Public Safety Committee on May 13th, 2019

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

There are two imperatives, Mr. Dubé. They sometimes present a bit of a conflict. On the one side, our security agencies would want to be as forthcoming with Canadians as they can possibly be in a public report to provide information that would be useful and helpful to Canadians in understanding the various public threats. At the same time, you raise the competing issue, which is the extent to which they can actually discuss the details.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Right.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

The experience will undoubtedly be borne in mind when future reports are written.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Minister, with the last minute I have, I just want to ask you about the fact that the consequences were, perhaps, not properly thought out. Is that a sign of a larger issue that seems to be coming more and more to the forefront, which is to say that the threat posed by another form of extremism, namely, white nationalism and white supremacy, is being understated or undervalued by our security agencies? Does more thought need to be put into what's happening there, and the consequences that it has?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

The police and security agencies have to deal with all of it, Mr. Dubé. They are alert to all of those threats and potential risks. You will note that in this report there are frequent references to far-right-wing extremism that poses a threat as well. It is very much a part of the matrix of issues that the police and security agencies are alert to and are dealing with.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Dubé.

Ms. Dabrusin, you have seven minutes.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank you, Minister.

In fact, I'll be picking up a little bit from where Mr. Dubé left off. It's the sections in this report about right-wing extremism.

I'm from Montreal. I was a CEGEP student at the time of École Polytechnique, which was an impactful event, as far as it was clearly targeting women because of the hatred of women. Only about a month ago, I was at a vigil for the van attack on Yonge Street, which was another event that was based on the hatred of women. At least that's what we've heard from reports.

At the beginning of this year, we held a vigil outside a mosque in my community because of what happened in Christchurch, New Zealand. In fact, not so long ago, we had also had a vigil because of what had happened at the mosque shooting in Sainte-Foy.

Those are three very large events, as far as people killed. All of them would be based on right-wing extremism and that kind of a philosophy. Yet, when I'm looking at this report, it says, “However, while racism, bigotry, and misogyny may undermine the fabric of Canadian society, ultimately they do not usually result in criminal behavior or threats to national security.”

Is this type of extremism truly less dangerous than the other forms of extremism? That doesn't seem to be, at least in my experience when I look back on our recent history.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Ms. Dabrusin, I'll invite both the commissioner of the RCMP and David Vigneault to comment on those issues, because it falls to them to do the investigations and to keep people safe.

I can tell you that, over the course of the last several years when I've had the vantage point of being fairly close to our security agencies, watching their activities and the shaping of their priorities and so forth, they have worked very hard on the issue of right-wing extremism. The report that is the subject of this meeting in fact makes specific reference to a number of incidents that demonstrate why this worry needs to be treated seriously.

We've had instances from outside the country, in New Zealand, in Pittsburgh, in Charlottesville, and so forth, but within our own country, the van attack on Yonge Street, the mosque attack in Sainte-Foy, the attack on police officers at Mayerthorpe and Moncton and the misogynist attacks at Dawson College and École Polytechnique are all the product of the same perverted and evil ideology that results in people being put at risk and people losing their lives. It is taken seriously.

Let me ask Brenda and David to comment.

[Commissioner Brenda Lucki, Commissioner, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

To respond, it's no less a threat than other topics within this report, but when we look at the report, one focus, the goal, amongst others, was to provide an overall assessment of the terrorist threats to Canada first. We've added in right-wing extremism because it is a threat, maybe not when we talk, as you mentioned in your quote, to national security; it's more to events and individuals.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Just to clarify, the report says, “ultimately they do not usually result in criminal behaviour or threats to national security.” It seemed to me that, when we look at the list of events, in fact, you have a very long list of events that seem to be due to right-wing extremism.

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

Yes, there's absolutely criminal activity, and that would be our focus. When we do our focus on criminal activity, it's conducted by groups or individuals in any category within this report or outside, most definitely. It's no less a threat.

[David Vigneault]

From CSIS's perspective, the way we look at this is that any individuals or groups who are looking to use violence to achieve political, religious or ideological objectives are a threat to national security as per the definition in our act. I'm on the record in the other chamber recently, too, having said that we are focusing more of our resources on looking at the threat of different extremist groups: misogynist, white nationalist and neo-nationalist. Essentially, they are now using terrorist methods to achieve some of their goals.

As for the attack on Yonge Street, the method was publicized initially by an al Qaeda-affiliated magazine. They called it the ultimate mowing machine, essentially telling people that it is what they should be doing. You had someone who had other extremist views who used a technique that had been developed or popularized by another set of groups to essentially kill people. From our perspective, we're not marking the difference. We investigate these groups when they meet these definitions.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

My only concern is that, when I was reading the rest of the report, I didn't see any other form of terrorism or criminal behaviour being kept within the context of saying that, whatever these groups, ultimately they do not usually result in criminal behaviour or threats to national security. Those kinds of terms weren't couched around other types of groups. I was just curious why the differentiation when we're looking at—

[David Vigneault]

I can't speak for all the groups, but essentially, if you look at a funnel, the vast majority of the commentary, the vile commentary online, will have an impact on society but would not be admitted to the criminal threshold. Then you have a small amount of that, which may be of interest to the RCMP or to other police bodies and law enforcement in Canada. Then you have a very, very small group of people, individuals or small groups, who are looking to organize themselves and use violence to achieve some political purpose, and that would be a national security case. It is, if you want, a kind of methodology we're looking at to essentially better understand and better characterize what we're seeing in society, but it is definitely evolving.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Dabrusin.

Mr. Motz, you have five minutes.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Minister and officials, for being here today.

In reference to this, I have some experience in threat assessments from a criminal organization perspective that fit into a national organized crime threat assessment for this country, so I understand the work and vigour it takes from our security agencies to create this.

With that in mind, Mr. Minister, I'd like to read a quote from Phil Gurski, a former CSIS analyst, and a well-respected one. He said the following with regard to this report:

What about 'individuals or groups who are inspired by violent ideologies and terrorist groups, such as Daesh or al-Qaida (AQ)?' Aside from the ridiculous insistence on 'Daesh' rather than Islamic State (Minister Goodale: Daesh is Arabic for 'Islamic State' by the way), this phrase is only partially accurate. I know from my days at CSIS that yes some Canadians are inspired by these terrorist groups but there is also a huge swathe that radicalise to violence in the name of greater Sunni Islamist extremist thought (Shia Islamist extremists are a different beast altogether) that has little or nothing to do with AQ [al-Qaida] or IS [Islamic State] or any other terrorist group. Oh and guess what else? They are all Muslims—nary a Buddhist or an animist among them. Again, using the term 'Sunni Islamist extremism', which is what we called it when I was at CSIS, does not mean all Canadian Muslims are terrorists.

To my mind this is just political correctness and electioneering gone mad.

I think it's important to recognize, and I know you do, sir, that national security issues are far more important for Canadians than to have politics as part of that. My question for you is this: Do you think that informing Canadians, informing the public, of the actual threats posed by terrorists, regardless of the moniker, should be beyond any electoral designs of the current government?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Absolutely, and that's the way I conduct myself.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Okay. How will you then dismiss Mr. Gurski's expertise so easily with regard to the changes that have been made to this report?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Well, I don't have his quote in front of me, but I go to the latter part of it that you referred to, where he seemed to be saying, despite some of the language that he referred to, that everybody would understand that not all of the Muslim community was being criticized. That's a rough paraphrase of what you said.

It's not at all clear, Mr. Motz, that that's in fact true. When you use broad-brush language, you can, by implication, be impugning innocent people who you do not mean to criticize, but the language gets extrapolated and extrapolated, and if you look at some of the material on the Internet, you see the distortions, the misinterpretations and the abuse.

It all gets back to the original point. Let's be very, very careful about the language used in the first place. We have to be accurate about conveying the nature of the risk, but let's not express it in such a way that we impugn people who are innocent and, by impugning them, put them at risk.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

We all agree that a threat can be an individual and it can be a small element within certain communities, but I think Canadians are astute enough to appreciate and understand that it is not the entire community at all that is subject to the very defining language that would define a terrorist threat.

I guess one of the things that I'm curious about is how many agencies contributed to this report. Who were they?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Very briefly, Minister.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

I'll ask Mr. Rigby to do the calculation of adding up the numbers that were involved.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Along with that question, on the agencies that were involved in the creation of this, were they also involved in the—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Motz, you are stretching the chair's patience.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Were they also involved and consulted in the revision?