Public Safety Committee on Oct. 6th, 2016

[Commissioner Bob Paulson, Commissioner, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

Thank you.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I also sit as vice-chair on the status of women committee. We heard recently from Carol Todd, whose daughter Amanda experienced cyber-violence from a predator in the Netherlands. That sort of ties in when we're talking about issues of cybersecurity.

Ms. Beauregard, when you appeared before the committee before, my colleague Mr. Spengemann asked you about a strategy to deal with these threats that are both domestic and international, because when we're dealing with the Internet, it's not a country; it's international. There were certainly challenges in that young lady's case in terms of dealing with the issues.

When you responded, you said that we didn't necessarily have a strategy in place. I'm wondering if you could elaborate on what we need to do, bearing in mind respect for the privacy of Canadians, particularly with regard to the international aspect. How can we best deal with that?

[Monik Beauregard, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, National and Cyber Security Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Thank you very much for the question.

On the issue of cybercrime, cyber-bullying, and all that, as the minister pointed out, we currently have a consultation ongoing on the best ways to secure ourselves online. Specifically, the issue of cyber-bullying and cybercrime has manifested itself as a fairly significant preoccupation. Since then, before going online with the cyber review, we did modify it to include a fairly significant chapter that would address cyber-bullying, cybercrime, and all that.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

It's not just with cyber-violence, though. I would suspect that even with issues of terrorism you'd be running into the same types of issues. We had a gentleman from the Association of Chiefs of Police who talked about how it takes 18 months to get evidence through signatories to the mutual legal assistance treaty. Do you run into that with terrorism threats as well?

[Monik Beauregard]

On that, GAC, Global Affairs Canada, is really the department that leads all the efforts with respect to international co-operation. What I was trying to get to was that as part of the cyber review, we are looking for feedback on how we can improve both domestically and internationally our measures to fight that.

You indicated that we don't have a strategy at this point. This is something we are looking forward to establishing with the end of the consultation. The consultation closes at the end of the month. By then we will have collected the feedback from all the stakeholders. As well, we've consulted with our international close allies on this issue. The results of all the consultation will be forwarded to cabinet.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Okay, thank you.

At our last meeting we heard a lot about metadata and how collection can impact privacy. I didn't have an opportunity to ask a question. I would suspect that most Canadians don't even know what metadata is. Can someone perhaps elaborate on how it's collected and how it does impact on our privacy?

[Malcolm Brown, Deputy Minister, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Frankly, on the collection of metadata and the extent to which it's undertaken, I think you really need to turn to our colleagues at CSE. I don't think a huge amount of metadata is collected. I'll let my colleagues correct me, but generally speaking, it is essentially data that is the equivalent of non-personalized information about a device—the length of time, where that device is, and that kind of thing.

Perhaps my colleagues would like to take a stab at it.

[Michel Coulombe, Director, Canadian Security Intelligence Service]

I'll give you the example of email. Metadata would be everything except the content of the actual email. It would be the email address, the IP address. The phone number would be...although not in the case of the email. To go back to the old mail, it would be what you would find on the envelope, not the content of what's in that envelope.

My colleague from CSE would probably say that's a pretty crude description of metadata.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

The Privacy Commissioner did express privacy concerns about the sharing of that data. You're saying it's similar to what's on an envelope.

[Commr Bob Paulson]

I would say that the Privacy Commissioner's concerns come from the raw collection of metadata from which certain trends or behaviours or conclusions about movements and so on can be deduced. We don't do that, and if we do do it, we do it through warrant, similar to our friends at the service. That's how we manage that.

[Malcolm Brown]

I'm not trying to pass the buck here, but I think if there are those kinds of questions about the theory around metadata, it would be more helpful if you had the experts from CSE to try to answer your question.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you. I think that's my time.

Thank you for being here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

That's very helpful, because as we looked at our witnesses, we had thought about CSE, then put them aside because they relate to other branches of government that we don't deal with. I suspect it would be helpful to now include them on our witness list, so thank you for that.

Mr. Miller.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Witnesses, thanks very much for being here.

I want to start with you, Mr. Coulombe.

You appeared before a Senate committee on national security and defence. Afterwards, you issued a statement where you recognized some statistics regarding current intelligence on individuals. I believe that statement said that CSIS is aware of approximately 180 individuals who have travelled from Canada to participate in terror activities abroad. You're also aware of approximately 60 individuals—that has probably changed a bit—who have returned home from abroad. I have three questions on that.

Number one, why haven't these individuals been arrested? Two, are there ongoing investigations on those individuals? Three, what is the evidence threshold to detain them?

[Michel Coulombe]

Thank you for the questions, but two of the three questions are actually more law enforcement, so they would be for the commissioner.

In terms of the second question on ongoing investigations, I've also testified that—and I'm talking about the 60 returnees—it's important to understand that a returnee, somebody coming back from overseas who has participated in terrorist-related activities, poses a potential threat. They're not all the same. Some of them will come back and go back to a normal life. Some will continue to be engaged in threat-related activities.

We have ongoing investigations on some of them, but, again, it depends on the type of activities they've been involved in since they have come back.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Would it be half of them who are under investigation? Do you have any numbers?

[Michel Coulombe]

Not off of the top of my head. I couldn't say how many of the 60 are—

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Sure, fair enough.

Mr. Paulson.

[Commr Bob Paulson]

We'll investigate anyone for whom we have a reasonable suspicion that there is a criminal offence being committed. The threshold for bringing charges, though, is a different question. We can arrest someone on reasonable grounds to believe, but we need the support of the prosecution service in order to (a) bring Attorney General consent to a terrorism charge, and (b) support a prosecution. There is an analysis that takes place, because if we were to arrest them we could only hold them for 24 hours, unless we made the case through the recognizance provisions of Bill C-51 that we could hold them for longer.

We try to build a case that will win in court. We enter into the discussion about the spectrum of activities that we collectively engage in to manage the threat, ranging from surveillance, to continued investigation interviews, to peace bonds, etc.

We have many, many active investigations, as do our colleagues at the service, and there's no one out there for whom we have evidence to bring a charge that we're not charging.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Okay, I'm happy to hear that.

You mentioned the fact that you're only allowed to detain somebody for 24 hours. Has that changed with Bill C-51?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

Yes, it has. It brings with it new conditions that we would have to satisfy in order to extend past the 24 hours. We would have to appear before a judge and make the case that there is a need to detain the person past 24 hours as we collect evidence and so on.

The provisions for the continued detention come from the realization that the so-called “flash-to-bang time”, in other words, when we learn about terrorists, and when they commit the act, has compressed over the years. I think that's everyone's experience internationally and certainly domestically. We realize that we might not have a presentable case in time, because it's very complex and logistically onerous to bring a case and persuade another human about the facts in a case.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Okay.

Just carrying on, my next question is on whether it is now easier or more difficult to get a peace bond. Can you comment on that?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

It's supposed to be easier. That's not the answer to your question, though.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Is that a good thing?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

It's supposed to be easier, but I think great care has to be taken with how.... I think it is a good thing. As I said once, in the right circumstances it's the only pre-charge control that the state can exercise over a suspect, short of a recognizance, or if there was a conviction, over a probation order, and so on. I think it's a good thing. I think that it's not well understood by Canadians. It's not well understood by a lot of people in terms of what it is. It certainly isn't a panacea, but it's a good thing.