Public Safety Committee on Feb. 1st, 2018

[D/Chief Laurence Rankin]

I can't speak for the CSE, but I would say that if you're looking at it in terms of law enforcement in Canada, we're having to seek judicial authorization to obtain this information. We're being challenged day in and day out by encryption.

We're not arbitrarily going in and searching people's computers without the requisite permission or authorization. What CSE is doing and what we're doing are really two different things. I'm not in a position to comment on that. I am in a position to say that we have a number of challenges, encryption being one of them, as is trying to collect that evidence in a timely manner. Legislation isn't keeping up. Technology is speeding ahead. We're having to adhere to court decisions out of the Supreme Court—such as Jordan—which place an addition burden on law enforcement—

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Fragiskatos. You always ask the most difficult questions at the end.

Mr. Brassard, welcome to the committee. Five minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll get right into it.

As an opposition, we have been asking the government on numerous occasions about the returning foreign fighters. One of the responses that was given by Minister Goodale is that “our government uses a variety of tools to combat terrorism, including the Global Coalition against Daesh, security investigations, surveillance, monitoring, intelligence gathering, lawful sharing, collection of” information.... He also said “peace bonds”.

One of the things you said, Mr. Martin, that was quite disturbing to me was the fact that currently there are zero peace bonds that exist in Canada, and yet there are returning jihadists that we're aware of. We're not aware of the exact number. Do you find it problematic that we're not issuing peace bonds to monitor returning jihadist terrorists at this point?

[Chief Paul Martin]

There would have to be a threshold in order to get a peace bond for one of these individuals in the first place, so they'd have to demonstrate something. I can't speak to any specific cases or things that are being looked at, but yes, currently there are none in effect right now. There have been, and should it be appropriate to do so and we have the evidence to get it, that's what we would be seeking.

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

My question, then, is, if this piece of legislation asks for that threshold to increase from where it was previously, is there the potential or the risk that law-abiding Canadians are being placed at risk at this point, given the fact we are aware—the government is aware—that there are returning jihadists? We don't know the number, but we know they're out there. Is the Canadian public at increased risk because of the increase in that threshold?

[Chief Paul Martin]

Well, any increase in the threshold will make it a little more difficult for law enforcement to potentially get a peace bond. What we'd have to use is one of the other tools at our disposal. Perhaps that is surveillance or some other tool that is available to law enforcement and that we could use at that time. Law enforcement—and I'm sure I can speak for our RCMP brothers across this country—is not going to allow Canadians to be at risk if we can do something about it and we have tools at our disposal.

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

I want to go back to something you said earlier about resources. Currently, how stretched are your resources to deal with this issue?

[Chief Paul Martin]

My service specifically is stretched to the maximum in dealing with traditional crimes, as Laurence would describe them, such as homicides and those types of things and the increases in certain types of crimes, and also dealing with these emerging issues, such as human trafficking, terrorism, and all these types of things that are relatively new on the horizon. It's stretching us to the limit. We try to prioritize and triage these types of investigations and make sure that we deal with the ones that are most imminent.

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

Thank you. That's all I have.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Brassard.

Mr. Picard, you have five minutes.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

Thank you.

I have a lot of questions. Something popped up in my mind: my colleague here has suggested a very good idea. Patrolmen and -women have the challenge of being on the street and facing everyone on a daily basis. Based on that knowledge of what goes on on the street, what is your interpretation of the level of risk or danger the Canadian population faces? Has this changed, increased, or decreased over the last five or six years?

[Chief Paul Martin]

What is my assessment of the risk to front-line officers, to the public?

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

Is the Canadian population more at risk now than it was six years ago?

[Chief Paul Martin]

With the returning foreign fighters, the prolific use of the Internet to try to incite people or get people to radicalize, I would suggest that yes, in my estimation the risk to the Canadian public is higher than it was six or seven years ago.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

To your knowledge is this situation very recent, or did we start to look at those issues five years ago? The Internet for example, propaganda, and....

Have you looked at cases where we start to see more Internet propaganda messages? Without knowing how to quantify one person travelling abroad, apparently we have a possible foreign fighter coming back. We didn't start to look at that last year, did we?

[D/Chief Laurence Rankin]

Chief, can I just interject?

[Chief Paul Martin]

Yes.

[D/Chief Laurence Rankin]

More so now than even in the last few years, I think we're looking at what appears to be the end of the caliphate. Where do these fighters go? I think what you're seeing in Europe and in the U.K. and potentially in the United States, could very well be reflected in what we see in Canada. I think that is the issue. Foreign fighters or others whom we may not be aware of yet are coming back because they have nowhere else to fight.

That is becoming more prominent.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

That triggers an interesting exchange of information among different levels of police forces. Is security clearance an issue in those communications?

[D/Chief Laurence Rankin]

At the municipal level, the members who are liaising with INSET, at the RCMP, have top secret security clearance. Again, information is going from national security headquarters to the respective INSET. We are updated on certain files on a regular basis. Our members who are working on these types of investigations from a municipal perspective are liaising with our INSET investigators on a regular basis, exchanging information, providing them with information.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

Does the need-to-know basis limit some information accessible to you when you approach someone, if you expect the person to be a potential foreign fighter? Does that change your position and the means that you have at your disposal to act toward this person? What is your interpretation of what we call foreign fighters from the street standpoint, the patrol person standpoint? When you look at someone and you say he might be a foreign fighter, what are the means at the disposal of the police force on the street then?

[D/Chief Laurence Rankin]

Certainly we've embraced training related to that front-line encounter within our own department. It's sponsored largely by the RCMP with the first responder terrorism awareness program. That's providing training throughout the country. Front-line officers are aware of what to look for with respect to potential foreign fighters, not just with Islamic foreign fighters, but right-wing extremists as well.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, gentlemen.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

For the last few minutes, we have Mr. Dubé, please.