Public Safety Committee on Feb. 7th, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I'll call this meeting to order. Good morning everyone.

This is meeting number 69 of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, Thursday, February 7, 2013.

This morning we're going to continue in our study of the economics of policing in Canada. We're very pleased this morning to have, in our first hour, the deputy commissioner of federal policing, Mike Cabana. He's with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Welcome. He is accompanied by Superintendent Angela Workman-Stark, director of federal policing re-engineering. Our committee wants to thank you for appearing.

I came in at about 8:15 or 8:10, and they were here. They were at their post and they were ready to go, so we thank you for that.

If you have an opening statement, we look forward to hearing it. Then we will go into the first round of questioning.

[Deputy Commissioner Mike Cabana, Deputy Commissioner, Federal Policing, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Honourable members of the committee, good morning.

First, allow me to thank you for inviting me to appear before you today to speak about the RCMP's Federal Policing program. I would also like to introduce Dr. Angela Workman-Stark, who is responsible for the team that manages and coordinates the re-engineering of federal programs.

I would like to begin by introducing you to the Federal Policing program and its mandate.

Federal Policing is a core activity of the RCMP and is carried out in every province and territory in Canada as well as various international locations. The RCMP's mandate under Federal Policing is to investigate criminal activity linked to national security, organized crime and economic integrity, develop and share criminal intelligence, enforce federal statutes, conduct international capacity building, liaison and peacekeeping. It must also ensure the safety of state officials, dignitaries, foreign missions, Canadian aircraft, and the safety of major events.

Practically, that means we are responsible for preventing and tackling a very wide swath of serious criminality that impacts the core of Canada's national interests.

Our mandate stretches from investigating extraterritorial acts of corruption by Canadian business further to the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, to, through the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, shutting down more than 100,000 e-mail accounts annually that are suspected of mass marketing fraud, to interdicting transnational drug shipments, to working with young people nationwide to reduce their involvement as victims or as offenders in federal crimes involving drugs, terrorism, and street gangs, to disrupting a major organized crime group in conjunction with partners, as we did just this past weekend at a Super Bowl party north of Toronto.

Over the past several years the complexity of federal policing operations has increased. Threats are increasingly transnational and multi-dimensional. Technology and globalization, which have empowered so many of us, have also empowered criminals.

Criminal investigations can no longer be limited to Canada's borders, bringing a whole new series of challenges when conducting operations abroad. These include considerations for human rights, local corruption, information sharing, different legal standards, training standards, investigative practices, technology issues, and of course, organizational policies. Overseas it is harder to know whom to work with, whom to trust, and how to build relationships that create the right conditions for effective operational outcomes.

Other factors that contribute to the complexity of federal investigations include ever-tightening evidentiary standards and ever-increasing police oversight and accountability. We constantly strive to meet public expectations and build on our experiences, which is no small feat in a world that is changing as fast as ours is.

One small example is that 15 years ago an authorization to intercept a target's private communications would have normally involved a phone number or two and maybe an e-mail account. Today, a single target generally has multiple phones, multiple e-mail accounts, and portable devices, some of which involve challenging public encryption.

The growth of the volume of data in any given investigation is simply staggering. A recent investigation involved the interception of 350,000 telephone conversations and nearly one million text messages. The time required to compile, analyze, and present this as evidence in a clear and compelling manner is understandably quite considerable. At any one point, the RCMP is conducting several complex criminal investigations of this nature.

The average cost of each is hard to assess, as each is quite different. We are putting mechanisms in place to better tie projects to outcomes and costs, and it will be interesting, in a year or so, to be able to assess what that data tells us.

Notionally, however, we recognize that the range of efforts and cost is substantial, from a small project team of two or three individuals in project Opapa, which broke up an organized human trafficking ring in Hamilton in 2010, to a large project, like project Colisee or project OSage, which involved dozens of investigators for long periods of time and resulted in many arrests.

At the larger end of the scale, it would be safe to state that our major projects are generally multi-million-dollar initiatives, and we recognize that we need to ensure that they deliver on the investment we make in them.

We have long recognized that the high costs of major projects means they cannot be our only approach to tackling criminality. We must continue and are continuing to pursue innovative ways to address the threat environment, like improving integration, tackling threats at their source, and expanding information sharing. We have taken some solid steps in these areas and we can build on these successes. For example, CIROC, the Canadian Integrated Response to Organized Crime, is a joint initiative of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police and the Criminal Intelligence Service Canada. It is beginning to achieve the long hoped for goal of true operational coordination between local, municipal, and federal enforcement agencies. I believe its recent work in tackling a couple of very specific threats demonstrates efficient and effective cooperation and real progress towards real integration.

Similarly, the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit operation on Sunday night in Toronto, which I mentioned a few minutes ago, also demonstrates the reality and strength of working together. CFSEU is a true eight-agency collaboration bringing together multiple organizations to tackle a persistent threat.

Another example is that we, along with partners, have deployed resources internationally to work with foreign partners in detecting and preventing illegal migrant vessels from embarking on the dangerous journey towards Canadian shores. Their efforts have disrupted multiple ventures, likely saving lives, and have prevented the need for costly domestic investigations.

One last example: in 2012, we concluded an agreement with police in India to facilitate creative information-sharing about the shipment of synthetic drug precursor chemicals. This framework—which respects Canadian human rights—continues to shrink the number of borders that criminals can exploit to avoid detection and prosecution by authorities.

I would like to conclude my remarks by briefly outlining perhaps the signature change ongoing in Federal Policing right now, namely: Federal Policing Re-Engineering .

The purpose of re-engineering is to find effective ways of delivering our diverse mandate by building an agile and integrated federal policing program capable of efficiently and effectively addressing operational priorities.

That means moving from commodity-based silos of work to areas of functional expertise by executing six key activities: responding to calls for service, which includes minor investigations; running and supporting major projects; identifying emerging threats through intelligence; establishing and leveraging partnerships; building awareness and preventing crime; and, of course, protecting people, places, and assets.

This change will enable greater coordination of national priority investigations, stronger consistency in governance and oversight, better prioritization of activities and resources, more rigorous performance measurement, and a stronger commitment to the primacy of operations, which simply represents the philosophy that results matter.

We recognize the scale of this reform effort and, as we implement it, we will continue to evaluate ourselves and consult with our partners at the local, provincial, and national levels both in law enforcement and in government, to ensure we remain on track.

Of course, there is more work to be done. We will continue to explore new ways to bring criminals to justice, to deny them their means and methods, and to disrupt their operations, using all the tools at our disposal. We are committed to maintaining a streamlined and integrated federal policing service that conducts focused and effective investigations.

This concludes my opening remarks. I would be more than happy to entertain any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll move quickly into that first round of questioning. For seven minutes, Mr. Leef, please.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to both our guests for appearing here today.

I have a quick question. In one of your bullets, you commented that Criminal Intelligence Service Canada, in partnership with the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, is “beginning to achieve the long hoped for goal of true operational coordination...”. Then toward the end of that remark, you said, “...towards real integration.”

There are some key points in that. Could I get you to expand on where we were in the past and what would lead to that remark about true operational coordination? What does that means to you? What might that mean in terms of delivering greater efficiency and economy to policing services?

[D/Commr Mike Cabana]

Thank you very much for your question. I'm glad to have the opportunity to speak about what CIROC does.

Historically, law enforcement agencies across the country have expended significant effort to ensure a certain level of coordination, to avoid duplication of efforts, and to try to work closer together.

The creation of CIROC goes back, I believe, to 2007. The goal of creating this committee was to provide a forum where law enforcement agencies, rather than speak of simply cooperation and assistance, would have the ability to share real-time intelligence, to work and prioritize their work based on a single threat assessment, and to enter into discussions with respect to the highest level national threats to ensure that those threats were not allowed to continue unchecked. The goal and the discussion is to make sure there is a law enforcement agency that has authority, that has a responsibility to expend some effort to disrupt and interdict the threat in question.

Over the course of a number of years, the work of CIROC evolved to the point where we now have a single threat assessment, but the discussion has evolved to the point where agencies are actually working together to disrupt these threats. Whether they are local in nature, whether they are interprovincial or international, what we've seen by sharing the information to the level we're sharing it now is that even those local threats do have, at the very least, an interprovincial linkage.

I'll give you an example. We have an ongoing project, currently, that involves 28 different police services and 56 different investigations that are being coordinated through CIROC. Already the results are unprecedented.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Great. That expands on what you were talking about. Now it's seeing true operational coordination. I would gather that in the past it wasn't always as perfect or as positive as we would have liked. Would that be accurate?

[D/Commr Mike Cabana]

That would be very accurate.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

You spoke about putting mechanisms in place to better tie projects to outcome and cost. Are you at liberty to talk about a couple of these mechanisms?

[D/Commr Mike Cabana]

Absolutely. Our ability to measure outcome, our return on an investment, has always been a challenge for law enforcement agencies. The type of work that we get involved in is sometimes very hard to account for. There's significant work within the context of the re-engineering initiative that we now have to be able to not only focus our work but to develop a very concrete prioritization matrix, to make sure that we prioritize our files properly, but also to be able to measure the outcome of the different files. This is very much a work in process. It will look at a number of different components. Of course, you have the cost of the investigation, the number of arrests as well, the outcome of the court case, but also the changes and the impact that it's having on the national threat assessment. We're focusing on trying to be able to measure the level of disruption that has been created on each given organization based on the file.

Angela Workman-Stark is managing a lot of that work.

I don't know if she wants to add to this.

[Superintendent Angela Workman-Stark, Director, Federal Policing Re-engineering, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

I would add a couple of comments.

I think you've heard from prior witnesses that certainly the whole area of performance measurement around the policing world is not really well developed. In terms of moving forward, what we're really trying to look at is how we move toward measuring and assessing the outcomes of law enforcement activities, rather than, say, a number of arrests, a number of disruptions. How do we really start to understand the impact on harm and reducing harm? That's an ongoing dialogue that's been happening for quite some time. That's the direction we're taking.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

I have just enough time for one quick question.

We heard from the Canadian Police Association and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police on this recurring theme of front-line policing being the agency of preferred choice and the agency of first choice.

On the federal side, are there activities that federal policing will get drawn into that really don't belong there and that could be eliminated from the federal policing side? Front-line police will say, for example, that they've become the social workers and mental health care workers. They're the catch-all for everything in the community. Does that translate upward into federal policing? Are there things that you could eliminate where you've become the agency of preferred choice?

[D/Commr Mike Cabana]

Where we could become the agency of preferred choice?

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Where you could move away from being that.

[D/Commr Mike Cabana]

Part of the concept of re-engineering is to make sure that we are working on the highest possible threats to Canadians. This is part of the dialogue and the discussions that we've had during the initiative. For us to say that we will move away from being involved in certain areas of criminality, we see that actually as fairly high risk because potentially it will create a gap that the criminals are going to be able to exploit.

Rather than doing that, what we're looking at is that we will not stop any activities. We will prioritize it properly to make sure that we're attacking the organization. We're no longer focusing on commodities; we're focusing on the organizations. The most important part of this is to make sure that the level of coordination with the contract or uniform front-line officers is enhanced significantly to avoid this duplication, to avoid creating the gap, and to make sure that we have a good understanding of the impact of our actions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll move to Mr. Garrison, please, for seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. To the witnesses, good morning and thank you for being here.

Mr. Leef took my first question this morning, so I want to move on to two other things. One of those is a general question and one is a much more specific question. The first of those is in the area of national security.

Since most of national security issues are potentially included within the Criminal Code, there's been some concern expressed about potential overlap between RCMP responsibilities and CSIS. Where is the line between the responsibilities of those two, and how are you managing that potential overlap?

[D/Commr Mike Cabana]

From our perspective the line is actually very clear and very well defined. The RCMP's involvement in the national security arena goes back many, many decades and actually predates the creation of CSIS.

Our role, our mandate, is clear. It deals with criminal activity of a national security nature. The role of CSIS is to develop intelligence to identify potential national security threats and to inform the Government of Canada of those emerging threats. We have very different mandates. Ours is investigative in the sense of criminal prosecutions and interdiction. CSIS's role is with respect to intelligence and informing, but I'd suggest that they're actually quite complementary to one another.

I don't think it's any secret to anybody that there have been some growing pains in terms of the relationship between CSIS and the RCMP. National security from the RCMP's perspective is part of my umbrella, and I would say the relationship now is better than ever. We have strong mechanisms, deconfliction mechanisms, in place to make sure that each agency is aware of the work of the other, and to ensure that we do not duplicate our work and that the priorities are shared.

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

You understand the concern, in that when you talk about interdiction, that leads you to the forward-looking aspects of national security where CSIS is supposedly already working. Is there any clear line that could be drawn between internal activities in Canada's national security and the international aspects of CSIS, or do you see those as having no line between them now?

[D/Commr Mike Cabana]

I think it would be dangerous to draw a line between the two. There are criminal activities of a national security nature that occur internationally that have a direct impact on Canada. The RCMP is a lead agency, along with other federal agencies, so I guess one misconception that I think we need to dispel is that CSIS and the RCMP are the only two agencies that have a role to play in the national security arena. There are many federal agencies that bring their efforts and capacity to bear.

But no, I don't think I would define it with international or domestic; the line is truly blurred.

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

You mentioned the idea of a lead agency. Has there really been a clear designation of a lead agency in coordinating the efforts in national security?

[D/Commr Mike Cabana]

There has been with respect to criminal prosecution, criminal investigation. Where it sometimes gets a little bit tricky, for lack of a better term, is at what stage a given issue will transit from a CSIS responsibility to an RCMP responsibility. As I said, there are mechanisms in place to ensure that this transition occurs, and that the transition occurs at the earliest possible time.

Every case is different and every case has to be assessed on its own merit. To be able to say that there's a clear demarcation and that it's assessed case by case.... This is why we've put committees in place, to be able to make these assessments and come to a determination of which agency should be leading at which stage.

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

My understanding, then, is you have committees working at a kind of case level, but is there a committee working over all levels on the coordination?

[D/Commr Mike Cabana]

There are a number of committees. You're right, in that there's a committee that's working at the case level. There is also an executive level committee where senior executives of both agencies meet on a regular basis to discuss the metrics that are being used, or the level of cooperation, to identify potential requirements for change.

Of course, there are personal relationships that factor in. I regularly have contact with my colleagues at CSIS where we have discussions over how we can make things better.

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

Thank you.

I'm going to turn to the area of fraud, commercial and business fraud, because often we tend to focus on the criminal aspects involving street crime, violence, and community safety. There's lots of harm done in the community. It's very significant, I think, in the commercial crime and fraud areas, and particularly with fraud involving seniors and those kinds of things.

I'm assuming that this falls clearly in your mandate. I wonder if you have any general comments on the challenges of trying to deal with commercial fraud.

[D/Commr Mike Cabana]

That's an excellent question. That particular issue ties in directly with the discussion around the economics of policing.

The complexity and the level of fraud has increased significantly in Canada over the years, which has a direct impact on our bottom line. The more resources that we have to attach to a file, the more expensive it gets, and the fewer number of files we can do.

I think we need to bring this back to the prioritization matrix we're developing currently. We're no longer looking at fraud. We're looking at counterfeiting and narcotics. We're looking at the organizations. Those criminal organizations are multi-commodity. Frankly, they're involved in anything to make a buck. The prioritization matrix will identify the highest organizations, but we'll also look at the activities they're involved in.

As we move forward with this new model, I anticipate we'll be involved in even more fraud investigations than we are currently.