Public Safety Committee on May 12th, 2021

[Timothy Hahlweg]

It's a very good point that you made on prosecution. That is the lane of our good friends at the RCMP and other police jurisdictions.

From a CSIS perspective, those four triggers, as we've called them—the willingness to inspire others to kill others; serious violence; attempting to affect societal change; and ideological influence.... It is very crucial for us to go through all of these steps to understand what the individual is doing in these spaces so that we can make sure that we deconflict with our counterparts to understand who is best positioned to deal with this threat. Is it the RCMP? Is it local law enforcement, or is it a service perspective, where that person hasn't gone to that outer extreme and we might be able to inform others so that they can fulfill their mandate a little bit more effectively?

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Good. Thank you.

I'm not sure who this question is for, but it is about those called CETs, Canadian extremist travellers: people who have gone abroad to fight for al Qaeda or Daesh in Syria or wherever, and then they come back because they're Canadian citizens.

How big of a threat is that to Canada? That, to me, seems like a real and present danger for Canadians.

I'm not sure who that's for...maybe the RCMP.

[D/Commr Michael Duheme]

I'll lead it off, Mr. Chair, but I think there's a little bit of Public Safety and also CSIS in this.

What's important here is that the RCMP's mandate, when it comes to national security and IMVE, is that really our sandbox is when there's a criminal element.

Tim mentioned how we work well together. We do work well. We deconflict as to who will take the lead, but when there's a criminal element to the file, it becomes our responsibility. We still work closely with the service throughout.

On the returnees, if you wish, we are looking at a list of people who have gone there, whom we were invested in before and know they've been involved in criminal activity. The service would have a different list, if you wish, based on their mandate and intel.

Do they pose a threat? There are several discussions with the community on how to best follow up on that when they return, or if they return, to make sure that we have the appropriate resources and the eyes and information on it. You can appreciate that when someone has left the country for six, seven or 10 years, you no longer have an intel picture of what's going on or what they've been involved in.

It's not an easy issue, but the community is together and monitoring it closely to make sure that we have the right resources in place to address it.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Van Popta.

Mr. Fisher, you have five minutes, please.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all of the witnesses. This is incredibly compelling testimony. I want to thank you for being here.

Personally, I'm glad we're talking about this today. In my riding of Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, people are extremely concerned about organizations such as the Proud Boys.

My question would be for Mr. Rochon of Public Safety.

It was not until 2019 that two ideologically motivated white supremacist organizations—and they were mentioned today, Blood & Honour, or I think they called it B&H, and Combat 18, C18—were added to the terrorist code listings. Earlier this year, there were four additional groups added, including the Proud Boys.

I touched on this with Mr. McGuinty the other day, but what is the goal that you hope to accomplish through the listings process? What message does it send to Canadians?

[Dominic Rochon]

Thank you for the question.

Frankly, I think I may have done Madame Michaud a disservice earlier, because I think that's what she was getting at in terms of IMVE and terrorism and where the two somewhat meet. The question that was just asked about Canadian extremist travellers touched on that issue as well.

These are not mutually exclusive categories, and it's a very complex situation. In order to address ideologically motivated violent extremism, religiously motivated violent extremism and all the various things that we're now starting to define, we need to make best use of the tools that we have at our disposal.

The Criminal Code listing regime is one of those tools. I think we've been talking about national security criminal investigations, or CSIS investigations, as other potential tools. You have the Secure Air Travel Act, which is another tool. We have the terrorism peace bond provision. These are all tools to help us deal with the evolution of the threats that we're seeing.

Up until 2019, as you rightly point out, ideologically motivated violent extremism, as such, was not part of an entity that had been listed until then. Canada was one of the first Five Eyes countries to actually list—as you point out, back in 2019—these types of groups. Earlier this year, we added another four groups.

I think that shows there's a trend, an identification that, for the Criminal Code definition of what terrorist activity is in order to be able to list an entity, these IMVE groups are starting to meet that threshold. As they meet that threshold, we're starting to list those entities, which is yet another tool to bring to bear on being able to deal with them.

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

Thank you very much for that.

Someone claimed in testimony that two neo-Nazi groups no longer have an online presence. Mr. Harris touched on this as well.

Maybe you could reinforce whether there is a concern that these organizations could morph into something else or go deeper underground, because they don't give up on this level of hate that they have within themselves.

[Dominic Rochon]

I'll take a stab at answering that.

I think my colleague from CSIS, Mr. Hahlweg, certainly did a good job of describing the dangers that of course will continue to happen once you start listing these entities. By default, listing them does enable social media platforms to remove these entities. What I mean by this is that they might have a social media presence in order to try to raise funds for their cause, for example. With their being listed, it allows social media platforms to say, “No, we're not going to be selling T-shirts to promote your particular ideology.” As such, they start removing that particular presence.

It doesn't mean that you're eradicating their presence in terms of their ability to propagate. I think it was my colleague from the RCMP, Monsieur Duheme, who mentioned that inevitably what they will do is revert to going to the dark web, or they will revert to going to encrypted channels or hidden channels to be able to continue to spread their rhetoric, but with that tool of a Criminal Code listing, at least they're not going to be able to do it as overtly.

As I said, though, Criminal Code listing is but one tool. It does help with certain aspects, but it does then push us further downstream to have to try to cope with some of the challenges of the spreading of their rhetoric in other avenues.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have about 15 seconds.

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

Okay. I have a quick one.

How does Canada's approach, broadly speaking, match up to other like-minded countries? Are we a leader in this?

[Dominic Rochon]

Very quickly, I'd like to think that we're certainly at the table and we're shoulder to shoulder with our Five Eyes partners and others in terms of trying to address this issue. It's not an issue that Canada faces alone, by any stretch.

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Fisher.

Ms. Michaud, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Rochon and Mr. Duheme, for your previous responses.

I will continue in the same vein. You said that the RCMP can intervene when a situation is brought to their attention, not necessarily because a citizen files a complaint, but also following a call to report something to you. So I guess you can document the kind of entry that is violent in nature or ideologically motivated violent extremism.

I'm thinking of the infamous ideology of incels, involuntary celibates. You said that an accusation has been made in this regard. Beyond that accusation, in this time of rising femicide and a lot of talk about violence against women and how we can find solutions, the incel ideology is extremely disturbing.

How do you deal with it? Do you find the way cases are reported to you disturbing?

[D/Commr Michael Duheme]

What we've seen in the last year is that there is some focus on this. I don't want to blame it on COVID-19, but the fact that people are more closeted at home and more present on computers or social media is having an influence. We have actually seen an increase in threats or derogatory comments towards elected officials.

I'd like to give you some numbers on our observations. In 2019 and 2020, we reviewed 273 cases that met the IMVE criteria. Of those, 65 cases were related to racist, ethnonationalist, and extreme violent motives. Approximately one-fifth of these cases were anti-authority related, while the majority were related to government decisions. The individuals in these cases were anti-law and anti-police. After that, there are 29 cases, really related to...

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Unfortunately, we're going to have to leave the answer there. Those are very important statistics, and I rather hope that you're able to work them into other questions.

Mr. Harris, you have two and a half minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to go back to Mr. Hahlweg from CSIS.

You have your third tier. You've identified these groups as having the propensity for some violent activity. You indicate that this meets a threshold for, I presume, your powers to take disruptive action.

Can you tell us what kind of disruptive action CSIS might undertake in these circumstances? What tools do you have? What kinds of things do you do?

[Timothy Hahlweg]

Unfortunately, in this venue—and I really do appreciate the question—I can't get into operational methodologies or discuss what we do in that space. I can say, though, given the nature of the IMVE threat and the importance that we put on it as an organization, we've dedicated a number of resources, as I mentioned earlier. Our regional offices and overseas offices are connected with foreign partners to understand this threat a bit more.

We have a number of tools at our disposal. There are more, and we need to make sure that we have them in our tool box. Some of that is going to require looking at the CSIS Act to make sure sure that tools are fit for purpose so that we can properly identify and deal with all of these threats.

A big part of the issue, though, is deconflicting early and often with our law enforcement partners and making sure that our respective mandates are brought to bear in fulsome—

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

I'm sorry. You're chewing up time, but you're not telling us anything. Thank you very much for your attempt.

Are there many occasions when people are being recruited to, for example, the Azov battalion in Ukraine? We have identified 14 Canadians travelling to the Ukraine to train with extremists. Is that common?

[Timothy Hahlweg]

In the early days there was some travel to various countries under the IMVE rubric. Given the COVID-19 restrictions, we've seen a lot less of that travel, obviously, for a variety of reasons. We're very actively monitoring that type of activity.

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

This would be part of recruitment. Is that also active in these organizations?

[Timothy Hahlweg]

I would say it's a whole host of things. It's recruitment, getting together and networks. It's all of those things.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

Go ahead, Mr. Kurek, for five minutes, please.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Let me thank all of the witnesses for being here today.

I'm curious. One of you mentioned 273 investigations regarding IMVE, if I recall correctly, in your previous testimony. I'm wondering if you have similar numbers to that for politically and religiously motivated instances as well.