Evidence of meeting #138 for Public Safety and National Security in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was russia.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Yellowhead, CPC
Thanks.
You also mentioned that besides the oversight you have within the RCMP organization, if a member country is looking to have a warrant executed, they have to go through the justice system. Then you said there's an oversight organization within the justice committee that will look at that to see if it's going to activate that warrant and authorize an arrest.
Do you know who makes up that oversight?
C/Supt Scott Doran
That's actually a Department of Justice office called the international assistance group that is responsible for all requests leaving Canada and coming into Canada for extradition. They are experts in the issues of the Extradition Act. They are responsible for overseeing the extradition treaties with the various countries we have treaties with, and that is their expertise.
Yellowhead, CPC
If they issued a go-ahead on a warrant, depending on what the crime was in that country that asked for it, would the RCMP send that on to another police force, or would our RCMP go and work with the Canadian police force to make that arrest?
C/Supt Scott Doran
It depends. Generally an arrest warrant that's issued for extradition will be managed by the police of jurisdiction. The international assistance group, once it's at that point, and it's within their holdings and they're making decisions, they'll engage the police of jurisdiction to follow up. They may contact the RCMP as well, and often we are the police of jurisdiction, of course.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal John McKay
Thank you, Mr. Eglinski.
We'll have Mr. Spengemann for the final five minutes, please.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Mr. Chair, thank you very much. I'm glad you're feeling generous today.
Chief Superintendent Doran, Sergeant Cameron, thank you for being with us. Thank you for your service.
It was a good moment for Canada when Deputy Commissioner Michaud was elected. I think I'd like to, for the record, congratulate him and wish him well in this very important position. He represents the Americas.
Can you zoom in a little on what his role would be, not just as a Canadian officer on INTERPOL but what he would specifically be mandated to do to represent the Americas? What kinds of law enforcement issues would come to his desk in that role?
C/Supt Scott Doran
I'd probably defer to him to give you the specifics on that. Generally speaking, the executive committee is mandated to meet three times a year. As a representative for the Americas, he would be culling the problems, the issues, the policy-related matters, perhaps issues on countries of concern and the way people are operating within the INTERPOL framework. He would bring those issues back to the INTERPOL executive committee to table them, discuss them and come up with policy direction.
Also, from the general assembly, which just ended, there are a host of issues that land on their plate in terms of agenda items to discuss, decisions to be made and so on. The executive committee is then mandated to, for lack of a better word, “operationalize” the decisions of the general assembly, so they would go back into theatre, in his case the Americas, and work through those issues.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
He would really be a voice for the countries of the Americas. They would look to him as representing them.
C/Supt Scott Doran
Yes, to him, and there's a vice-president for the Americas, and a number of delegates. They would, together, coordinate the activities within the western hemisphere.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Do you know when the last time was that a Canadian represented the Americas? If you don't, is that something you could—
C/Supt Scott Doran
We had the vice-president of the Americas, who was Deputy Commissioner Todd Shean, who just left the post. Deputy Michaud took over as a delegate rather than the vice-president.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Excellent. Thank you.
You described INTERPOL really to be almost one-for-one a United Nations of the law enforcement community. Pretty much everybody is part of the club.
How does INTERPOL intersect with United Nations law enforcement entities? I'm thinking particularly of UNODC, or other parts of the UN system that are involved in the suppression of crime.
C/Supt Scott Doran
To be fair, I don't know exactly how they interact. I know that INTERPOL has been recognized by the United Nations as an international organization. They do operate under international law, not unlike the United Nations, and they do work with the United Nations. One of the notices, in fact, is the INTERPOL-UN council special notice, which is issued for groups and individuals associated with al Qaeda or Taliban, and subject to sanctions and so on. They do work with different United Nations organizations, different subcommittees and so on, where there is a law enforcement interest.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
That's helpful. Thank you.
Is it a fair statement to say that the drug trade and organized crime are elements that INTERPOL would be quite concerned about and it actually would get some operational issues coming its way from that side?
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Would the RCMP collect any statistics in terms of how much of INTERPOL's work is related to drugs and crime and organized crime?
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Thank you for that.
You mentioned the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In fact, we're about to celebrate its 70th anniversary. Can you go back and comment a bit more on how that UN human rights framework is connected to the fabric of INTERPOL and its operational mandates?
C/Supt Scott Doran
I would say that INTERPOL has declared that they do operate under the spirit of the declaration. With that comes everything that comes with it. Where the standards are set by the United Nations on human rights conditions and issues revolving around human rights, INTERPOL would adopt those as their own and would structure their policies and constitution in line with the regulations.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Okay.
Lastly, I only have 30 seconds, but just to clarify, it was your statement that the head of INTERPOL would be quite constrained because there's a culture of consensus across the vice-presidents. Even if the president were a person of concern—or it could equally be a vice-president who would be of equal concern—the checks and balances are such that no single individual could inflict harm upon the organization. Is that a fair summary of what you said?
C/Supt Scott Doran
There are two things on that.
One, yes, that is a fair summary, I feel. The executive committee is representative of people from around the globe who possess different values systems and so on and are playing a role in the decision-making.
The other thing I would say is that there are 194 countries there. While we may characterize someone as unfavourable, someone else, and maybe a majority, has elected them in. That's the nature of the international fora. We have to navigate those waters carefully, and we do. I think the system in place actually recognizes those issues. Therefore, the general sort of consensus-building approach is what's used.