Public Safety Committee on March 6th, 2015

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Commissioner, thank you very much for the job that you and your members are doing for Canadians.

I know my friends across the way like to talk about process, but they skirt around the edges of the real issues here and that is the alarming increase in terrorist activities in Canada. I know that you and your members have one of the greatest responsibilities, and that is keeping the citizens of Canada safe.

At this stage of the investigation, is it your opinion that of the 400-plus people you have interviewed, had anyone taken the advice of police forces, law enforcement agencies across Canada, and some members of Parliament like myself who have stated that if they see something that they think is wrong, or that someone's exhibiting terrorist-type behaviours, or there's something suspicious, that they should contact the local authorities? Without jeopardizing the investigation, did any of that occur during the statement taking, or even before?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

Thank you for the question.

I would say this: I think that there were opportunities for some people to have recognized behaviours that ought to have been reported to the authorities, so yes, I think there were opportunities where some of the individuals who were close to Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau could have reported him. I would say also that it's important to understand that our active investigation is not simply focused on establishing the timeline of Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau. The active investigation is pursuing those who may have actively contributed to his development and his radicalization. In that sense, I just wanted to sort of frame up the investigation, that we are actively investigating individuals who may have contributed to his crimes.

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

Would I be correct in saying that you and the members of the RCMP, as well as other law enforcement agencies, and anyone else would recommend to Canadians that if they see something, or hear something that makes them suspicious that they will not be criticized by their local law enforcement authorities, and as a matter of fact, they would welcome the information to help thwart something terrible from happening down the road, like what happened here on October 22?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

Absolutely. I think I would even go a bit further to reassure people, particularly family members, and I think that's where the greatest opportunity and confusion arises. I'll use the drug analogy, that if parents see their children beginning to experiment in drugs, I have experienced personally parents being reticent to engage authorities or community resources to intervene to try and dissuade their children from using drugs because they're afraid that we're going to put their child in jail. That sentiment is prevalent in some communities, particularly in the counterterrorism operations that we are doing. Part of our outreach is to try and have some credibility and some positive relationships with community members so that they know that at an early intervention we can bring to bear and marshal resources to get in front of some of these things, because as we've seen with this attack, this is how it ends, and it's not acceptable.

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

Would it be correct to say that by doing that, by coming out and identifying, that you can actually prevent someone from having to go to jail because they followed through with some action?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

Absolutely.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'll turn the rest of my time over to Mr. Falk.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

You have two and a half minutes, Mr. Falk.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Commissioner, for attending here this morning.

Based on the information we saw in the video, would you agree that Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau clearly identifies or affiliates himself with known terrorist organizations?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

I think he identifies himself as “we the mujahedeen of this world”.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

What he is about to do is clearly a terrorist act, and he identifies it as that?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

Yes, he is going after soldiers.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

I was in this room on that day with my colleagues, and that event is very real. It has been burned into my memory. I would certainly envision it as an act of terrorism as well.

In your testimony, sir, you stated that he applied for a passport in Vancouver and was told it would not be coming forthwith. He then made his way to Ottawa, and within a couple of hours of coming to Ottawa he went directly to the Libyan embassy and applied for a passport there. He was again told that there were discrepancies and that there would be a time delay.

In instances like that, are there mechanisms in place so that when an individual is not approved for a passport, that fact is communicated to law enforcement agencies or the RCMP?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

Yes. We have a standing task force that we created with other agencies—CSIS, CBSA, the military occasionally, CIC, and passport people—to do that very thing, because I think we recognize that in this case, an aggravating or triggering element to his experience was his frustration over the passport business. When we get in front of a high-risk traveller and say that a passport will be removed, the decision to do that has been made in this joint operation centre with a view to the propriety and legality of taking the steps we want to take, but also to the impact that doing so may have on other investigations and processes. It's what we refer to as a deconfliction mechanism to say if we are going to take somebody's passport away from them, we need to assess that individual and his possible reaction to that act, and we need to be positioned to intercept any sort of adverse action. It's an elaborate and sophisticated assessment system.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Mr. Easter, you have the floor, sir.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Commissioner, for appearing and showing the video.

For me, as for others, it does bring back very sad memories of the day this act of terror or violence happened.

I'll admit right up front that I am a little concerned—and to your credit, you said this—that the video is not complete and that 18 seconds have been edited out. I listened to your explanation.

I think that's going to raise some suspicions as to what was left out and why. I wonder if you can explain, without compromising the investigation in any way, why that part of the video was left out, or is what you have written in words the limit you can go to?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

I framed it as being the result of sound operational decisions or reasons.

Part of the challenge in this case and in others is to ensure that the integrity of the investigative process is preserved. That's not because we want to be secretive, but because at the end of the day, there's a whole big accountability hammer that comes down on us as to how we've conducted ourselves, how we've investigated, how we've behaved, and how we can demonstrate the purity of the evidence we are putting forward.

Believe me, we have worked through the reasoning. As I said, I was originally committed to having the whole video released, but the operational decision-makers began to engage me, as I do them, with regard to the reasons I would want to do this or not want to do this, not unlike the situation with other cases. The rationale is there. Hopefully it will be available for review.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I'm not in any way questioning your judgment. We accept that. I do raise it as an issue.

We in Canada operate very differently in our terrorism-alert system than they do in the United States. They have their colour codes, etc. I've always maintained that government officials, police authorities, have to be careful not to raise the fear factor, but certainly to indicate to Canadians that they have to be vigilant. In Zehaf-Bibeau's statement he says, “So we are retaliating, the Mujahedin of this world.” He goes on to say, “...we'll not cease until you guys decide to be a peaceful country and stay to your own...”, etc. That's pretty serious language.

Can you give us any indication of where we are in terms of the terrorist threat level in Canada compared to the last number of years? We do have Bill C-51 coming up. I think we need to be brutally honest with Canadians about the concern, but not to exaggerate it and claim there's a terrorist under every rock.

Can you give us any indication in that regard?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

Formally, the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre and CSIS have set our threat level at medium. That has been widely distributed and understood. It is an elevated level from where it was before.

As I've said in response to some of the questions or perhaps in my remarks, I've not seen before the tempo, pace, and volume of counterterrorism investigations domestically as I've seen in this last year. It's been an x equals y kind of line going up. I made what I had, sort of tongue-in-cheek, referred to as a “rookie mistake” of sharing with you the number of high-risk travellers we were tracking, and there have been lots of questions about that. I don't know that giving a number is helpful. I just tell you that it's on the increase from the situation previously, when we had transferred 300 resources from other operations into counterterrorism, and now when we've transferred over 600 resources.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

That leads me to something I think is also of great a concern, the operational resources, both human and technological, for the RCMP, CSIS, and others to do the job you're asked to do. Just passing a law without resources is not going to do the job.

The main estimates tabled recently show there's a $132 million decrease in the RCMP's budget in 2014-15 from the year before. You've indicated in response to Mr. Garrison the switch in resources to counterterrorism.

There's no question that the RCMP would always like to have more money, as I'm sure other agencies would as well. However, is there a growing concern that on the operational side the resources are not being applied to both policing and RCMP and security agencies at the federal level to do the job you're asked to do?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

I think it all turns on your very last sentence regarding the job we're asked to do.

As I said in response to Mr. Garrison's question, we are addressing the counterterrorism threat with resources from other areas. We have now reached a point in the RCMP where we can be very transparent and very precise in demonstrating the impact this has. The RCMP has had a bad reputation around this town for lapsing money and not spending all of our budget. I tell you solemnly that we are in a year that's going to have a 0.5% lapse in our appropriation, which might be argued to be bad management. However, all of our money is being spent. I'm happy—wrong word—content to move resources around to address the greatest threat. I just don't think it's sustainable to maintain our programs in other areas when we are drawing resources from them to address this threat.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Commissioner.

Mr. Garrison.

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

Again, I appreciate your being here today, Mr. Paulson.

I think our task as parliamentarians now is to try to learn from this incident, to learn what we can do as parliamentarians to try to help keep Canadians safe. If I understand you correctly, you said in your opening statement that you had enough information, and the legislation that exists currently would have been adequate to charge Mr. Zehaf-Bibeau with terrorism.

[Commr Bob Paulson]

I didn't frame it that way, but I think I talked about charging him, so in that sense....

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

You would have had no difficulty under the existing legislation in laying charges as a result of this incident.