Public Safety Committee on June 5th, 2012

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

It was about the overall strategy, the fact that Canada has a strategy. Do other countries, for example in the G-8, have these kinds of strategies?

[John Davies]

Australia, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. have strategies. I think ours is probably more like Australia's and the United Kingdom's than the U.S.'s. The U.S.'s is similar but a little bit different. I believe the Netherlands has a similar kind of strategy. Beyond that, I'm not sure. I think they all reflect very similar principles. If you hold them up, they're all very similar in terms of the core principles of resilience, partnership, rule of law, terrorism as a crime, and so on. There are slightly different ways of organizing principles and so on and slightly different interpretations of the threat, but I think we've had a chance to brief all our allies, or at least most of our allies, on the contents of the strategy. They all thought very highly of it, certainly.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Were you able to consult at all with the provinces in developing this strategy? When you talk about information, I know a lot of the information-sharing you're talking about is international, but I would think part of the strategy is sharing information. Were the provinces or municipalities involved at all in the strategy?

[John Davies]

The Minister of Public Safety and, I believe, the Minister of Justice both convene a group of their counterparts at the provincial level. That's supported by a group at the deputy minister level. In both those forums we've had a chance to brief them on the counter-terrorism strategy as it was being written as well as the final product.

The challenge going forward is working more with the provinces on certain aspects of the strategy and what kinds of things we want to prioritize, given that their agenda, when they meet, is quite long. Countering violent extremism is an issue that we're quite keen to work on with the provinces, because that gets into issues of more provincial and municipal jurisdictions around front-line workers. It's very similar to countering gangs, working with new immigrant communities that could be isolated, and so on. There's an obvious very good fit there and an obvious need of their support to move this forward.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Thank you very much. That's all I have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Ms. Hoeppner.

Mr. Garrison, please.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to go back to the question of partnerships, having used my previous five minutes up completely.

When you talk about the various levels of engagement, I had some personal experience in my previous life working in Afghanistan and running into the NDS, the National Directorate of Security. I guess you could say this is an organization that, if you even look at the last couple of weeks, has had success in thwarting terrorist threats. At the same time, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission has condemned the NDS for its methods in doing so. It's really ignoring the rule of law and quite often using torture.

I have a question. When we talk about exchanging information, you can see the possible problems—and I think Mr. Goguen was talking about some of those for Canadian nationals who may be of Afghan origin—if you're exchanging information with an organization like that. Where are the guarantees for protection of the rights of those Canadians?

[John Davies]

First of all, the ministerial direction around information-sharing is quite clear that information-sharing has to be lawful, domestically and internationally. That's the basis. Any decisions in terms of sharing information are also proportional to risk, in terms of the sign-offs and the scrutiny it takes, and that's embedded in the ministerial direction.

Another way of looking—

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

When you say risks, risks to whom? Risks to the threat of terrorism or risks to the individual's rights?

[John Davies]

Risk to the person being mistreated, for example. So it's proportional to that. The higher the risk, the higher the sign-offs and scrutiny that goes behind that decision.

Ministerial direction in this area and all areas is also overseen by the Security Intelligence Review Committee, and it is their prerogative to look at these kinds of issues and report to Parliament on them, and also to the minister. So both through ministerial direction and through the review capacity, that would be looked at there.

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

I have one last question. The minister referred to the reintroduction of investigative hearings and recognizance with conditions in that legislation we brought forward. Again, we haven't had a timeframe for that. When those provisions were previously in place, were we able to make effective use of either of those provisions in our counter-terrorism work?

[Michael MacDonald]

That is a very good question. It speaks to the tool kit or what we referred to after 9/11 with the Anti-terrorism Act, Bill C-36 at the time, which provided the security intelligence and law enforcement community with an appropriate tool kit that they could use should they needed to use it. Of course, it comes with the effective oversight and scrutiny to ensure that there are not abuses.

The government of the day considered those powers such that they had to have a five-year sunset clause, and we know what happened after that sunset clause.

I believe the investigative hearing was used in one aspect. The annual reports—and I was responsible as a young analyst for writing the yearly end reports for the use of those investigative powers—would go on, and that was part of the regular accounting or public reporting mechanism.

I think the point on that is that you have a tool kit and if the tool kit remains closed it's closed. When a threat of such magnitude happens and you have to open the tool kit and use the power, it is there to be used appropriately. That's the mentality that followed along with at least those two particular powers.

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

Would you say we're talking about a proportionate response if both of these very serious rights questions depart considerably from our previous legal traditions? Therefore, in my mind, you would have to have some very high risk threats before these could be used. The legislation did not contain any proportionality in the legislation. They are simply things that could be used.

[Michael MacDonald]

I understand the reintroduction did include some enhancements that were identified by the parliamentary committee which reviewed the Anti-terrorism Act on that. One of the logical arguments that follows is that the fact those powers were not extensively used, does show that the law enforcement and security intelligence community considered those to be quite serious and did not go out and “Go into the tool box” when they ought not to. It's one of the arguments that flows from that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Do we have any other questions on this side? Was there anyone else? I don't have anyone on the speakers list.

Ms. Hoeppner and Mr. Rathgeber.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Go ahead, Brent.

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

The fact is that the ability to detain and question a person suspected of terrorism is currently not in our law because the Anti-terrorism Act provisions expired and the last Parliament was unable to get them passed.

I'm reticent to ask you to make a policy pronouncement, but in the view of law enforcement as you understand it, is that a tool in the tool kit that's missing?

[Michael MacDonald]

You're right, I'm not about to make a policy statement on that. It's quite frankly not our prerogative as officials to make a statement on that. We provide the advice.

I would argue, on a personal level in my current capacity, that for the enhancement and the protection of the security of Canada consistent with the gravity of serious offences, a robust tool kit is the way to proceed.

I think I'll just leave it at that.

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

I agree with that. To go back to the premise of Mr. Garrison's question, to use that type of extraordinary measure requires an extraordinary threat. Surely you will agree with me that the events of September 11, 2001 are just that type of extraordinary event. Do you agree with that?

[Michael MacDonald]

Yes, I would.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Ms. Hoeppner, did you want in on that round too?

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Yes. I'm going to go in a different direction. I wonder if you could just talk a little bit more about the other government departments that have roles, because it's obviously not just Public Safety that's involved in carrying out the strategy. Can you just let us know which other departments would have roles in this strategy, and what they would be?

[John Davies]

Do you want me to list off the ones—

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

If you don't mind, yes.