conclude. Go very quickly then.

5:25 p.m.

NDP

Craig Scott NDP Toronto—Danforth, ON

I just want to return to Afghanistan, because the minister responded by saying that generally we take into account everything, that we're always reviewing and perfecting ourselves. I think we should not forget that the last 10 years has been an extraordinary period, and that Afghanistan probably has, at some level, flown under the radar screen of Canadians as not being as significant in our collective life as it actually has been.

I'd just be so much happier to know that, in all of this review, there has been a serious internal review about the nature of intelligence collaboration within Afghanistan, both between Canadian agencies—defence intelligence and CSIS for example—and between the Canadian agencies and Afghan agencies, to learn the kinds of lessons about both human rights dimensions and effective sharing, especially when armed conflict overlaps with counter-terrorism. Has there been a sophisticated study of the lessons learned in the 10 years that has fed into this process?

5:25 p.m.

Director General, National Security Policy, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness

John Davies

I was just going to say that I imagine there are two layers to the answer. One is that there are very likely internal reviews that CSIS has done with regard to the experience in Afghanistan, given the complex environment there. I would need to check on how the Security Intelligence Review Committee have looked at this issue. They certainly have looked at it from the standpoint of the detainee issue and so on, but I'm not sure whether it has been done with particular respect to the lessons learned that you're interested in. I can undertake to look into that for you.

5:25 p.m.

NDP

Craig Scott NDP Toronto—Danforth, ON

Thank you for that.

Mr. MacDonald, have you anything to add?

5:25 p.m.

Director General, National Security Operations Directorate, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness

5:25 p.m.

NDP

Craig Scott NDP Toronto—Danforth, ON

Good. I will pass the floor to Mr. Rousseau, because I'm aware of the time.

5:25 p.m.

NDP

Jean Rousseau NDP Compton—Stanstead, QC

You mentioned a kind of tool kit that will allow you to react in various situations. Have scenarios been worked out already? Have you also thought of training various police responders with emergency plans that will allow them to react in more and more situations? Have you thought about how all those people should eventually be trained?

5:25 p.m.

Director General, National Security Operations Directorate, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness

Michael MacDonald

I will answer in English. Forgive me, but it will be easier for me to tell you exactly what I mean.

5:25 p.m.

NDP

Jean Rousseau NDP Compton—Stanstead, QC

That's no problem.

5:25 p.m.

Director General, National Security Operations Directorate, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness

Michael MacDonald

That is a very good question, Chair.

In fact, Public Safety itself has a directorate or division dedicated exclusively to training, both from the standpoint of an emergency response to crises—ice, floods, fires, and so on—and from the national security standpoint. The department runs various levels of training, and their national level training often involves Canada-U.S. cross-border exercises once a year. We're part of Operation Nanook by the Canadian Forces and the military in the north every summer. There are other international training exercises for chemical, biological, radiological—CBR and E—events.

There are also lower-level responses. For example, there have been training exercises in Toronto for bomb threats in subways, or in Montreal there have been some. Then there is local-level training; fire departments and first responders receive that type of training.

The short answer is that training is integrated into the approach, because it goes to the federal emergency response plan, it goes to the government operations centre, and in fact it can go to the senior decision making at a national level.

5:25 p.m.

NDP

Jean Rousseau NDP Compton—Stanstead, QC

Thank you very much.

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

Mr. Rousseau actually asked the question that I was going to ask, which is a good question.

This past weekend, for example, I was at a fundraiser in my constituency in rural Alberta, where an individual from a neighbouring community had received an award from the province for a strategy he had used in an emergency preparedness scenario. I was impressed that they were coordinating these types of competitions or this type of planning with the province, federal government, and municipal government, all of whom were involved.

I want to thank you for being here and for the very important work that you do. Although we Canadians realize that terrorism is a massive threat, there is a body of people working hard to protect the security of Canadians. We also expect transparency and accountability and all of those things.

And so we want to thank you for the work that you, the department, and all of those across the country do—first responders included—all who are involved in carrying out not only the strategic plan but also, obviously, the response, if an attack should ever happen. Thank you for coming to help us understand a little better the complexities of national security and terrorism, and for the work that you do.

The meeting is adjourned.