Public Safety Committee on Oct. 19th, 2016

[Prof. Carmen Cheung]

I don't have anything written on it.

I'm glad that you drew a picture. That's how I see it. I see oversight and review as happening in all three branches of government.

With respect to the judiciary, I see it happening in both oversight and review capacity, oversight in terms of authorizing warrants, and review after the fact if we think that there has been government conduct that might be violating rights, or if there has to be redress before national security activity. There has to be a strong parliamentary review mechanism, possibly oversight. I think that's an open question, whether it should be oversight versus review, and there absolutely has to be ministerial oversight.

I think one of the things we haven't been talking about—and it's not in the green paper—is elimination of the inspector general from CSIS a few years ago. It might be a good idea to bring something like that back, something that is more real-time oversight that provides the minister with more information about what's happening in the agency so it's not something that is covered after the fact. This is something that has come up in SIRC reports, that, if there had been an IG, maybe something that SIRC had concerns about would have been caught sooner. I think that's something that we should continue to think about.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

I have many more questions.

Ms. Damoff.

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

That's one of the downfalls of being chair, isn't it?

Thanks, everyone, for coming today.

Senator Segal, you dealt with Bill C-22 mostly, so I'm going to leave that for when we deal with that bill, if that's okay.

I'm going to concentrate mostly on the people from the Munk School. In particular, on counter-radicalization, you mentioned the Kanishka project. I was looking at some of the things it specifically mentions, and there are a couple that aren't included in the green paper or what I had necessarily thought about under the national security framework: “Perception and emotion” and “Collective dynamics and resilience”, how events can “shape thought and action regarding national security”, “how majorities and minorities view these issues”, how terrorist acts can cause “damage to the social fabric”. Some of these things we are not really looking at.

When we are talking about counter-radicalization, are these things that we should be looking at? If so, do you have any suggestions about that?

The question is for either or both of you.

[Prof. Ron Levi]

There are two answers to the question. The first is that, when we are looking at “radicalization to violence”, as the green paper says, having a sense of community context is going to be crucial to being able to understand any such pathway. Having a sense of how communities experience law enforcement, how they experience a worry that the community has been securitized, and how they engage with the whole issue of terrorism and radical violence would be relevant, even if not directly relevant to a psychological study of an individual in that sense.

The second is the broad framework of producing research in this country on countering violent extremism, as well as counterterrorism. The Kanishka project and the terrorism, security, and society network have been busy building a network of researchers who could provide a pool of knowledge that was not available several years ago. This is partly also an attempt to foster a research community in this country that would provide broader context on these issues.

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

The research being done with the Kanishka project should be part of what we are looking at within the national security framework. Is that what you are saying?

[Prof. Ron Levi]

It would depend on each study. I would imagine some of it to be so, yes.

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

Thanks.

One of the questions here is: “What resources or services are most needed to recover from the effects of an incident of terrorism?” That's something else that we are not really taking into account. What do we need to do if we have an act, not necessarily by extremists? One of our witnesses talked about climate change as being something we could consider through the national security framework.

My other question on the same type of topic is, do you see gender differences? Do we need to develop different programs for gender and age when we are developing programs for counter-radicalization?

[Prof. Ron Levi]

There are at least two parts where issues of gender, in particular, as well as age come up. The green paper speaks about women and youth. My sense of the green paper's discussion is that women are seen as a protective factor, as individuals who can foster positive messaging and social inclusion within the community, and so forth. That's one dynamic.

The other is research being done on girls, usually, who are thought of as potentially becoming violent extremists, so there is that dimension.

In the dimension of age, the violent extremists we have been seeing tend to be younger, either late teens or early to mid-twenties. This is not so different from what we see in crime and criminal justice. What we don't know is whether we can transplant what we know about crime and criminal justice to this subfield. In crime and criminal justice, we see a desistance from crime at certain points in the age distribution, so you would find crime falling off as kids age. The question is whether that applies here. To be frank, we don't have that evidence. We know that the incidents we have are of young people.

When it comes to women who may become violent extremists, there is a body of research on that. I don't have that with me, but I'd be happy to provide the committee with information, if that's helpful.

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

That would be great. Did you have anything to ask?

[Prof. Carmen Cheung]

No.

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

You mentioned international concerns, and I noticed when I read through the green paper that there are a lot of comparisons to the U.K. and Australia, but not a lot to other countries. Do you have any international comparisons that you can provide to us outside of what was in the green paper?

[Prof. Carmen Cheung]

Yes, of course.

I think the reason why the U.K. and Australia are so appealing as comparators is because they have a parliamentary system quite similar to ours here, and they've been grappling with security issues in a similar way to the way we have been.

I know there's a tendency to not want to look to America for answers, in part because their government structure is quite different. When it comes to all the different bells and whistles of accountability that exist, the United States has practically all of them. We can talk about how effective they've been and whether politicalization of things like the FISA court has been a problem. When you look at the judicial accountability and oversight bodies within the institutions, I think it's worth looking at these to see what the structures look like. I'd be happy to provide that information for the committee as well.

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

That would be great.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Mr. Brassard, for a five-minute round.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Segal, since it appears that you and I will only be here in one place at one time, I want to focus most of my remarks toward you.

With respect to Bill C-22, I'm sure you're aware that in the proposed legislation by the government that there are seven exemptions they are talking about. For example, the committee can't look into ongoing criminal investigations, anything to do with defence intelligence, the Investment Canada Act related specifically to money laundering, or the terrorist investment act.

My question to you is, and it's a matter of your opinion, do you think this committee will be limited in the teeth it will have to deal with this? Will it consolidate all power to the Prime Minister's Office? Lastly, how can you have real oversight or overview if you're limiting what a committee of parliamentarians can see?

[Hugh Segal]

I don't support those constraints. I made that perfectly clear in my presentation, Mr. Brassard, that defence intelligence and military intelligence should be under the same oversight. I think those parts of the bill that exempt certain discussions, other than matters of criminal pursuit, which are outside the term of national security, are excessive and should be dealt with in amendments.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Given the circumstances that exist, and with those restrictions, it appears that a lot of the power will then lie within the Prime Minister's Office, or reside perhaps with some of his ministers. Would you agree with that, or is it potentially—

[Hugh Segal]

I always answer that question by asking myself, where are we starting? We're starting now from the circumstance where all the power is in the Prime Minister's Office, and with the cabinet, and with the Minister of Public Safety. If we're going to have a committee, what are its terms of reference going to be? How is it going to constituted? What will its capacity of inquiry be? I think those should be largely unlimited.

I also think that any matter, such as immigration intelligence, or any matter that relates to intelligence, surveillance, and national security should be under the purview of this particular committee, which should have a very wide swath of scope for performing its responsibilities. The only constraint I am prepared to embrace is the notion that the Prime Minister's Office and the national security adviser should have the right to redact, on occasion, when something gets into a report that may be an inadvertent problem for our security services that are trying to get certain things done in a particular lawful context. When that's been done, it should be a matter of public record, so that parliamentarians, Canadians, and the media know that it's happened and can ask questions about it.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Thank you for that, Mr. Segal.

Mr. Levi, you made reference to policing in communities. You talked about relationship policing, about policing being perceived as being fair, procedural justice, neutrality, and respect for justice, etc. How would you classify Canadian police services in meeting the criteria that you set? Have you done any studies? Are there any indicators at all that Canadian policing is on track to meet that set of criteria that you talk about?

[Prof. Ron Levi]

I have not done those studies. I do know that my interactions with police agencies in this country suggest that they are well aware of this in the context of countering violent extremism or radicalization to violence, and they're already developing programs that think about this and implement this. Certainly I think that Canadian policing in general has taken on the procedural justice framework for quite some time. I don't have any data with which to evaluate that though.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

And, Ms. Cheung, comparatively speaking to other jurisdictions, other nations, how do you find Canada rates?

[Prof. Carmen Cheung]

Well, with respect to policing in particular, like Professor Levi, I haven't done that research. And like Professor Levi, I have had similar interactions with policing here, where we do know that they are quite engaged with this issue, and comparatively, other police agencies are as well. In the U.K. and the United States, the police engage with counter-radicalization and countering violent extremism efforts. But as Professor Levi pointed out, that might be part of what needs to be further studied. That is, is the fact that the police are on the front lines doing this sort of work part of what leads to the sense of securitization and that communities are being targeted?

When we're talking about things like CVE, if we're thinking about a softer approach but it's a mandated approach like we see in Prevent in the U.K., where you have a school teacher you are required to report, does that change the relationship and the dynamics between teachers and students, teachers in their communities? Are teachers seen as the tools of the state? I think those are the kinds of comparative studies that we really need to be paying attention to and seeing the effects of when we are developing our own CVE strategies here in Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you for that.

Thank you, all of you, for sharing your expertise and your time with us today.

That is going to bring the close to this meeting. We're going to take a break now, and we will be back in this room at 5:30 to continue listening to public interventions and your own advice to us as a committee.

Thank you.