Thank you. Good morning. Thank you very much for allowing me to appear before this committee on behalf of Chief William Blair and the Toronto Police Service.
As stated, my name is Steve Irwin. I am an inspector with the Toronto Police Service. As of next month I will have completed 35 years with the Toronto Police Service. I'm currently seconded to the RCMP-led Integrated National Security Enforcement Team in Toronto, and I'm responsible for national security investigations in the greater Toronto area and throughout southwestern Ontario.
I started my policing career as a uniformed officer in Toronto, and have worked in homicide, sexual assaults, hate crime, intelligence, and in 1995 was the sergeant who started the anti-terrorism unit within the Toronto Police Service to address what we perceived to be a terrorist threat emanating from the first attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. Since 1995 I've had a lead role within the Toronto Police Service on terrorism-related issues.
In relation to where we are today, 911 taught us there are no rules or boundaries for terrorism. We were shocked into the reality that anything goes. We adjusted our stance and created anti-terrorism sections of the Criminal Code to address that threat from a law enforcement perspective. More recently we recognized there were gaps in our criminal laws to address the evolution of the terrorist threat that manifested through the first decade of this millennium.
New criminal offences were created and preventive processes were recommended to be reinstated in Bill S-7, which we know was passed into law, and all those sections are beneficial in both the prevention of terrorism and in holding accountable those individuals intent on committing terrorist offences.
I'm going to briefly address some aspects of proposals in Bill C-51 from a non-federal policing perspective.
Regarding the Criminal Code amendments, I've dealt extensively with the hate propaganda sections of the Criminal Code since being assigned to the Toronto Police Hate Crime Unit in 1993. I have considered the application of the hate propaganda sections in numerous cases involving individuals who have publicly preached or advocated for the use of violence in the name of religious, ideological, or political belief.
Unfortunately, the sections are too restrictive for those who are clever enough or counselled sufficiently to avoid divulging any criminal intent. With the current terrorist threat there is a definite need for the new offence of advocating or promoting terrorism. Many hate-mongers hide behind carefully spoken words that lure a growing, vulnerable, often younger, group of people to adopt an extreme radical view that condones or advocates taking up arms against those who have different beliefs.
It is crucial that those who have a criminal intent be faced with the consequences of criminal conduct. Equally it is important to have appropriate tools to address those who use terrorist propaganda to influence those same vulnerable people to adopt a radical view that leads to terrorist acts.
Through these new criminal offences, we will be able to prevent the growth of the terrorist entities and groups. Lowering the threshold of “will commit a terrorist offence” to “may commit a terrorist offence” provides law enforcement and the courts an important preventive tool that will offer those misguided, vulnerable people a path away from serious criminal conduct and the liability that comes with that.
The tools in the Criminal Code are helpful to law enforcement, but truthfully, in my experience, are not sufficient to address all aspects of the current evolution of threats to our national security, both in the form of terrorism and of espionage.
The proposed changes to the CSIS act I see as progressive. CSIS is involved many times before law enforcement and could easily disrupt activities sufficiently so as to mitigate threats. By no means am I suggesting that they would always employ disruption strategies, but certainly having the ability to do so independent of law enforcement could be very effective, essentially for further enhancing the security of Canadians.
In relation to Canada's Security of Information Act, I believe that consideration for provision to include non-federal police services as agencies.... Information that can be shared would be important for a number of reasons, including the major municipal, regional police, and provincial police services. They are frequently involved in intelligence investigations in the early stage of national security-related investigations that are not obviously national security ones in those early stages.
Furthermore, municipal, regional, and provincial police are the police of jurisdiction along much of our international border and at points of entry in international airports.
Often there are no RCMP officers working in the areas, and where they are, it is not on a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week basis, leaving the police of jurisdiction conducting investigations that are of national security in nature. Not having access to available information because they are not a federal entity creates a significant gap that could impact on the safety of the public.
Finally, the police of jurisdiction throughout this country regularly deal with “activity that undermines the security of Canada” as defined in clause 2 of the proposed act, including “interference with critical infrastructure” and “terrorism”, and could find themselves dealing with “proliferation of nuclear, chemical, radiological or biological weapons”, as well as “an activity that takes place in Canada and undermines the security of another state.”
Respectfully, the RCMP in Ontario does not have the resources to always respond in a timely manner to incidents that could meet the definition and threshold stipulated in the act. I bring to your attention the fact that the RCMP performs the exact same municipal and provincial police duties in many communities in all provinces outside of Ontario and Quebec. It is only the fact that they are RCMP members that gives them access to the information that all other police officers in this country performing the same duties are excluded from.
In relation to the Secure Air Travel Act, consideration ought to be given to adding authority, including pictures and biometric information where available, for people on the no-fly list as aliases are not always known. That, I believe, is a significant gap.
Consideration ought to also include an inclusive list of non-federal police in clause 10, “Assistance to Minister”, paragraph (f), as many international airports are policed by municipal, regional, or provincial police. That includes airports in Toronto, the Toronto Island Airport. Buttonville Municipal Airport in York Region is an example. Also, the Hamilton airport. London, Ontario, has an international airport. All are policed by municipal and/or provincial police initially.
In conclusion, the proposed changes in Bill C-51 are another step forward in closing the gap that leaves Canadians and the public exposed to being victims of criminal acts involving our national security. Admittedly, the balance between the freedom we enjoy in Canada and the security measures required to ensure that freedom is not without its cost to our individual rights and privacy.
In my reading of the proposed legislative changes, the authorities required for the new powers that prescribe oversight and mandated audits, combined with the safeguards already in place for the various government agencies, I believe provide necessary protection from abuses and will safeguard many of the issues raised by those who are against Bill C-51. Recognizing there is no single solution to address the current threats to national security, Bill C-51 certainly will provide better tools to prevent many of those threats from becoming realized in actual terrorist acts or acts of espionage.
I thank you for your attention, and I look forward to your questions.