Public Safety Committee on March 8th, 2016

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

As we move forward with the legalization of marijuana and perhaps move forward to increase pardons for those who have records related to possession and perhaps low-level trafficking offences, would you envision needing significant additional resources to process those pardons?

[Harvey Cenaiko]

Well, we'd have to see what the legislation brings forward before we could actually make a determination on how that might impact us.

First of all, there are no pardons. They're record suspensions. If the term is going to be changed, then the legislation would have to be changed. However, I understand what you're saying.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Sure.

My next question is for the RCMP. I note that there's $6 million in funding related to government advertising programs. Could you fill us in as to where those monies go?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

Well, to recruiting, mostly to recruiting. In fact, we're on a bit of a campaign to up our numbers. The force is challenged to meet attrition and growth and attract the right people to the organization, so we've embarked on a very targeted and focused recruitment effort to bring good young people of all backgrounds into the force.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thanks very much.

My next question is for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. There's a line item of $1,160,000 for software tools to process digital information. Are these software tools created in-house? Is that the reason the line item is so large?

[Michel Coulombe, Director, Canadian Security Intelligence Service]

Yes, that's it.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Does CSIS use these software tools as part of its own investigations?

[Michel Coulombe]

Yes.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Moving to SIRC, I note there's $240,000 in funding to support an increase in the complexity and volume of workload related to SIRC's review of the expanded operations of CSIS. What specifically are these expanded operations that require $240,000 more to go to SIRC?

[Michel Coulombe]

Could you repeat that?

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Sure. I'll take you to the line item. It shows $240,000 for funding to support an increase in the complexity and volume of workload related to SIRC's review of the expanded operations of CSIS.

[Michel Coulombe]

Yes, as SIRC is expanding the number of reviews they're doing—

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Oh, sorry. It said “expanded operations” of CSIS, so that may be incorrect, then.

[Michel Coulombe]

Well, that's it, but as we're expanding our operations, SIRC might increase the number of reviews they're doing of our operations and we need more people to actually support the work that SIRC is doing in terms of those annual reviews.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Is the expanded work the new disruption powers, the new information sharing, and the new powers under Bill C-51 specifically?

[Michel Coulombe]

That's part of it, but it's also the expansion of our operation overseas and the expansion of operations here in Canada.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

That makes sense. Thanks very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you.

Mr. O'Toole.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for remaining with us.

Mr. Coulombe, you are not as busy as you were yesterday before a committee, so I'm going to spend a little time with you. The minister outlined in his remarks the focus on counter-radicalization and stopping those threats before they gather. I think all sides want to proceed on that. We've been trying to look at that from day one as a committee.

Yesterday in front of the Senate committee you mentioned the disruption powers that have been used two dozen or so times. Without revealing any specifics, could you in general terms discuss what type of disruption it was and what the risks were of a general nature? I know this might be hard for you, but I'd like to understand the type of disruption that has been engaged for public safety reasons.

[Michel Coulombe]

As I mentioned in my last appearance in front of this committee, the threat reduction measures used so far did not require Federal Court warrants. That's the first thing that needs to be understood.

Generically, the type of activities we're talking about go from conducting an interview and overtly letting the subject of the investigation know that they are under investigation, to asking family members, friends, and community leaders to intervene when somebody is on the path to radicalization. Trying to bring a counter-narrative to stop that radicalization would be another example; it could be about preventing a terrorist target of investigation from accessing a potential target facility.

Those are the types of measures we've used so far. The risk is minimal because again, we're not talking about warranted threat reduction measures.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

You've mentioned working in some cases with family members or community members to halt the risks of radicalization. Have there been any instances you can speak of, without specifics, where there has been foreign influence, either through connections through an organization or through the flow of money to an organization on the ground in Canada?

[Michel Coulombe]

Well, most of the time actually there is, if you want to qualify it as a foreign influence. It's usually through the Internet and social media, from organizations such as Daesh, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

About the money piece, is there an ability to watch the flow of money to see if that's supplementing what can start as radicalization online but can lead to a cluster, as we've seen in Ottawa and Calgary? Has money flowed?

[Michel Coulombe]

Money flow is something that the service is looking into as a subject of investigation. Money flow is certainly something that is of importance. It's part of our investigation in collecting intelligence on the activities of the target.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

The minister has mentioned the counter-radicalization coordinator and a national office. We've read a lot about it in the media, but we haven't received any specifics on it in Parliament. Are some of your operations and outreach within the counter-radicalization community and the groups tackling this informing the minister as he creates this position and the scope for the department?