Evidence of meeting #29 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 csis.
2:40 p.m.
Prof. Stuart Farson
Absolutely, our privacy rights need to be considered. Again, what I was trying to do was open up the discussion beyond what is already present. The people who will be following me will be talking specifically about some of the nitty-gritty of the privacy issues.
2:40 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Dubé NDP Beloeil—Chambly, QC
When you mention the effectiveness of SIRC, do you have any other points to raise, or is that solely related to the six-month, which ends up turning into an 18-month, after-the-fact delay? Are there other points worth mentioning?
2:40 p.m.
Prof. Stuart Farson
If you look at the balance of oversight over the last decade, you will see that there are definite pluses and minuses. On the one hand, you could say the Conservative government introduced a number of important measures. It started with the Federal Accountability Act and the things that flowed from that. One that really hasn't been followed and analyzed is departmental auditors, the new forms of committees that came out.
Another is the change that went on within the RCMP public complaints system to allow that body to conduct reviews of all areas of policing in the country. When I last talked with them, in May, they intended to analyze the degree to which the RCMP had taken up the recommendations of the O'Connor commission.
2:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
I'm afraid I'll have to interrupt you there.
We'll continue with Ms. Damoff, for seven minutes, please.
2:45 p.m.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much for your insight and the information you have given us thus far.
One of the things you started out with was the scope of what the national security framework entails. As the chair mentioned, we are not just looking at the green paper, but it's much broader. You also mentioned the difficulty of getting up to speed in gathering all the information.
Do you have a short version of how this committee can best take all of your concerns into account, both the breadth of the study and getting up to speed on the issues?
2:45 p.m.
Prof. Stuart Farson
I think it depends on the types of activities you are going to perform.
2:45 p.m.
Liberal
2:45 p.m.
Prof. Stuart Farson
Yes, but I'm talking about the techniques.
2:45 p.m.
Prof. Stuart Farson
One of the things we did when the special committee that reviewed the CSIS Act came into being was to decide on the sorts of approaches we would take. I have to say my committee chair was very influential on two points.
One, he had just done two previous statutory reviews, so he was experienced in understanding the difficulties Parliament has in getting information from the executive branch. That was one.
Two, he was very protective indeed of parliamentary privileges. I'll give you an example. One of the issues that came up during this process was how warrants get approved by the Federal Court. When I suggested to the chair that we needed to do this and that we should have judges from the Federal Court appear on a committee, he said, “Oh, no. You can't possibly do that. It might establish a precedent. What would happen if they didn't come?”
It really depends on technique. What were the techniques we used that were different from what I think Parliament uses today? Well, our staff worked to do interviews behind the scenes. Every time we had a witness, we asked to follow up with written questions.
2:45 p.m.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
I'm going to cut you off because I have limited time. Could you provide me with some written comments on that?
2:45 p.m.
Prof. Stuart Farson
I'd be happy to do that.
2:45 p.m.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
I know you've done a lot of writing on the various inquiries that we've had in the past. I want to read you a quote from the Supreme Court of Canada on Air India where it says:
The danger in the “war on terrorism” lies not only in the actual damage the terrorists can do to us but what we can do to our own legal and political institutions by way of shock, anger, anticipation, opportunism or overreaction.
I'm wondering if you can perhaps provide us with some insights you've had from previous inquiries, taking just a few minutes. Could you provide something in writing, not lengthy because I know your time is very valuable as well, but I'm sure you have a lot of insight that you could provide to us on what has been learned from some of these previous inquiries.
2:45 p.m.
Prof. Stuart Farson
Perhaps I could here and now say something about Air India. This inquiry was 20 years too late. Why was it too late and what were the obstructions that were put in place at the time?
We now know from Ron Atkey, who was chair of SIRC, that he was persuaded not to conduct an inquiry, or his committee would not do an inquiry. The parliamentary committee that I served was talked out of it as well, so there is the possibility of obstruction in this process.
If you look at the Americans and the way they looked at a terrorist attack, or Pan Am, a few years later, they conducted an inquiry, albeit it had to do with policy. It wasn't to do with the criminal investigation. In fact, it steered well clear of that. It examined the policy issues involved and made recommendations on the type of security that should be put in place. We could have done that a long time before we got around to it.
2:50 p.m.
Prof. Stuart Farson
We did do it, but as I said, it was 20 years too late.
2:50 p.m.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
You mentioned that the focus is on terror and not other threats such as climate change. There's certainly a correlation between climate change and terrorism as well.
2:50 p.m.
Prof. Stuart Farson
Absolutely.
2:50 p.m.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
Are there any others besides climate change? What others are missing from the list?
2:50 p.m.
Prof. Stuart Farson
There are the sorts of threats that CSIS itself looks at. Section 2 of the CSIS Act has four components to it. All those things need to be considered, and I think that one of the things....
Let me talk about the RCMP for the moment. If you look at the activities that the security element at the RCMP has done and what impact it has had, I'd point to two things.
In 2009, which is the last time I attended a briefing from the RCMP, Commissioner Paulson was then in charge of that branch of the RCMP. He clearly indicated that his resources were all taken up on national security investigations. You have this issue. What about all the FINTRAC inquiries that might have come down? There's this focus, and this is what I was trying to indicate with the broader look. It has implications when you put all your money, or so it seems, on terrorism. You've seen more recently the RCMP saying it has moved, it is not prosecuting, or it doesn't have enough investigators on the criminal side.
It has consequences.
2:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
Thank you, Ms. Damoff.
We'll go to Ms. Watts for a five-minute round.
October 17th, 2016 / 2:50 p.m.
Conservative
Dianne Lynn Watts Conservative South Surrey—White Rock, BC
Thank you very much.
I appreciate your being here, and the amount of research and work that Simon Fraser has done over the years on all these issues, such as cybersecurity, and the list goes on and on. I know you bring a great wealth of information.
I want to touch on a couple of things. You mentioned two things. Number one was making the case for additional powers and ensuring that oversight systems are in place.
I think the world has changed. We've seen the bombings in France and we're looking at what Putin is doing right now, and of course we can't forget about North Korea. It's very fluid. Things change from one day to the next. I hear about the length of time—whether it's an inquiry that's 20 years or all of these things—it takes to respond in a fashion that will really address these threats, and this is just one of the many threats, because we haven't even gotten into the cybersecurity piece of it. You have to be nimble in how you respond. We have never faced this before. It would seem to me that trying to make the case to the general public and to Parliament, and to all the rest of it, is going to take some time. You're not nimble, you're not fluid, and you're not addressing the issue in a timely fashion.
What would you say about that aspect of it?
2:55 p.m.
Prof. Stuart Farson
I don't have all the answers. I'm sorry.
I think that maybe you need to divide the work up a bit more than we do in Parliament.
2:55 p.m.
Conservative
Dianne Lynn Watts Conservative South Surrey—White Rock, BC
Unfortunately, we live in a political environment in the House of Commons. When you're saying things get in the way because one government comes in and they've done some good things and maybe some not so good things, and then it gets.... There's this back and forth that goes on. It doesn't really add to a good framework for oversight in dealing with these issues when things are changing all the time.
I understand that you don't have all the answers. I think step one is putting the oversight system in place. You're not changing the goalposts if that can be put in place in a measured way. If you go back to when it was changed in 2013, then having a standing committee of Parliament that reports to the House is something we should really be taking a look at. When bringing all the organizations together—and you'll know the systems and how entrenched they are—it's quite a daunting task.
How do you see that piece? If you have the oversight aspect of it as that gets fleshed out, how do you see all these agencies flowing into that oversight?
2:55 p.m.
Prof. Stuart Farson
If you have individual agencies—and we have a number of them that are important, particularly within the Department of Public Safety—they need to be able to communicate what their findings are. They need to be able to do dual investigations where necessary. They need to inform whatever that parliamentary element is, so that Parliament has that capacity to see what the oversight bodies do and how competent they are. There needs to be also some capability to, as I've suggested, ask the Auditor General to do certain types of value for money audits. You need to have that capacity to ask the parliamentary budget officer to do certain types of things. You need to be able to ask and expect the Privacy Commissioner and the Information Commissioner to do certain things that relate specifically to the national security area.