Public Safety Committee on May 9th, 2013

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

Thank you very much.

This question is for Mr. Coulombe. Can you describe the role CSIS has in the counterterrorism strategy that was announced by this government in 2012?

[Michel Coulombe]

If you look at our mandate, we obviously have a role in all four phases—detect, prevent, deny, response—but to different degrees.

I think it's pretty obvious in terms of detect and prevent what our role would be, and response also. If there is an incident or an investigation we will collaborate with the RCMP, so we would also have a role in the response phase. We do have a role in all four phases to different degrees.

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

Thank you very much.

I have a question again for the RCMP and perhaps our folks at VIA Rail. Can you describe specifically the collaboration between the RCMP and rail operators? I'm thinking of the CN and CP police who provide a vital function along those lines used by VIA. Perhaps the VIA folks can chime in if they see an area they want to talk about with regard to collaboration with those two police services, vis-à-vis their rail operations.

[C/Supt Larry Tremblay]

Because of the ongoing case, I can't go into detail now, but I can easily say that we have, from the onset of this investigation, been working hand in hand with VIA and CN police in order to assist in the investigation and ensure public safety. The collaboration was seamless. It was an open door both ways into how we can work together to prevent this threat. This relationship is established and ongoing.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Beaulieu, any comments with regard to—

[Marc Beaulieu]

Yes, I completely concur with that statement. The collaboration and cooperation is second to none. Whether it be with the RCMP, local law enforcement agencies, CN and CP, our network is very rigorous and we communicate extremely well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Very quickly, Mr. Norlock, you have 30 seconds.

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

I have a quick question for CSIS. The possibility of a terrorist threat is on many people's minds, given recent events. Have these events dramatically changed anything in regard to the standard operating procedures of CSIS?

[Michel Coulombe]

My quick response is no.

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

Great. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move back to the opposition and Monsieur Rousseau.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

With respect to operations, there are six border crossings in my riding. Some of them, like Chartierville, Stanhope and Saint-Herménégilde are fairly isolated. In the region, there are sometimes hundreds of kilometres of forest between different border crossings. Let us be frank. In outlying areas of the Eastern Townships, people have crossed the border and been found wandering in different municipalities. There have even been cases of mischief committed in my riding by people who simply crossed the border through the forest.

Every time that we speak to people at the Canada Border Services Agency, the RCMP, or the Sûreté du Québec—the Sûreté du Québec patrols certain areas of Quebec because other border services lack the resources to do so—they tell us that information sharing between the various services is difficult and ineffective, that there is information, but that they cannot use it.

My question is for Mr. Davies and also Mr. Tremblay, or Mr. McDonald, to whom I will address another question a little later.

Why am I hearing about those kinds of situations, when you are telling me that everything is going relatively well and that operations are very successful and very effective?

I will give you an example. Although very effective operations have been conducted in Stanstead, there have been unfortunate situations in the past, and they continue to occur, because of the fact that hundreds of kilometres of forest are wide open.

How is the surveillance carried out? How can we reassure people, tell them that there is security and, above all, that there are patrols?

[John Davies]

Unfortunately I don't have a great answer for you. The CBSA would be well placed to give you a bit more detail, operationally, on how things are working at the border and what their efforts are for interoperability, dealing with local communities, and any posts that would be isolated and the challenges they face.

I'm not sure if others have any....

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Rousseau, could you again be more specific to rail, perhaps? I appreciate you have those.... Yes, go ahead.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

All right.

In my riding, there is a small railway service that belongs to the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad, which only ships freight. Two railway lines cross the border in my area, the Eastern Townships. This company is owned by Genesee & Wyoming Inc., which manages the shipping. It seems that it also owns railway cars.

How does the information sharing and training that you mentioned take place? You say that communications and training keep people up-to-date on rail security. This small line only carries freight, but at least one or two trains cross the border every day. Are these trains searched. How are searches conducted?

Furthermore, there are level crossings that are in a poor state of repair. Traffic has been tied up for days because the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad has not assumed responsibility for repairing and upgrading these level crossings. The Department of Transport officials say that the municipality should have that responsibility. Therefore, who is responsible for what? It seems to me that there are holes in the system.

[Gerard McDonald]

Mr. Chair, I think that falls into my capacity. I'm not sure if I understand all the questions.

In terms of searching these trains when they're crossing the border, that's a CBSA responsibility. I can't respond to that.

With respect to the security of the operations of an organization like the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad, they're part of the MOU with the Railway Association of Canada, so they have a responsibility to have a security plan. They have to assess what their risks are and have a plan to be able to respond to mitigate those risks.

Obviously a short-line railway, with the type of merchandise it's carrying, is not going to have as detailed a plan as VIA Rail, which is carrying passengers across the country. So they have that plan. They work with us. They work with the Railway Association of Canada. We assess their plan to make sure that it meets the requirements, that they have adequately assessed the risks, and that they have mitigation measures in place to address them.

Finally, with respect to level crossings and how they get funded, as you may be aware, we do have a grade-crossing contribution program to which all railways can apply. It's funded on a 50-50 basis between the federal government, and the municipalities and the railways. The federal government is one side; the municipalities and railways are on the other. That is one way to get funding to improve level crossings.

Yes, there is a jurisdictional issue, obviously, between railways and municipalities. It exists everywhere in the country. We try to work through it as best we can. In many cases we are successful in doing that and in improving the safety of those level crossings.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. McDonald.

We'll now move to Mr. Payne, please, for five minutes.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for coming in. It's certainly important to talk about some of the issues we've heard already.

Mr. McDonald, just on your point, I actually just recently announced a number of dollars that went into funding right across my riding. There are probably at least a half-dozen different crossings that are being upgraded for safety purposes, which is extremely important, I think, for the communities, for the citizens who might be using those roadways. That's an important aspect.

Mr. Davies, in your comments you talked about how we have infrastructure in place to communicate with government at all levels, private sector, and operators of critical infrastructure—obviously including transportation. Could you maybe give us a little better feel for what “critical infrastructure” might be?

[John Davies]

Do you mean what the 10 sectors are, how the plan worked, and so on?

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Yes.

[John Davies]

I'll do my best. Critical infrastructure is not my direct responsibility, but in 2010 the Minister of Public Safety, together with his counterparts in the provinces, announced the national strategy for critical infrastructure. Essentially this is a plan to address threats to vital assets in systems, like financial systems, transport networks, electricity grids, and so on. It's more or less a vision for building public-private partnerships, improving information sharing among levels of government with the private sector on risks and threats, and conducting risk management activities and exercises.

The chief superintendent talked a bit about those kinds of exercises, but there are a number of working groups by sector, and those sectors roll up once a year into a national forum. They receive classified briefings on threats and risks, exchange information on building risk methodologies, and so on. There's also, in a sense, a counterpart to that of work with the United States, given how our critical infrastructure entwines with theirs to some degree.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Okay. Thank you.

Mr. McDonald, I just wanted to touch a bit more on the railway. I'm from western Canada, and in my riding I have a couple of major petrochemical or fertilizer producers. Of course, they do ship a lot of goods such as ammonia and methanol, and they do travel across the border. That's done through CPR because that's the only railway we have. I'm just wondering what the communication is between Transport Canada and CPR, their plans, particularly with carrying these types of products. Obviously when you think about it, certainly terrorism could be a major issue.

If anyone else has a comment on that, I'd certainly appreciate that as well.

[Gerard McDonald]

With respect to that, those are goods we would classify as dangerous goods. They are covered under the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act. First and foremost, they have to have an appropriate means of containment to transport those goods. They also have to have what we call an ERAP, an emergency response activation plan, so that if anything goes wrong, they have a plan in place and they can activate that plan should it be necessary.

We also have provisions now within the TDG Act for security measures for goods that could be considered for the use of terrorism or what have you. We're in the process of developing regulations in that regard as to what measures we might want to use should a security situation arise.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Is there anyone who wants to comment on those? No?

Certainly we want to commend the RCMP on their recent performance in stopping the potential terrorism act. I'm wondering if you could describe what work or collaboration occurred to make those arrests possible, without, obviously, divulging sensitive information.

[C/Supt Larry Tremblay]

Thank you, sir, for your comment.

I think it's critical. We all recognize that terrorism is a global phenomenon, so the response must be in line with that reality. Any terrorism-related investigation will activate cooperation not only within the Canadian government but with partners and allies, most often with our U.S. ally's law enforcement agency. This project was just another example of that.