Evidence of meeting #31 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 nations.
Liberal
Marco Mendicino Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
Thank you. I think the chair has been very generous with the clock.
Liberal
Conservative
Dianne Lynn Watts Conservative South Surrey—White Rock, BC
Thank you very much.
I appreciate all the comments. There are a couple of things I want to touch on. It struck me in listening to the general public, not only through this process but through other processes in my job formerly as a mayor, as well as a member of Parliament, that it comes down to threat and the understanding of what that means. Last night as well, when we were in Vancouver, there was a clear understanding that a lot of people don't think there is a threat; they think there is an organization that just wants to spy on them.
It's about having an educational process and an understanding that other countries, whether it's China, Russia, or the U.S., are hacking into systems that have more information than CSIS would probably have, and that there are individual people who are selling on the market all this information as it comes through. I need you to speak to how we frame what the threat is.
I heard that with the cybersecurity, and also the national security threat around narcotics. In British Columbia, 600 people are dead since the beginning of the year. That's coming in from China and Mexico. That is a threat.
I need you to talk about how that's framed up and how we bring that education and language to the general public.
Director, Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies, University of Calgary
I'd like to jump in on this one. We have to look at threats as, in a sense, an arc of issues that impact on the safety of society. You can start on one end with pandemics and on the other end with war. Somewhere in between you'll get criminal activity, narco-terrorism, and cybersecurity, and in many cases they're all linked. In fact, there are groups out there who are using cybersecurity to get information to steal intellectual property from companies to sell to other countries and so on and so forth. That's the way we have to see it.
I want to go back to something Rob said at the very beginning. The Calgary Police Service here has been doing a lot of work on radicalization. They have a conference every year. They talk to security experts and so on and so forth, but they are too focused on radicalization. That is not a criticism. It's a friendly suggestion, and I've made it directly to them.
If we look at what radicalization has actually achieved in this country, the answer is that a small number of people have been hurt, yes, and a small number of people have been killed. It's not the most important threat to the country. The most important threats to the country lie outside the realm of radicalization, and we are not putting enough emphasis on that.
It's like a huge bauble. Every time there's another incident, and there will be, as there was in Ontario this summer, because some individual is sitting somewhere right now in front of a computer screen and radicalizing himself—probably himself—that's not as much of a threat, for example, as stealing intellectual property from a Canadian company on the west coast that is leading the world and doing so much with satellite communication. For the moment, that name is slipping my mind.
That intellectual property is valuable to the whole country. It generates jobs and it generates taxation wealth and so on and so forth. If the intellectual property of that company is stolen by someone outside of Canada, that does a great deal of harm to our economy, and it may even have ramifications that will lead to violence and so on and so forth. We have to look at this as a whole. There's a whole sky out there and there's a whole ceiling in this room, and radicalization is one little part of it.
That's my answer to your question.
Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies, University of Calgary
Once again I agree with everything David has said here, but I would add that there's also a larger political issue that comes to the forefront. That is, what we've seen over time is the tendency of the leading political parties of the day to basically frame the threat in a certain context, and it's like “we've done it, it's done, it's over”, and—
Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies, University of Calgary
—we check off the box.
There is a need to have a willingness to understand that events change. In fact, the government has to be willing to admit that they don't fully understand what the threat is. For example, just in today's discussions, we've heard people focus on poverty as a major source of radicalization, when in fact we have to be very careful of that, because there is some evidence that certain types of terrorists will actually be coming from the middle- and upper-middle-class students. It's not so much about poverty but about marginalization.
Once again, within a political system, there needs to be a willingness to be flexible and to actually somehow take it in a more bipartisan or tripartisan manner in saying, “We don't know, but we have to be open.”
Conservative
Dianne Lynn Watts Conservative South Surrey—White Rock, BC
I'll be quick.
The other premise is that, as Canada goes out and works with and supports our allies, we've actually brought this threat home. I don't personally subscribe to that, but there is that mentality out there.
For anyone, can you quickly comment?
Director, Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies, University of Calgary
In 15 seconds: we must rely on our partners because we don't have the capabilities ourselves. That's why we're in NATO. That's why we're part of the Five Eyes. There may be a downside to it in certain ways, but the upside is so massive that it counterbalances any potential ill effects.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
Very good. Thank you very much.
We don't have time for another five-minute round, so that comes to an end.
I want to sneak in one question here.
Professor Randall, you indicated when you were talking about threat reduction that you were less concerned about an infringement upon charter rights than you were about consistency in the application of that infringement of rights. A big thing we're looking at is finding a rebalancing, perhaps, of rights and security, and that is kind of critical right there.
Professor, University of Calgary, As an Individual
Yes, and I don't envy you trying to really balance those two.
Professor, University of Calgary, As an Individual
That's the elephant in the room, in many respects. I think the word we're going to have to use is “normally”, in that the CSIS Act, the way in which security measures take place, should normally be consistent with the charter. But there will be circumstances under emergency conditions, such as the equivalent of a 9/11, heaven forbid, in the Canadian context—
Professor, University of Calgary, As an Individual
Yes, beyond section 1.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
Okay.
If you have done any writing on this, and you wanted to submit anything to the committee on how that could look, that would probably be helpful.
Professor, University of Calgary, As an Individual
Well, look, the charter guarantees protection against unreasonable search or seizure. How do you define “unreasonable” in the middle of a crisis? It also guarantees that an individual cannot be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned. How do you define “arbitrarily” under emergency circumstances? It comes back to your question about 1970, to some extent.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Rob Oliphant
Thank you very much for joining us.
As I said earlier, this is our third meeting on this tour going across the country. Our committee is examining the national security framework and looking at where we stand, and what Canadians are concerned about with respect to various pieces of legislation that have been passed over a number of years.
I didn't mention this earlier, but a green paper has been issued by the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. We obviously have that paper, and have it as part of our work, but we're not limited to the green paper. Ours is a fairly broad look at the national security framework. We'll certainly be channelling into that minister, if not other ministers, with our hearing results from Canadians across the country. We have had a couple of meetings in Ottawa. We are on the road this week, and then we'll continue meeting in Ottawa after this finishes as we continue our study.
Let's begin with Regena, for a 10-minute round.