Public Safety Committee on March 24th, 2015

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Coming back to the request, one of the problems with the current bill has to do with when CSIS goes to a judge. The Minister of Justice called this judicial oversight. It's not. It's the traditional authority that has allowed CSIS to do certain things. There are some who feel you need balance before the judge who makes that decision. That's what I'm trying to target here. Would there be better balance if you had a special advocate with first nations expertise in cases where CSIS was asking a judge for that warrant to do certain things?

[Dr. Pamela Palmater]

I think there would be more balance than there currently is in the bill, keeping in mind that this bill also turns the working of our justice system and our constitution on its head. The role of judges is in fact to uphold the constitution and charter rights and not to find ways to get around them. So asking them to undo all of their training or the way we govern ourselves.... Even having the first nations advocate isn't going to really address the core problem.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I hear what you're saying. Thank you.

Inspector Irwin, you did say there's a shortcoming in the bill, especially as it relates to airports. I'll ask two questions together if I may. Can you outline perhaps a little more specifically the shortcomings you see for police or local jurisdictions that are handling the situations at airports? I think you mentioned Toronto Island and Hamilton. There are lots across the country.

Second, you talked about the hate propaganda issue, and I know you've had some experience with that. There's fear among those out there who are opposed to this bill that hate propaganda will basically give authorities the ability to seize almost every computer in the country. How do you balance that? Does the bill balance that in terms of the need to prevent propaganda from radicalizing certain individuals and then creating further problems in and outside the country? How do you balance that against protecting people's use of information?

[Insp Steve Irwin]

I'll address the first question as succinctly as I can.

For instance, at Pearson International Airport, if you were to have outside of regular business hours a late flight leaving—and Peel Regional Police are the police of jurisdiction—and there's information that comes from a family member that someone's travelling to go to join a terrorist entity in Syria, that requires immediate action, but the person is not flying under his or her own name, and there may be other information held within different government agencies. Peel Regional Police would not have access to that and it could frustrate the process—and respectfully, Peel Regional Police at the airport might not be as intimately aware of national security issues and the laws surrounding them.

So those are some of the gaps that we see. Pearson is certainly a great example of an airport where you have a municipal or regional police service, a non-federal police service, as the first responder.

To the second issue, it's interesting because with hate propaganda, there has been much concern for many, many years about free speech. People have made public announcements and statements that might walk the line of hate propaganda, and relatively few charges have ever been laid because of the protection of the Attorney General consents. Advocating terrorism offences is similar. Certainly I think back to a book, The Turner Diaries, which is described as hate propaganda but is not illegal to possess. It is illegal to sell or distribute it, and when a major bookstore many, many years ago was bringing in that book because there was a demand for it, I ended up in a meeting with representatives from the book industry, the government, and customs. I see that the law is there. There are protections in place, but they're important because there are certain jihadist leaders—and some of them are dead—who have videos of their teachings that the often radical converts are following and that lead them to go from just a radical point of view to a criminal, extreme view, and terrorism.

So it's important that we try to address that. We also have religious leaders in communities—and not strictly in the Muslim community—who have stood up and preached or advocated support for what I would say is terrorism elsewhere, and there is no accountability. There is no stopping them, and it certainly has impacted on the national security of the Canadian public.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Mr. Irwin.

Now, for five minutes, Mr. Garrison, please.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to both the witnesses for being here today.

One of the concerns that we have in the NDP about this bill is not only does it potentially threaten rights but it might also not be effective.

As reported in the media, we had Edward Snowden speaking at Upper Canada College via a webcam from Russia, and he said a very interesting thing. He said that when you collect everything, you understand nothing.

Inspector Irwin, you raised the question of resources glancingly in your presentation, and I guess the concern that Snowden was expressing and that I would also express is that if we spread that net so broadly, we risk the focused efforts that we need to deal the real threats to Canada. So my question to you is, how do you feel about that broadening of the net combined with the constricted amount of resources available?

[Insp Steve Irwin]

When I first came to intelligence in 1993, everything came into the Toronto police intelligence unit on a piece of paper and then we got faxes, then email, and then we got web access. I carry three BlackBerrys. The information out there is overwhelming.

I don't disagree that if the net is too broad it becomes of lesser or little value, but I also look and wrestle with—and I'm pretty technologically advanced, and certainly have lots of younger people who are—how important the information is because of the small threats.

I spent four and a half years in sexual assault in Toronto in the early days before we were so connected, chasing an unknown Scarborough rapist. Those gaps and the criticism that came from them is important for us to consider.

Justice Campbell wrote a report about information not being shared. It's interesting because of the reams and reams of information. I can think of a murder I worked on, the murder of a young girl in Toronto, which took 10 years to solve, and of the DNA evidence coming online. That information can be overwhelming and we should be careful in how much we collect, and then what we do with it is equally important.

I think there are threads that can help solve or prevent crime that have to be assessed and used to protect our public. I think that's important, but I always wrestle with the collection of everything. It overwhelms us very quickly.

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

Thank you.

I know you've been working in the terrorism field for a very long time, so I want to ask you about anti-radicalization efforts either by the Toronto Police Service or in the greater Toronto community, and what activities you're aware of and whether you think those are adequate, or whether we need more emphasis on the anti-radicalization work.

[Insp Steve Irwin]

It's interesting, and I've certainly equated the terrorist threat and criminal radicalization, criminal extremism. That to me is no different from a gang problem we have in Toronto. I remember many years ago that we wouldn't admit to having a gang problem, but clearly there's a gang issue.

The radicalization into extremism and terrorism is not unlike it would be of those going street gangs, or certain other organized criminal groups. Within Toronto we've expanded to include radicalization. Many young people are just being led down the path. I say respectfully to elders that maybe in their day it was about going to California and joining the Hare Krishnas, which was not criminal and was not an issue. But what lured those young people there? What's luring them into terrorism, into that criminal extremism toward terrorism?

So we have expanded within the Toronto police. I also know that the Government of Canada, Public Safety Canada, has gone across the country countering violent extremism. They initially partnered as a pilot program with Toronto to expand the Toronto role. I know that across the country it certainly is a live issue. There are numerous...and it's international. I got an email from a peer in Australia who is coming here to Ottawa in May and who then wants to come to Toronto to look at exactly that. We're all struggling with it. It's a challenge, and with respect, the police are not the only ones and not necessarily the best ones to deal with it, because much of it is in the pre-criminal space and we need community groups and professionals who can better help us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much, Mr. Garrison.

You have a point of order Mr. Garrison?

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

Yes. In the way we are conducting these hearings, we regularly get, as we have this morning, three questions from those who are supporting the bill, the Conservatives and the Liberals, and then fewer questions from those who are opposing the bill. I wondered whether the committee would consider granting Ms. May an opportunity to ask a question at this point.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

I appreciate—

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Excuse me, Ms. May, you don't have the floor. Mr. Garrison, if one of the opposition or government members wishes to give up their time and forgo their round of questioning, and if we have the consent of the committee, that can happen. Otherwise, there is no other way.

Does any member wish to give up their time for Ms. May?

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Do I have support for this?

That is not happening.

Thank you.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Could I ask for a recount? It seemed as if only three—

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Excuse me, Ms. May, you do not have the floor.

We will now go to Mr. Payne for about a minute and a half, sir.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to pass my time over to Ms. James.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I was just very concerned to hear from you, Ms. Palmater, that you think this bill literally covers everything. I'm not sure you quite understand that this bill is actually five separate and distinct parts. What you are referring to is actually under the proposed information sharing act. The purpose of that act is simply be allow one branch of government to push information out to a national security agency when that information is pertinent to the national security and safety of Canadians. So it actually has nothing to do with the amendments that are found in part 5 of this bill that relate to CSIS. It has nothing to do with the changes to the Criminal Code in another section of this bill. It's actually a stand-alone.

There are safeguards in this. I'd like to thank the inspector for bringing that up. You clearly said it. There are adequate safeguards in this legislation and you are in support of the information sharing aspects, but I'd like to ask the inspector a question with regard to warrants.

Why is it necessary for police and law enforcement to get warrants?

[Insp Steve Irwin]

Privacy laws prohibit the sharing of information. We then need to look to the courts to get judicial authority, or some judicial body, not always the courts.

Interestingly we've had some situations recently where, if we don't believe that we have a criminal offence but we need information that's in a holding, which in fact will support it and stop the investigation, we can't apply for judicial authority to get access to information that would actually stop an investigation from continuing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very much. Your time has expired now.

At this point we will certainly thank our witnesses for coming in for this first hour.

We will then suspend for two minutes while we change our witnesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Okay colleagues, we will reconvene now.

For the second hour we have three witnesses, whom we certainly welcome. In order from left to right the chair acknowledges, from the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president. Welcome, sir. As individuals, we have Robert Morrison and also Wesley Wark, visiting professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa.

Thank you all for coming here today. As per the routine orders of this committee, you will have up to 10 minutes for an opening statement. After that there will be questions as per the order established within the committee, and answers from the witnesses.

For opening statements we will start off with Chief Phillip.

You have the floor, sir.

[Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, President, Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs]

Good morning, everyone.

Wai xast skelhalt ipsi nuxsil. Echa es quist Ascasiwt.

In our nsyilxcen language, that simply means: Good day, my friends and relatives. My traditional name is Ascasiwt.

I want to begin by acknowledging the fact that we're on unceded Algonquin territory,

I want to thank the committee for the opportunity to be here this morning.

I want to commend Pam Palmater for her outstanding presentation here this morning. I want the committee to know that I certainly support pretty much everything she presented to the committee.

I don't have a detailed brief. I'm not a lawyer. I will start by reading a press release that we issued under our organization, the Union of BC Indian Chiefs. I may make a few comments about the bill itself, but I will rely on the exchange of questions to give further expression to our concerns.

With that, this press release is dated February 20, 2015, and it states as follows:

Anti-Terrorism Act Bill C-51 Will Infringe on Indigenous Title and Rights

(Coast Salish Territory/Vancouver, BC – February 20, 2015) This week, the Harper Government introduced Bill C-51, Anti-terrorism Act, 2015. Bill C-51 will radically and dangerously expand the powers of Canada’s national security agencies and greatly infringe upon the rights of all citizens without making us any safer or secure.

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, President of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs stated “The Union of BC Indian Chiefs believes the sweeping scope of Bill C-51 directly violates the ability of all Indigenous Peoples to exercise, assert and defend their constitutionally-protected and judicially-recognized Indigenous Title and Rights to their respective territories.”

“It is absolutely appalling that as Indigenous Peoples protecting our territories we may be faced with the many insidious, provocative and heavy-handed powers that are granted by this omnibus Bill C-51. The Harper Government has dramatically changed internal government practices, policymaking structures and decision-making processes to serve an explicit natural resources development agenda. We have witnessed the gutting of environmental legislation, clamp-down of scientific analysis and comprehensive surveillance programs of Indigenous and environmental opposition,” said Grand Chief Phillip.

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip concluded “As an act of civil disobedience, I was arrested at Burnaby Mountain because I believe mega-projects, like Kinder Morgan and Enbridge pipelines, do not respect the Indigenous laws and inherent authority of Indigenous Peoples to protect their territories, land and waters from the very real potential and increased risk of oil spills and increased coast tanker traffic along our coast. I believe under the draconian measures of Bill C-51, I would be identified as a terrorist. Regardless, I will continue to do what is necessary to defend the collective birthright of our grandchildren.”

That public statement pretty much captures the essence of our grave concerns about Bill C-51, and I know that we stand in good company, in that at least four former prime ministers, several former Supreme Court justices, hundreds of academics and luminaries, the Canadian Bar Association, and other groups across this country—other human rights groups, civil rights groups, civil liberties groups—have all spoken out in opposition to this bill. The criticism is pretty much to the effect that this bill was cobbled together in the heat of political expediency, and it reflects many fundamental flaws and gaps.

Along with other indigenous leaders, including the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Perry Bellegarde, we also call for the scrapping of Bill C-51 and call upon the Harper government to entertain a process that is more inclusive, that takes the time necessary to ensure that the constitutional and human rights, the civil rights, of all Canadians are taken into serious consideration in putting together a bill of this nature.

We believe that Bill C-51 is less about jihadist terrorists being under every bed or in every closet in every bedroom across this country and more about increasing the output of the tar sands and facilitating the heavy-oil pipeline proposals across this country and the megaproject agenda of the Harper government. It will serve to severely undermine the constitutional and human rights of indigenous peoples, rights that are certainly reflected in the declaration of indigenous rights that was embraced by the vast majority of countries in the United Nations. It certainly flies in the face of our constitutionally enshrined rights, and it most certainly flies in the face of our judicially upheld rights by the highest legal authority in this country, namely the Supreme Court of Canada.

Most recently the Tsilhqot'in decision, the Chief Roger William decision, stated very clearly that as indigenous peoples we have an inherent responsibility to our future generations to ensure that the environment and resources of our territories are kept intact for future generations. You can see that the Government of Canada has other notions vis-à-vis energy development in this country with respect to pipeline proposals from sea to sea to sea.

Those essentially encompass the concerns we have. I agree wholeheartedly with Pam Palmater and her recitation of the oppressive and repressive legislation over the last several hundred years that has attempted to sever our cultural and spiritual connection to our lands and territories, to our culture and language.

I believe there is sufficient and adequate provision under the Criminal Code and the current national security apparatus to accomplish the same goals that are reflected in Bill C-51. Like the national chief, I too have brought the most recent report. It's a 44-page report from the RCMP security service critical infrastructure intelligence team, which I believe is a broad association of national security organizations.

This shows you how diligent the government is at suppressing indigenous rights in this country.

[The Chair, Conservative, Daryl Kramp]

Thank you very kindly, sir.

Now, for your opening statement, Mr. Morrison, sir.

[Robert Morrison, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members.

I've come here not only as an individual but also in terms of the prior role that I had with the government before I retired. A few years ago it was determined that there really wasn't any overarching coordination to ensure intelligence collaboration within the federal government. As a result, I was seconded to the Treasury Board Secretariat from the RCMP to be the director general of the information sharing environment in 2012.

As a result of that, I was there to establish a program for intelligence sharing across Canada. The program, which we called the ISE Canada, was to collaborate with agencies like CRA, CIC, DND, RCMP, CSIS and others. After eight months, due to the priorities of the Treasury Board Secretariat with the Shared Services Canada initiative, the funding was withdrawn, but I could just give you an example of one project I worked on while I was there.

It was a pilot project. I worked with two different agencies on a 400-kilometre stretch of the border between Canada and the United States. What we wanted to do was share intelligence files between the two agencies in a controlled environment, the control being that one group was in one room, the other in another room. What we wanted to do was to demonstrate whether both parties knew what investigations each was working on, as they said they did, or were there some missing links between the two agencies.

This was a very small, controlled environment, and what we found was that there were over 40 files that both of these organizations had no idea the other organization was working on. There were things like organized crime, gang involvement, importation of drugs, guns, and weapons importation. What it demonstrated was that although we thought we were sharing information, we really weren't doing a very good job of it.

The proposed anti-terrorism Bill C-51 will enable the creation of a Canadian information sharing environment. This program will increase security for Canadians by supporting intelligence and information sharing within government and supporting provincial, territorial, and municipal agencies.

Sharing information in a manner that is consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and with the protection of privacy will enable intelligence partners to support information sharing initiatives nationally and internationally with the right information to the right person at the right time.

It will enable effective and responsible intelligence sharing by driving collaborative intelligence initiatives, so it will be accurate, timely, reliable, proactive. What I'm talking about here is suspicious activity reporting. For example, we have an oil refinery where the company reports a hole in a fence. The municipality next door has a laundry and dry cleaning facility that had a break-in the night before and 40 uniforms are stolen that all belong to that oil refinery. The next municipality over had a large theft of fertilizer. We start putting these pieces together, and then add onto that an intelligence agency has a report from an informant that Mr. A was talking about causing some damages to an oil refinery. If we look at each one of those independently it really doesn't mean much. But when you start putting the pieces together, it means a lot.

It will enable efficient sharing through standards and shared technology to address common intelligence sharing needs. What I'm talking about here is accuracy. I'm talking about ensuring that the databases are accurate. It will improve nationwide decision-making through secure and trusted sharing between partners, being proactive, accurate, timely, and reliable.

It will protect the privacy rights of Canadians by developing a strategy for information sharing and protection. When I talk about protection, I'm talking about accountability, to have an independent third-party, non-partisan expert group of individuals to be the oversight group that monitors the information sharing.

I was in an airport on the weekend when the weather came in. I was in the interior and was stuck there for eight hours. It was a very small airport and had a small coffee shop. I was sitting there and there were only two plugs in the wall, and a fellow beside me used one for his computer and I used the other one. I started talking to him. He is a retired school teacher from a very small community, and he brought up Bill C-51 and said that he certainly didn't agree that they're going to share every piece of information with every single person in Canada.

I happened to mention I was coming here today, and I said “Well, that's not quite true. Some people have looked at the act and dissected small pieces of it, but when you look at the whole information sharing act, you'll see that there is accountability built in, that everyone wants to make sure that the information is shared in a manner that is accountable and responsible.”

The creation of the Canadian ISE program will achieve the following outcomes: it will support the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness to ensure effective coordination of Canadian intelligence information in the security or intelligence communities; establish an ISE senior level inter-agency advisory group to enable governance related to information sharing standards and initiatives; establish a cross-government ISE privacy accountability committee to ensure information or intelligence sharing privacy compliance with the legislation; promote information sharing culture across all partners through training and support initiatives; support Canadian participation in Beyond the Border and other information sharing initiatives; develop a national strategy for information sharing and protection; encourage the use of data standards among all agencies; support and encourage provincial, territorial, and municipal involvement; demonstrate successes by involving agencies in projects to identify information and intelligence gaps and inefficiencies; and identify leaders in business process, operations, standards, architecture, security, access control, privacy protection, and accountability.

Bill C-51 will ensure accurate, timely, and reliable information sharing while protecting the privacy of our citizens.

Thank you.