Public Safety Committee on March 8th, 2016

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

Okay, so we can follow up on that afterwards.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Yes.

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

When Mr. Head appeared before the committee, he said, and I'm quoting him here, “I cannot stress enough how important that” occupational stress injury support is. He went on to say, “The way we talk about it now is on how we build and sustain the mental resilience of our staff...”.

I've talked about this at all of our meetings. It's something I'm very passionate about. I applaud what you've done so far. I think we need to be removing the stigma around this in the workplace. Our public safety officers need to be on the top of their game, both physically and mentally.

Can you talk briefly about the financial cost as well as the potential need for additional funding for this issue within your department?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Well, the cost of occupational stress injuries and disabilities is difficult to quantify, but I think Canadians are coming to recognize that they take a huge toll in terms of the efficiency of people being on the job, the capacity to do the job, the time they need to be away from work, and lost talent, altogether.

Do we have an internal calculation of the cost consequences of PTSD? Quite frankly, I'd like to—

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

We can get that later.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Yes, we could take a stab at putting together some estimates.

Bob, within the RCMP, what is the toll?

[Commr Bob Paulson]

It is $162 million—that's why we have a $6 million ask in the supplementals—and it's on a 12% increase, year on year.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

So it's expensive.

And we need to make sure when public safety officers suffer a mental health issue because of their job that they get the kind of support they need, that there is not a stigma attached to asking, that their friends and colleagues and superiors know the danger signs to look for, and that the treatment capacity is readily available not two years from now or six months from now, but now, when you have the opportunity to relieve that person's stress and maybe head off a bigger tragedy.

That's why we're putting such emphasis on PTSD treatment and responses for public safety officers.

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

That's why I push so hard for us as a committee to look at it as well. I think it's a really important issue to shed some light on.

I don't think I have any time left. Have I?

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

You have 14 seconds.

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

Okay. I can say thank you very much.

I could have let you speak after all.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you, Ms. Damoff.

Ms. Gallant.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Chairman, this is through you to the minister.

Just prior to Christmas last year there was a worker inside an electricity control centre. He was preparing to leave, and he noticed a cursor on his computer suddenly slide across the screen on its own. One after another, circuit breakers were turned on until substations were turned off—30 in all—for 230,000 residents, two days before Christmas, in western Ukraine, with no electricity and no heat.

The concern is that this type of sophisticated, planned, synchronized attack could occur in North America.

What measures are in place to ensure that such a coordinated attack, or perhaps a more sophisticated one, does not impede our electricity system and all the items attached to the grid that we depend on?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

That is a very good question.

I share the concern of members of Parliament about Canada's capacity to deal effectively with cybersecurity issues, the whole issue of our critical infrastructure, which you've referred to as potentially vulnerable. The incident in Ukraine, by the way, was a very active topic of discussion at the last meeting of the Five Eyes alliance in Washington a few weeks ago. It's a matter of international anxiety.

There's simply a loss to businesses and enterprises from having their systems hacked and interfered with. That probably cost businesses globally $400 billion last year. By the end of this decade, that cost is probably going to surpass $2 trillion U.S. per year. The dimensions of this, not to mention privacy issues and so forth, are huge.

Toward the end of last year the RCMP launched a whole new initiative with respect to being more effective in dealing with cybercrime. The Business Council of Canada, formerly the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, has launched a new exchange of information system in order to prepare business to deal with this more effectively. Federal, provincial, and territorial security ministers have had this conversation, as well.

I have been asked by the Prime Minister to lead a review of everything in the Government of Canada that relates to cybersecurity, in collaboration with the industry department and many other departments of government, to make sure that we are on top of this kind of situation and that the problem that hit Ukraine will be properly defended against in Canada. We think that is the case today, but the review will ask that critical question: are we sure? We want to be sure.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

The criticism I hear about the Canadian cyber incident response centre is that it's passive. There are plans and tips given, but in the event of a cyber-attack, be it commercial or otherwise, there is not an instant response.

Do the supplementary estimates reflect any efforts to stand up a coordinated command and response to these types of incidents?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Let me ask the deputy minister to comment.

[François Guimont]

Thank you, Minister.

The CCIRC, the capacity we have in public safety, is co-located with the government operations centre and it would be helpful if we were successful in relocating it. This group is very capable. It has augmented its capacity over the last budget, so there are more people in the group. That's the first observation.

The second one is that they're pretty active. Their responsibility is one of getting information from the operator when they face a situation. They literally keep a laboratory of viruses that they study to understand. They're very quick at disseminating information to other constituents in Canada to help them take action to protect themselves. They are at that pivot point. There is information flowing to them from inside and outside government which they pass back to the industrial sector of Canada. This is one of their key features, their key role.

We want to work more closely with the industry. The industry is giving itself a similar capacity. It's all about information sharing. It's all about the speed of the information sharing, so that people can then take action to protect themselves.

They have now invested in tools where this response will be automated. We've made investments. Therefore, instead of relying only upon individuals to pass on the information, there will be an automated system whereby this information will fan out across Canada.

Progress has been made, but I'll tell members of the committee that the cyber file, unlike other files, if you will, is always evolving. It's a little bit like all your devices that have new functionality and new applications. All that reality, which is quickly moving, is also moving on us.

I'm tempted to say that we're all only as good as we are, and therefore the idea of carrying out a comprehensive review of our cyber strategy is a very timely thing. The strategy is not that old, but the file is moving so quickly. It's time to step back, see where we are, and carry out actions where we think we may have weaknesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you very much, Mr. Guimont.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Mr. Chair, could I ask if every member of the committee has changed their password today. You're supposed to do it frequently.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you.

We're going to suspend the meeting for a few minutes. Mr. Goodale is leaving to go to another meeting. The officials are going to stay. I'm going to suggest to the committee that we finish round one. We would go with Mr. Spengemann, then Mr. Dubé, and then start back at the top of the list for round two.

We'll suspend for two minutes.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Mr. Chair, thank you for the opportunity to be here. I appreciated your questions. I even look forward to coming back another time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

You'll be invited.

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Might I suggest to you on the cyber centre that was the subject of the last question, it might well be possible to arrange an opportunity when members of this committee, if you're interested, could pay a visit to the cyber centre and see it functioning. That might help with some of the background information.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Excellent. Thank you very much.

We'll suspend for a few minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

We're missing a few members. As I suggested, we're going to finish round one. That will be five minutes for Mr. Spengemann, three minutes for Mr. Dubé and then we will start back with the seven-minute round and the first one will be Mr. Erskine-Smith in the second round.

Mr. Spengemann, for five minutes.