Public Safety Committee on Nov. 24th, 2014

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I'm not disagreeing with the approach here, but I think we need to be fairly open about what we are doing. I don't think CSIS has always done this, maybe in the last 20 years. But one of the difficulties I think with this act now, and with what we're talking about CSIS doing, is that we are getting into a new area, or I guess we're laying out in law more clearly a new area that Canada has always opposed other nations' security agencies doing when it's applied to Canada. Is that correct?

[Michel Coulombe]

Again, I don't think it's a new area. When you stated it's putting it into law explicitly in the act, I think that's correct, but I don't think it's a new area.

In the second part, again, you have to look at this in terms of thinking about our acting in other countries. When it's with like-minded partners most of the time this is done jointly, with the acknowledgement of that country, just as we expect them to do the same here. When there are cases of non-like-minded countries, as was mentioned earlier, with for example, cases of Russian espionage, then we would investigate, and if there's a case we would pass it to the RCMP.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I think you make a very good point, because we're really dealing with several different types of countries.

Mr. Chair, on the earlier question from Randall, I do have a Library of Parliament question we asked him here that basically states that we were talking about the wording “within or outside Canada”. I do have a Library of Parliament document here I can provide to the committee. It's only in English, but you could get it translated. It states that exact or similar wording to that found in clause 8 of Bill C-44 is not found in the relative legislation of Five Eyes nations. It names the relevant pieces. So if the committee wants that, I can table it.

The last question is on the source. On the sources protected, is there any different protection to sources outside Canada versus inside Canada? For those outside Canada, how do you perceive to protect those sources?

[Michel Coulombe]

There are no differences. It's not a question of where the source is actually residing. It's a question of whether we promise confidentiality. So there is no difference in terms of a source living here or living abroad.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Fine, thank you very much.

Now we will go to Madame Doré Lefebvre for five minutes.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses for staying during the second hour to answer our questions.

For the moment, I would mainly like to know whether CSIS has sufficient resources to apply these new measures pursuant to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act. We know that all the departments have experienced cuts in recent years. The Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness did, and so did CSIS. Do you currently have the resources needed? If not, where are you going to find them so that you have enough staff on the ground to do the work required under the new CSIS mandate?

[Michel Coulombe]

As we mentioned previously, Bill C-44 does not provide new powers or tools. It simply clarifies what we are already doing and a certain part that we had stopped doing following the Federal Court ruling last fall.

There is nothing new in terms of what we can do. No powers or tools have been added. This has no impact on the service's resources.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Does CSIS currently have the resources necessary to do the work being requested of it?

[Michel Coulombe]

The service, like any other organization, works within the framework of its budget.

We must establish priorities and allocate resources based on them, which are determined from information provided by the government. Then, we have our ways of evaluating the matrices to determine the threat that various subjects of investigation represent. We allocate resources based on that.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Have you cut any jobs that were directly related to the exchange of information with our allies abroad in the past few years?

[Michel Coulombe]

No.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Still on the topic of the exchange of information, I would also like to know whether Bill C-44 will facilitate cooperation between the RCMP and CSIS. Are there any measures that will help you work with the RCMP?

[Michel Coulombe]

Bill C-44 has no impact on our relationship with the RCMP.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

In terms of the class privilege protecting a CSIS human source, how will the bill facilitate your service's investigations? Could you provide some clarification on that? Could Mr. Guimont or Mr. Coulombe answer please?

[Michel Coulombe]

The first way to facilitate the investigations, as I mentioned earlier, is the certainty—with a few exceptions—of protecting the identity of the sources. More people would come forward with information. It would be easier for the service to obtain the cooperation of individuals who would become sources if they were certain that their identity would be protected.

In terms of the protection of sources, as your colleague mentioned earlier, when we appear in criminal court, for example, the current system judges situations on a case-by-case basis. That is very demanding on resources. We have to dedicate a lot of resources to this, which leads us back to the issue of uncertainty. It is important to know in each case whether the identity of the source will be disclosed. The protection of sources under Bill C-44 will really facilitate the voluntary provision of information sources, the recruitment of individuals and the management of cases and files when we go to criminal court or elsewhere.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Bill C-44 also contains a provision that has to do with providing better protection—or less disclosure—of information about CSIS agents. We are also talking about future agents. Do you have more details? Given the way Bill C-44 was drafted, this could be practically anyone who is working for CSIS. Wouldn't it be easier to target individuals you would potentially like to send abroad as agents? This provision is really quite broad.

[Michel Coulombe]

It is important to know that the current legislation provides this protection to individuals who are involved in these activities at present or who were in the past. Bill C-44 adds individuals who could be involved in this type of activity.

There is a problem if we try to provide a tighter definition of who we are talking about: the threat and context are changing so quickly that there are individuals involved now in this type of activity who, five or 10 years ago, I could not have imagined that they would be involved. It isn't just the intelligence agents who can be involved. We would run the risk of truly limiting the protection of the identity of the service's employees.

Like any other of the service's activities, designating employees who come under this protection is subject to the review of the Security Intelligence Review Committee. This is one thing it can monitor in the context of its review.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Madame Lefebvre.

Ms. James, you have five minutes, please.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Coulombe, with regard to warrants, some discussions have compared us to our Five Eyes partners and the fact that the same explicit text is not necessarily contained in other legislation from other countries. I wanted to confirm that we have been able to issue warrants since the CSIS Act was first established in 1984, and similar countries have the same abilities but maybe not necessarily the same wording in their legislation.

The problem we have here in Canada, as people recognize, is that we also have different court systems and the judiciary interprets laws differently. We have the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which may not be identical to other countries as well.

The problem we have is that the courts have specifically called into question the ability of CSIS to operate overseas, to issue those types of warrants. The legislation, the very text we're putting in this new bill, will clarify, will clearly spell out the capabilities CSIS has always had, to ensure that the courts no longer call it into question. Is that a fair statement?

If you could, comment on that, please.

[Michel Coulombe]

You're right that since 1984 warrants have been issued, but in terms of activities here in Canada.

Starting around 2009.... The Federal Court decision last November by Justice Mosley called into question the authority of the service to operate abroad, certainly the authority of the service from Canada, because the interception had to be done from Canada, to be able to do it when the targets or investigations are overseas.

Yes, since 1984 warrants have been issued, but they were here in Canada. The bill is making it clear that we can operate overseas, and that, yes, the Federal Court has the jurisdiction to issue warrants that would apply overseas.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Do you know if other countries that we're sometimes compared with have had similar court decisions that have questioned their authority to be able to operate overseas or communicate with their allies as such?

[Michel Coulombe]

I'm not aware of any, but you have to understand also, if you look at the Five Eyes partners, for example, they have a separate foreign intelligence security service with a clear mandate to operate overseas. They don't have the issue we're debating today, because they have separate agencies where their mandate is to operate overseas.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I posed this question to the minister with regard to when the CSIS Act was first passed back in 1984. I wrote down something you said, that one reason we need to clarify this law is that the threat to our national security has evolved, terrorism has evolved.

I think back to 1984. Without disclosing my age, I was still in high school, maybe. I had no email, no Internet, no computer. I remember lugging my father's old typewriter in that big old case up the stairs to write my first resumé to get a part-time job. A lot has changed. I recall answering my rotary phone when they called for an interview.

When we talk about how the threat has evolved, obviously a lot has changed since 1984. How has the threat evolved? You didn't really expand on it at that time.

[Michel Coulombe]

Not to reveal my age, but I was working with the RCMP in 1984.

The threat has evolved in a number of ways. You just talked about technology. The Internet has changed.... You don't have to go back to 1984; it was10 years ago, so the pace at which technology is evolving, as we all know, is extremely rapid. That's certainly one.

The nature of the threat has evolved. Back in 1984, really, the priority was Cold War espionage. Now it's terrorism. The mobility of people has greatly increased also, and the facility of people travelling, so that has changed not only the nature of the threat but the velocity at which that threat can develop. Communication has changed that threat, again going back to the Internet, with the facility with which you can communicate between Canada and Yemen and the Sahel, and elsewhere in the world—it doesn't matter where.

There are many factors, and it's not just the threat itself that moves more from a CI threat to more of a terrorism threat. But everything surrounding it, from the technology to the mobility of people, as I said, has dramatically changed the environment in which we work today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much.

We will now go to Mr. Garrison for five minutes, please.