Evidence of meeting #29 for Public Safety and National Security in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was imve.
A video is available from Parliament.
6:10 p.m.
Liberal
6:10 p.m.
Conservative
Tako Van Popta Conservative Langley—Aldergrove, BC
Thank you very much.
I'm going to follow up on the line of questioning from Madame Michaud a couple of minutes ago about legislative frameworks for combatting online extremist violence. It's not a question so much about legislation, but probably more of a technical question, and I'm not a technician myself at all.
Mr. Wilczynski, do we have the technological tools to be able to identify and prevent or disrupt online communities that are fostering violence of any sort?
6:15 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Chief SIGINT, Special Advisor, People, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, Communications Security Establishment
Thank you for the question.
Again, I will just go back to CSE's core mandate, and SIGINT in particular, which is the collection of foreign intelligence. The types of activities that you mention in terms of our collection authorities are not necessarily consistent with the legislation we have.
In terms of the recent legislation, the passage of Bill C-59 and the CSE Act, we do have an active cyber-operations mandate. However, thresholds and proportionality are all very important considerations that we need to bear in mind. We are very cognizant of the importance of freedom of expression. There's a fairly high threshold that we have to look at. From CSE's point of view, we would be very cautious in that space.
6:15 p.m.
Conservative
Tako Van Popta Conservative Langley—Aldergrove, BC
Thank you very much.
Do you get into recognizance warrants at all? Is that under your jurisdiction?
Should I be asking that question of the RCMP?
6:15 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Chief SIGINT, Special Advisor, People, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, Communications Security Establishment
[Technical difficulty—Editor]
6:15 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Chief SIGINT, Special Advisor, People, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, Communications Security Establishment
I was simply passing the question on. That is not in our mandate.
6:15 p.m.
Conservative
Tako Van Popta Conservative Langley—Aldergrove, BC
Maybe we'll go to Mr. Duheme from the RCMP.
Recognizance warrants are an extraordinary tool. How important of a tool are they for your tool box for preventing violence in Canada?
6:15 p.m.
C/Supt Mark Flynn
Thank you. I'll take that question.
I'm going to assume that when you say recognizance warrant, you are probably referring to the terrorism peace bond or similar....
6:15 p.m.
C/Supt Mark Flynn
It's a very important tool for us. We use it early on when an individual is identified as a risk and revealing the potential to be involved in a terrorist activity through association with other terrorists or online posts related to that material. It's a highly valued tool that allows us to to intervene early, ensure there's awareness and apply the appropriate levels of restrictions, through the courts, on the individual and their association with others or with certain activities.
It's a highly valuable tool utilized by our organization and other police in Canada.
6:15 p.m.
Conservative
Tako Van Popta Conservative Langley—Aldergrove, BC
Thank you.
Is that used internationally at all in co-operation with other public safety services around the world?
6:15 p.m.
C/Supt Mark Flynn
In the RCMP's investigations, we collaborate with our partners globally, as terrorism is not restricted to Canada's domestic geographical footprint. As long as we have jurisdiction or there's a connection with an international body, we will collaborate frequently. Sometimes you will see an individual being subjected to terrorism-like peace bonds—or other measures, depending on the country—in multiple countries at the same time.
6:15 p.m.
Conservative
Tako Van Popta Conservative Langley—Aldergrove, BC
Thank you. I have just a quick question for CSIS.
CSIS has identified Daesh and al Qaeda as being particularly organized on the Internet to raise funds, to recruit and to organize. Is there the same degree of sophistication and threat from IMVE organizations or individuals?
6:15 p.m.
Assistant Director, Requirements, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
Thank you for the question.
I would say that the traditional organizations had a lot longer to get organized. Therefore, they are able to do that a lot more frequently and in a sustained fashion. Given the fluidity that I described of the IMVE threat and the not so much connective tissue with the various individuals there, I would say the RMVE methodology is probably still very tried and true.
6:15 p.m.
Liberal
6:15 p.m.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
Thank you, Chair.
I would like to thank all of our witnesses for being here with us to answer our questions today.
Before I forget and if you don't mind, could you submit to the committee after this meeting the breakdown of the 273 ideologically motivated violent extremists events that took place in Canada?
My question is for CSIS. It's kind of along the lines of something you already mentioned. You mentioned the involuntary celibates group, which is a group that I've researched in the past. You said that they are not really a violent group, but that they are more online. However, that's not true. Alek Minassian drove into a crowd of pedestrians in Toronto killing 10 people in 2018 and posted on Facebook that the incel rebellion had begun.
What more does it take for a group to be considered violent?
6:20 p.m.
Assistant Director, Requirements, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
I apologize if I misspoke on that, but that's not what I said. I think what I said was that not all people in that group are violent. There certainly absolutely are, and he represents one of those individuals, for sure, so I totally agree. Once they mobilize to that level of violence, absolutely that is meeting our threshold from a CSIS perspective.
6:20 p.m.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
Is this group considered a terrorist group in Canada?
6:20 p.m.
Assistant Director, Requirements, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
Incel is not.
Dom, I'll have to defer to you, but they are not a listed terrorist entity, if memory serves me.
6:20 p.m.
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, National Security and Cyber Security Branch, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Indeed not. We're getting involved in terminology here. It's like saying, is IMVE a terrorist group? Incel is an ideology that involves a whole bunch of different people, and there are groups that could fall under the category. If they were to meet the threshold in the Criminal Code, then they would become a listed entity.
Hopefully, that was clear.
6:20 p.m.
Liberal
Emmanuella Lambropoulos Liberal Saint-Laurent, QC
Thank you very much.
In your testimony earlier you mentioned several of the different incidents that have taken place—including Christchurch, the Quebec City mosque, Pittsburgh—that were attacks against specific religious groups. We talked about addressing online harms and implementing “red flag” laws as measures to ensure that people who pose a risk to others do not have access to firearms.
What additional measures can we take in order to detect and prevent such attacks in the future?
6:20 p.m.
Assistant Director, Requirements, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
I'm not sure who is up.
6:20 p.m.
Deputy Commissioner, Federal Policing, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
I'm not quite sure who it's directed to. I think it begins with public vigilance and reporting. It's very important that when people see something that they report it. There are patterns that can be detected early on, with different posts, that could lead the service to disruption or the RCMP to investigate and lay charges before something happens. For the police or the service, it's impossible to monitor everything that's going on on the Internet, but it starts with public vigilance and reporting when you see it.
6:20 p.m.
Assistant Director, Requirements, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
I would very much agree with that and add that, from our perspective, getting out into the communities and educating people as to what that looks like and what people should be advising the police is extremely important. This committee and the work you're doing is also very beneficial in getting the word out and showing people that the government is taking this issue seriously.
