Public Safety Committee on May 12th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have about a minute left.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you. I'll pass on my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Colleagues, that brings us to the end of the third round. We have about 20 minutes available for these very excellent witnesses. My proposal would be another three- or four-minute round for each of the parties. In the meantime, while you're making up your minds, and if you could communicate with the clerk on that, I would just take the opportunity to ask a question or two on my own.

All of you have extraordinary experiences as investigators. What has struck me with a lot of these organizations is, if you will, the borderline mental illness of some of the people they would be conducting investigations on—paranoia, disassociation from reality, conspiracies, all that sort of stuff. I'd be interested in your thoughts as to what element in your investigations actually is possibly mental illness of some kind or another?

[C/Supt Mark Flynn]

Mr. Chair, from an RCMP perspective I would say mental illness is a very significant element. If you look at the COVID situation we're in right now, you see there is a lot of reporting about the increased mental illness that is being caused by the isolation that's in place. As an opinion, I would say there is likely a connection between some of the increases that we're seeing as well as the movement to align.

In some of our police investigations.... In fact we've had one that's under way right now. I won't get into too many details of it, but I'll say that it's actually an individual who is currently in a mental institution who is under investigation, and we've already intervened with that individual. I can't think of a better example than that to demonstrate the connectivity between this issue and mental illness.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I'll just direct that question to Mr. Hahlweg as well.

CSIS gets in before the police get in, shall we say? It is an investigation. It's not evidence.

I'm sure you've made some observations about mental illness and some of these individuals. I'm just curious as to what your thoughts are.

[Timothy Hahlweg]

Like our RCMP colleagues, we have absolutely seen more of this. We have become very alive to some of the mental health indicators that allow us to make better assessments at the front end in terms of what we can or should be doing from an investigative perspective.

A lot of our work involves dealing with community members who might be better served to pre-emptively deal with individuals, rather than provoking investigative authorities from CSIS.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

Colleagues, do you wish to ask further questions or do we terminate the meeting here?

Go ahead, Jack.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I have a follow-up question on the incel numbers that Deputy Commissioner Duheme mentioned. Of the 273 files, 29 of them—which would be more than 10%—would be related to incels. This seems high to me, since it's a group I'd never heard of before 2018.

How large is that group compared to others in terms of the number of people who are involved? I think there was a big explanation of what they are, but is this prolific within society?

[D/Commr Michael Duheme]

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

Again, it's an ideology. It's not a group; it's not considered a group. There are pockets of single individuals who have the same ideology. I would not be able to put a number on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Lightbound, I think you have another question.

[Joël Lightbound, Liberal, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have one last question for Mr. Rochon.

You mentioned the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence. Can you tell us more about the activities of the centre?

I remember hearing about a year ago that the New York Times team had traced the journey of a young person who had become radicalized on the Internet and descended into right-wing extremism. They had traced the path he had taken on YouTube and social media to get to that stage of radicalization.

What kind of research is being done at the centre? Are there effective ways to divert some individuals from the path toward radicalization and violent extremism that they have embarked on?

[Dominic Rochon]

That is a very good question, thank you.

That centre just happens to fall under Ms. Wherrett. So I'm going to turn it over to her so she can give you more information on that.

[Jill Wherrett]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Lightbound.

The Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence was formally launched in 2017. It is really a centre of excellence in terms of coordinating the Government of Canada's efforts related to countering radicalization to violence and complementing some of the security responses you've heard about today through an emphasis on prevention and intervention.

The Canada centre is focused on all types of radicalization to violence, regardless of ideology or political or religious motivations. As outlined in the national strategy on countering radicalization to violence that was issued several years ago, there are three priority areas that the centre is looking at. One is building, sharing and using knowledge. That's about really building up the knowledge base we have in Canada and internationally. The second is addressing radicalization to violence in the online space. As you know well from the conversation today, that's a pre-eminent concern currently. The third is supporting frontline interventions.

To be clear, the Canada centre does not work directly with individuals at risk or those who have radicalized to violence, but what we do have is the community resilience program, which is a $7-million-a-year funding program that provides financial assistance for some of the research efforts I talked about in terms of our building knowledge, as well as support for frontline practitioners and community-based organizations that prevent and counter radicalization to violence in Canada. That's where those kinds of organizations are dealing with some of the individuals who have indicated some signs of radicalizing to violence.

To date, we've funded about 42 projects across Canada. Again, some are research projects, but a large part of that funding goes to prevention and intervention programs.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you.

I think Mr. Kurek has his hand up.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

I'm in the room, and there's a big screen here.

I'm just wondering. It's kind of a funny question, but Mr. Hahlweg's pin kind of pixelates and looks a little bit strange, the pin on his lapel. In the room, I can see the big screen. As you can see, I'm wearing a pin with a Canadian flag, and the lapel pin there is pixelated and not easy to see.

I'm sorry to ask a funny question.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

That is a strange question. I don't know what to do with it, but apparently pixelation is a bad thing.

[Timothy Hahlweg]

I will remove it, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I don't see any other questions.

Let me finish with Deputy Commissioner Duheme. I thought, towards the end of your recitation of 276 files or whatever, you talked about threats against politicians or to political folks.

Can you expand on that? Has it increased or decreased? I daresay that there's not anyone on this call who hasn't received a threat of some kind or another. Could you expand on what your observations might be?

[D/Commr Michael Duheme]

Of the 273, there are about one-fifth of them, the majority of which include anti-government and anti-law enforcement. What we're seeing are disparaging remarks, condescending remarks towards elected officials or appointed officials. I would say that most of time, or a lot of the time, they don't meet the criminal threshold to lay a charge.

That's where we do some disruption. The team that looks after it does work with the behavioural science team to try to get a better understanding of the individuals. There are mental health issues involved in this, but often what we've been seeing is that a simple knock on the door is enough to disrupt it and the person doesn't repeat it.

People sometimes feel safe in their basement. They feel protected because they're online and not face to face, but a simple disruption is just as good.

Is there an increase? Yes. I mentioned earlier on that we've seen an increase in what we are looking at, not necessarily towards all elected members but ministers. In my personal opinion, what we're seeing is people being at the residence due to COVID, as I said, and feeling protected on the Internet. We did see an increase in negative comments, I'll say. They're not always threats.

I think Mark would like to add something to this, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Go ahead.

[C/Supt Mark Flynn]

I'd like to add some information about a program that we have that I'm quite proud of. I think it has application in the national security IMVE space outside of the security of protected individuals under the RCMP's mandate.

In our protective policing program, we have behavioural scientists who review the intelligence or evidence that comes in with respect to threats and the individuals who are involved. We put those people into defined categories with defined follow-up regimes based on the levels of threat, particularly when they don't meet the criminal threshold where there's likely going to be a conviction based on their activity.

It's a very new approach that we've been undertaking in the last few years. It's a very highly skilled group that is developing these assessments as well as the plans to intervene. That can go anywhere from a regimented monthly follow-up with public health officials, psychological services, counselling and so on, to someone who's at the very low end of the threshold potentially having annual follow-ups to determine whether or not they are increasing or decreasing their activity. It's a very effective group, and I'm very proud of the service that they provide.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Flynn.

Deputy Commissioner Duheme, your “knock on the door” analogy coincides with my own experience. The irony was that it was a former police officer who got the knock on the door.

I see two hands up, and I think that will have to do for today. We'll go with Mr. Fisher and then Ms. Damoff.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you very much. I think Pam had her hand up first.

Someone said today that if Canadians see something they should say something. If Canadians feel that they are seeing something that might be IMVE, how would they best go about reporting something like that?

[D/Commr Michael Duheme]

I can't shy away. I was the one who said that.

On the national security side for the RCMP there is a 1-800 number, 1-800-420-5805, but I think the underlying message here for the Canadian population is to call their local police, to call the police of jurisdiction. We have ties in different provinces with the POJs. They understand roles and responsibilities and mandates. If it's imminent, obviously, there is 911, and there are other ways to contact your police of jurisdiction to inform them.

To me, that's very important, because, as I said, it's not the law enforcement, the security community, that will be able to detect everything that's going on. Most of the work we're doing in this space is based on what is being reported to us by citizens.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Fisher.

Ms. Damoff, you have the final question.