Public Safety Committee on Feb. 15th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Ladies and gentlemen, let's bring this meeting to order. This is the 98th meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

On behalf of the committee, I want to welcome our witnesses, Lieutenant-General Michael Day and Scott Newark. I've talked to both of them, and I believe General Day will speak for 10 minutes, and then Mr. Newark will.

Without further ado, General Day.

[Lieutenant-General, Retired) Michael Day (As an Individual]

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. I appreciate the opportunity to speak in front of this committee.

First, let me say how encouraged I am that Canada, in the space of just a handful of years, has had two bills on national security. Content notwithstanding, the actual debate we're having helps improve...including the choices that we will be deliberately making as a country to either diminish or enhance our security, and I accept that there's a trade-off.

I come at this issue not just from my time in uniform in our special forces community, but also having been the senior uniformed officer responsible for international security in the Department of National Defence as well as being the chief strategic planner. Subsequent to my retirement, I have remained involved in this area, specifically working in the high-tech sector as well as in academia.

As part of the broader issue, I would wish to have my opening comments focused on three specific challenges. First of all is the trade-off between privacy and security, between the charter and the reasonable measures to protect Canadians. This is not, from my perspective obviously, a binary issue, or one that should be looked at as absolutes, but rather a dynamic relationship that should remain constantly under review. We should embrace that tension as opposed to pretending it doesn't exist, with a conversation being seen to have value in and of itself.

Second, there are the unavoidable challenges that are presented with dealing with intelligence and admissible evidence, quality information. This includes the provision of a coherent picture to policy makers. No policy or law will be able to solve this conundrum, however, better processes and deliberate case-by-case choices can be made to better inform our way ahead. I believe those are lacking. I believe this starts with a more coherent, joined up, centrally directed intelligence construct, which is mirrored in other countries, but quite frankly, not fully realized here in Canada. I'll address this a little later. Although this will be debated by many, the gap can be simply defined by the lack of one accountable minister—who is not the Prime Minister—in one department, responsible for the synthesis of a national perspective. The current construct through PCO lacks both authority and reach but most certainly process. The consequences are that we have government officials, both elected and unelected, who are not privy to a complete whole-of-government intelligence assessment, and vulnerabilities ensue as a consequence.

Lastly, we have a cultural blindness as a consequence of the quality of life that we all enjoy. To be sure, that's a double-edged sword, but the willingness to think of others, that they might share our values, our practices, essentially our way of life, is foolhardy. I vacillate, of course, between despair and admiration at this ability to ignore the realities of the world as I've experienced it. I won't be proposing any solution to that issue.

In this first instance, I would want to see a process that is able to flex and contract on a case-by-case basis. I do recognize there are embedded processes within the Government of Canada machinery. I believe them to be inadequate. This space should be defined by a non-political entity, likely expanding on the current judicial processes we have at the moment. In particular, I believe this must be informed by certain rules that trade off the automaticity of an action being appropriate or not with a deliberate set of decisions. Although there are some basic constructs that allow for warrants for certain actions, I don't believe this receives the attention or the expertise that is warranted in a holistic sense. We have a great judiciary, we have a great rule of law, and I believe the solution is in this space.

Lastly, in this area I consider it to be the requirement for whatever process adopted to remain in camera so as to protect that information, which leads me to my second point. By necessity, there's an overlap between various members of the security and intelligence community here in the machinery of government. We need better coordination, not merely information. Too often, even post-Maher, there remain gaps between how information and intelligence are manned in this domain. As an aside, I think it is tremendously important to distinguish between the two—information and intelligence. Although various individuals claim we are addressing this, I would remind this committee, as I'm sure you know, that this claim has been repeated by various officials in various governments for decades now. No good solutions have been reached, in my opinion.

When making this body of knowledge prosecutable, we need to do better. Although recognizing the hue and cry that will result, in some instances, it may mean, or continue to mean, a court process that is not transparent to the general public. These are the types of trade-offs that I believe are necessary. It's not a good solution. In fact, it may be a bad solution, but it's not the worst solution. In fact, it may be the best of a number of bad solutions. We are living in the worst solution, which is that we don't appear to address it at all. Implementation of independent monitors, etc., or any additional process may be considered as part of that solutions space.

With regard to electronic surveillance and security, I admit to an incredulity at either the inability or naïveté of Canadians in general, and quite frankly, the government in particular, accepting that there must be rules and policies surrounding these activities. It has shocked me. Over the last four or five years, I've worked a lot in the cyber domain. It's shocking to me how little effect successive governments have had in addressing the cyber-threats that this country faces on a daily basis. The vulnerability of our energy grid, the financial sector, among others, and the lack of a government-wide set of policies and legislation to enforce compliance leads me to believe that we are living in a country that is now fully compromised by foreign actors at the state and non-state level.

A voluntary system will not work, as a vulnerability by one is a vulnerability to all, in fact. The CSE legal mandate is a good and useful step, but it's only part of the picture. I am a strong believer that mass surveillance metadata, not individual surveillance or collecting individual information, and the power of directed and non-directed machine learning are critical to embrace and to better understand the space in which we are working. Lacking this, we will fall further behind.

Turning briefly to accountability and functionality in the government, I would cite the most recent report by the U.S. director of national intelligence, which is a significantly different role than the proposed commissioner of the intelligence, whose mandate falls well outside of my area of expertise and understanding, although it does appear to me to be a very good step. Although the current intelligent assessment secretariat fulfills some of the functionality of DNI, it falls short. Focused on the provision of intelligence to the Prime Minister and given its position in the Privy Council Office, it lacks the appropriate authorities to direct, as well as the degree of ministerial accountability needed. We have no minister responsible for this and no such equivalent director of intelligence. There is no mandate and therefore, the function is not served.

It seems to me that much of the public debate on the bill in question, C-59, is about legal mandates, compliance, oversight, and governance. I don't wish to imply that this isn't needed, let alone value added, but rather suggest that the necessity of this conversation should not be mistaken for sufficiency. By itself, the debate on those issues is insufficient.

In a rapidly changing world, an equal amount of discussion should be given to the efficacy of the security and intelligence agencies and supporting departments, how well they work together, how rapidly they are able to, not just respond in the moment, but adjust to changing threats, etc.

As a criticism, I could argue that one would say the jealous safeguarding of mandates authorities—or more crudely put, turf battles—will be argued by any number of officials who will come in front of this committee. I would posit that you would be fooling yourself to believe that those turf battles aren't actively fought on a daily basis and therefore, inhibit a fuller, broader understanding of the threats that we face and the actions that we can take in response. However, I was strongly and tremendously encouraged to see Ms. Rennie Marcoux appointed as the executive director of the committee proposed. She is a true intelligence professional, but this is a separate function, and I do not mislead myself into believing that replaces the proposed DNI, which I would support. This is a gap that needs attention.

Furthermore, not being in government at the moment, I do remain uninformed about how the interaction between that commission and PCO, the assistant secretary of security intelligence, and the national security advisor will all work together, reminding ourselves that the PCO answers only to the PMO and there's no accountable minister, let alone mandate, and therefore, no real authority besides that which is practised, but not enforced.

In addressing the oversight committee I believe I noted with concern that in some instances the committee—and I stand to be corrected on this—would not have access to certain intelligence. I think I've read that in some of the critiques. To be very clear, for lack of a better term, I believe that to be admittedly stupid. The committee should have access to any and all documentation seen and used by the intelligence committee regardless of the originator controls. Anything less makes a mockery of oversight. Decisions will be made. Actions will be initiated based on that foreign-based intelligence.

There is a need to continue to force the interaction most especially between the intelligence and security agencies and associated departments. I'm convinced that Bill C-59 is a good step forward, but it needs to be enlarged in processes and interactions, and an accountable minister appointed.

I'd be more than happy to talk about threats and other processes during our Q and A.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, General Day.

Mr. Newark.

[Scott Newark, Policy Analyst, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. It's good to see you again.

I'd like to thank the committee for the invitation to appear before you with respect to this very important Bill C-59. I've had the opportunity to follow some of the proceedings and to read some of the transcripts, and it's very encouraging to see the depth and substance of the questions asked of the individual witnesses who are appearing, including with different perspectives.

I've had a long history, and I was thinking about it before I came here today. It's been almost 30 years, I guess, since I first testified before a parliamentary committee. I was a crown prosecutor from Alberta, and as I put it, I got tired of tripping over the mistakes of the parole system in my courtroom, and realized that the only way to try to change it was to change the laws. That meant coming to Ottawa, because we were dealing with federal correctional legislation. I was appearing before parliamentary committees where I exposed what had happened in a couple of cases.

The important work of the legislative branch struck me then, and it has remained with me throughout. That sometimes gets overlooked, and depending on how things are being handled at the executive branch of government, the really important and critical analysis that committees can do is quite significant. A bill like this is a very good example of that, because you can have different opinions about things on different subjects, but you have the ability to ask questions and to try to elicit information to analyze whether or not the intended results are going to be achieved by the legislation in the way that it's drafted or if other things need to be done. That is particularly true, I think, in relation to legislation like Bill C-59, which is obviously pretty complex legislation and deals with a whole lot of subjects.

In fairness, the discussion itself has raised issues that are not contained in Bill C-59. I think a very encouraging sign was the way that the government sent the bill here in advance of second reading so that you could have input and suggestions on other subjects. I have some suggestions to make on things like that. I must admit, though, that I would suggest that it probably is a better idea, simply from a procedural perspective, to confine your recommendations to the specifics of the bill, and perhaps, in an ancillary report, make suggestions on other subjects rather than adding huge new amendments to sections and opening up different issues that are not specifically contained in Bill C-59. There's so much of value in Bill C-59 that it's a good idea to move it forward.

My presentation today will touch on essentially three aspects. The first is just to take some examples of things that I think are notable and quite important in Bill C-59. I also have a couple of comments on things, and one in particular I have a problem with, but I suppose, to put it in a larger sense, they're just ones where I would suggest you may want to ask some questions and make sure you understand that what you are anticipating is the case is, in fact, the case. Then, because the minister has invited suggestions on other issues, if we have time—and probably not in the opening statement, but during questions and answers—I have some suggestions on other issues that I think might be of interest.

Let me just give you a little bit of background as well on my personal experience in this, because it impacts on the insights. As I mentioned, I was a crown prosecutor in Alberta. Ultimately, because of one of the cases I was involved in, in 1992 I became the executive officer of the Canadian Police Association. This is the rank-and-file police officers, the unions. We were involved very heavily from 1992 to 1998 in criminal justice reform, policy advocacy. It was from that, in particular, and my work as a crown prosecutor, that I got the sense of the importance of learning from front-line operational insights how you can then shape legislative or policy tools so as to achieve desired outcomes.

Also, not everything needs to be done by legislation. There are frequently instances—and I was struck by this as I was watching some of the evidence from some of the witnesses that you've had—where we don't necessarily need new laws. We need to enforce the ones we already have, and we need to make sure that the tools are in place to use them appropriately. There are some examples of that, I think, in Bill C-59 specifically.

I ended up working with the Ontario government in 1998 as an order in council appointment. That government had intended to achieve some criminal justice reforms, and they weren't getting it done, so they wanted some people with some understanding of the justice system.

After 9/11, I was appointed as the special security adviser on counterterrorism because of some work I had previously been involved in. I had significant interactions with Americans in relation to that. In the old days, it was the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, which became INSET. I had a role, essentially, in being the provincial representative in some of the discussions, and I saw the inter-agency interactions, or lack thereof, and the impact that potentially had.

Since then, I'm actually one of the guys who did the review that led to the arming of the border officers. I still do work with the union on policy stuff. I also do some stuff with security technology committees. The value of that is that you get an understanding of some of the operational insights and what is necessary to achieve the intended outcomes.

I should add, I suppose, the final thing. Last year, I accepted a position at Simon Fraser University as an adjunct professor. I know you'll be shocked to hear that. It's for a course they offer, a master's program, the Terrorism, Risk, and Security Studies program. The course I teach is balancing civil liberties and public safety and security. To go on from a point that the general made, I think the case is that these are not either-or situations. We are fully capable of doing both, and there is a balance involved in this. As a general principle, it is a very good idea, when you're looking at what is proposed in legislation, especially in legislation like this which has national security implications, to keep in mind the general principles of protecting civil rights.

There are two points about that. You'll notice that in “civil rights”, “rights” is modified by “civil”. In other words, they are rights that exist in the context of a civil society. That has ramifications in the sense, I think, of what citizens are entitled to expect of their government. I don't want government intruding on my privacy, but, at the same time, if government has the capability of accessing relevant information and acting on someone who is a threat to me and my family, I expect, under my civil right, that, in fact, government will do what it needs to do to extend that protection.

The other side of that—and I know, Monsieur Dubé asked many questions about this, as did other members of the committee—is the importance of looking at it generally, at what is proposed, to see that there is, in effect, oversight initially and, as well, appropriate review so that the balancing can take place. In my opinion, and more accurately in my experience, having the executive branch reporting to itself for authorization is something that should raise a red flag. There are provisions within the act that ultimately address that, although there are some that raise some questions about it.

In the very brief time left, let me just say that I think that among the important things in the legislation are the extensive use of preambles and definitions about the importance of privacy and what we would generally call civil rights in consideration of why we're doing things. That, I think, was a deficiency in Bill C-51. I can tell you that it is critically important in today's charter world to make sure that is included so that the courts can consider whether or not what was being done by legislative authority in fact took into account the charter issues. A rule of statutory interpretation is “thou shalt consider the preamble in a statute when actually drafting it”.

With one minute left, I think probably the most important operational aspect of this bill is the proactive cyber-activity authorized to CSE. That is a reality of the world in which we live. We are totally cyber-dependent, which also means we have enormous cyber-vulnerabilities. Cybersecurity, in effect, has been an afterthought. This is a step; it is not the complete answer. I do some work in the cyber field as well, and that is something that I think is extremely important.

The one issue I would raise, in closing, which I have a concern about specifically, is in relation to the change in what I think is the evidentiary threshold in the terrorism propaganda offence. I can get into that in more detail, but my concern is, essentially, that it may be making it, for no good reason, no justifiable reason that I can see, harder to use that section, which has extreme relevance now in the changing domestic terrorism environment in which we are living.

I look forward to answering any questions and, hopefully, touching on the other subjects.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Newark. You were elegant in your submission.

[Scott Newark]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Fragiskatos, seven minutes please.

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

Thank you to both of you for being here today.

I'm glad, Mr. Newark, you ended on the point about the CSE because that's where I want to begin, in terms of offensive cyber-capability. We've heard a number of witnesses testify in favour of this. There have been several witnesses who have raised real concerns, in particular, the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, OpenMedia, but others as well.

I take your point that in new threat environments, Canada and other democracies need to really adapt. You're familiar, I think, with the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo. They recently published a piece, and I want to read a quote from it and get both your thoughts.

They say, as follows:

...if the Cold War taught us anything, it is that sometimes the best way to ensure that everyone lives in peace is to ensure that everyone has the ability to destroy one another, otherwise known as the doctrine of mutually assured destruction. Cyber-weapons that have clear offensive uses do just that. They show the world (or at least those that know you have them) that should you be attacked, you can escalate and retaliate in turn.

Is this an apt way of looking at where we find ourselves today in terms of international security?

[Scott Newark]

First of all, I think it's important to appreciate that the acronym for mutually assured destruction is MAD, but part of the complexity in that is that the threats are not necessarily from state actors. That's a challenge in itself.

The thing that concerns me the most, frankly, is advanced persistent threats. They're already planted and they're sitting there waiting for the folks in Pyongyang or Beijing to decide that now is the time we're going to do this.

We've changed our systems. I mean, we don't turn on the SCADA operating systems at nuclear power plants anymore by somebody flipping a switch, and it's created a vulnerability. I'm not a techie but I think the capacity to proactively intercept and stop, take down the systems and remove the capability to cause the harm, is an essential component.

Having said that, however, I think it is critically important, given the authority and the power that's there and its ramifications, that this should not simply be one branch of government reporting to another, then signing off and saying that's it. I think this is something, given its importance, that requires some form of independent review and authorization. Although we would want all of these circumstances to be considered exigent, some kind of a review should be done after the fact. I think, just as a general principle, that unless there's a reason not to have that independent oversight, the nature of the authority is such that it requires that balancing effect.

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

Mr. Day.

[LGen (Ret'd) Michael Day]

To answer your question, I think it's a ridiculous comparison. Anybody who actually understands MAD and the triad of the nuclear deterrent and second response, etc., understands you're talking about a completely different intellectual construct. Notwithstanding—and I've read the piece, I think it's a decent thought piece and there's a lot of value to it— that comparison is a distraction, at best.

What we're talking about in terms of actually having the capability as a deterrent...I'm not convinced that's the case. The capability by itself really should be designed to prevent certain actions, to mitigate the impact on certain actions, to be able to subsequently respond and recover. In the cyber domain, if you don't have that continuum, then you're incomplete. Missing one stage of that, which includes an offensive capability to proactively understand what the threats are, to deal with them, to prevent them, to mitigate them, then you remain vulnerable.

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

I would also just quickly point out, Mr. Newark, that you spoke about non-state actors. Daesh has demonstrated a capability, albeit not a very advanced one, to carry out cyber-attacks. That's there, and it's emerged.

[Scott Newark]

We're in a changing environment. I don't think there's any doubt about that, and it's one of the things that really struck me about the terrorism propaganda. We know, literally, that the threat environment is changing as they are losing—although not as much as we sometimes think—their actual physical control of territory. they are openly saying what it is. That's one of the things about Islamic terrorism: if you pay attention, they generally tell you what they plan on doing.

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

I don't mean to cut you off.

You alluded in your remarks to your concern about the speech crime provision in Bill C-51 being modified under Bill C-59. I was reading a piece that you wrote—it might have been for iPolitics as a matter of fact, back in the fall—where you pointed to your opposition to this.

Just for the record, under Bill C-51, it was a crime for one to “knowingly advocate or promote the commission of terrorism offences in general”. Under Bill C-59, this has been replaced with something much more common in criminal law: “counselling another person to commit a terrorism” act.

I have read your criticism, so I want to jump immediately to ask you a question about how the offence was phrased in Bill C-51. Take the example of a journalist or a group of protestors who were supporting a group—now the times don't align here but I think you'll appreciate the example—of anti-apartheid activists, under the ANC and under Mandela. You know very well that, particularly in the early history of their activism against apartheid, they advocated for non-lethal attacks on public infrastructure.

Now if a journalist here in Canada were writing in favour of that kind of an approach—again, the anti-apartheid movement was one of the most important struggles of the 20th century—it's entirely conceivable, and I'm not the only one to use this example, that they could have been charged under the wording in Bill C-51.

To shift now, to pivot to a counselling offence, doesn't this clarify and bring greater understanding to what is permissible and what is not permissible?

[Scott Newark]

I don't think so. I don't agree—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Unfortunately Mr. Fragiskatos has pretty well used up his entire time asking the question. Possibly we can circle back to that.

Mr. Paul-Hus, you have seven minutes, please.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here this morning, gentlemen. Your input is very valuable.

Mr. Newark, this week, public safety officials appeared before this committee with regard to Bill C-59. They said that the bill would create a flexible framework that could respond to emerging threats. Yet the bill says nothing about returning Islamic state fighters. It says nothing about fighting the emerging threats from Russia and China. Nor does it say anything about modernizing our ability to control the funding of terrorism.

Leaving aside the creation of a new review agency and the part-time position of commissioner, and the implementation of the CST and the National Defence Act, the wording of this bill is unnecessarily complex and shows little intent to take the security of Canadians seriously.

Mr. Newark, you talked about the cyber threat and changes in terrorist propaganda. In your opinion, what key feature is missing from the bill?

[Scott Newark]

As I say, the biggest one I have questions about is the terrorism propaganda. To circle back and answer, precisely because the proposed definition is section 22 of the Criminal Code—which is counselling another person to commit a criminal offence—the way I read the language of that, in effect that offence is already there.

I guarantee you, sir, that if that wording is used, there will be occasions when defence counsel will come to court when somebody is charged, and ask, “Who was it that he was counselling to commit the offence?” If you don't have another person involved, you aren't able to prove the offence.

That compares to the general notion, which reflects the reality of what we're dealing with now: we know that what would be included in the definition of terrorism propaganda is what is being used in radicalization, recruitment, and facilitation, including and especially in domestic circumstances. That's what we're actually facing.

To your point, though, about the larger issues, I'll go back to what I said before. I actually think there are things in Bill C-59 that help us deal with the reality of returning jihadis. The most important thing is that the government did not change the evidentiary level in section 810.011, the terrorism peace bonds. It's still “may commit”. Had that been raised up to “will commit”, that would have put a much more significant barrier on things.

The other thing that is very important in this bill is the provision that requires annual reporting on the number of peace bonds that are actually used, and also a five-year reporting on the impact of the bill itself. In my experience in government, that tends to bring about accountability. I assure you that if those provisions are included, throughout the different offices of the security branches and agencies there will be whiteboards going up with people writing on them, “Okay, I'm responsible for this. I've actually got to deliver this.” That's a good thing, because I think accountability tends to produce results.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you.

General Day, you were the first Canadian general to command the special forces. You were part of the JTF and the special forces for nearly your entire career.

People often have a naive perception of the jihadi movement. You have been deployed all over the world. With members of the special forces, you have come into contact with those people.

In your opinion, do the Canadians who fight alongside jihadis abroad represent a threat to Canadians? Please tell us your views since you have fought those people.

[LGen (Ret'd) Michael Day]

Thank you very much for the question.

I will try to answer in French, but I might miss some slight nuances. I will answer the other questions in English.

I would like to briefly address the previous question.

As a practitioner, a focus solely on the legislation by this committee will miss about 80% of the potential gaps you've asked about. The reality is that legislation has to have practices in place and structures in place under those practices to support that. That's the total capability. There's lots of legislation in Canada that is not enacted because it lacks the practices, the structures, the reporting mechanisms, and everything else. I would be very guarded about focusing solely on gaps in legislation. As the guy on the practitioner side of the house, I would argue that we need to be a little more holistic.

With regard to your specific question, I think it's excellent. Jihadists or religious extremists fall along a pretty broad continuum spanning adventure seekers, malcontents, the disenfranchised, and the truly committed. We will receive back in Canada that complete continuum. Anybody who believes that every individual coming back is either wholly bad or just situationally good, and so on, is fooling themselves.

We will receive those people who went for reasons unrelated to the actual clash between Daesh, ISIS, and so on, and who were turned off by what they saw.

Equally, we will see people coming back here, fully determined to continue to prosecute that conflict. People are fooling themselves. I've dealt with these people around the world. They are committed. You're fooling yourself if you declare otherwise, and you're lying. You should know better.

[Scott Newark]

If I could just add to that as well, I very much agree. I don't think some of the communications have been as effective as they could and should have been about this. However, I completely agree with General Day about the nature of the individuals you're dealing with.

It's not going to be one-size-fits-all. Use all the tools in the tool box, which does include things like de-radicalization and rehabilitation. We use that kind of approach in our criminal justice system as well. It's important that we use all the tools in the tool box and not just one.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Paul-Hus.

Inter-party harmony has broken out once again in this committee.

Mr. Motz, you have seven minutes.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to both our guests for being here.

CBSA is not mentioned a lot in this particular bill, and as mentioned, there's nothing at all of substance about our borders in Bill C-51.

We know we've had issues with illegal border crossers, significantly, over the last year. These individuals who cross the border are given hearing dates. The processing time has been cut by 80%. They disappear, and many of them don't show up for their secondary hearings. When you put all these things together, it leaves the impression that our borders are porous and that there are national security issues that exist.

In the context of our border and CBSA, can you offer us any insights on what amendments we should be looking at within this legislation, keeping in mind Mr. Day's comments about a practicality component as well?

[Scott Newark]

I provided my opening remarks, and as well, the actual paper that I wrote for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and a couple of other papers to the committee, so you will have access to that.

I totally agree with respect to border issues not being really included. I don't think that was the intent, frankly, in the drafting of Bill C-59 and fair enough, you use other legislation. But there are so many things that could and need to be done in my opinion. I wondered when you had your last witnesses here including from the RCMP, who had some unusual remarks in my opinion, but they're not so much legal as they are practical.

Do we have a bad guy lookout system in place supported by face recognition biometrics? I know this may come as a surprise but the bad guys use phony ID. Why are our border officers not allowed expressly to be doing enforcement work between ports of entry? It's ridiculous. We need to renegotiate the safe third country agreement.

Let's me clear, obviously you can call it global migration or human smuggling but it's not an accident that these people happened to coincidentally.... More than 50% of them by the way, in these latest waves, were not just people who were Haitians expecting that they were going to leave the United States but people who had actually lawfully obtained visas to come to the United States to illegally enter Canada. That should raise an eyebrow. Why is that? The word is out essentially that it is something that can be done.

What I would suggest is that there are so many issues that are involved in this. It merits a separate study and analysis and not necessarily tacking things on to Bill C-59, because there are enough other things in Bill C-59 that are legitimate but our border security issues I think.... We haven't completed the commitments in the Beyond the Border program or the border integrity technology enhancement program for border surveillance technologies. Those are things that absolutely need to be done.

As I say, the bad guys tell us what they're planning on doing. Remember when this all started and there was a flow of refugees into Europe and they said, we're going to embed our people in amongst them. There was a report out last week from the EU about that fact of those people retuning. That's something we need to pay attention to.

On the final last point just about this, I thought that the Immigration and Refugee Board has done a pretty good job of releasing statistics on the numbers of people who have been ruled inadmissible or timelines and things like that. The one statistic that you don't see is how many people have actually been removed? In our system that's different from being ordered removed.

That's information that is available and it would be a good idea to actually get it because our system in my experience is too bureaucratic and process focused. Process is supposed to serve purpose. If I could add an insight from a career in law enforcement, all too frequently it doesn't, especially in border issues.

You'll see a whole list of recommendations, sir.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Mr. Day, you have some comments on that?