Public Safety Committee on Aug. 28th, 2024

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Lloyd.

I understand that you cannot comment on the case we are talking about right now because it is before the courts. However, I would like to understand the normal process.

As I said at the outset to the Minister of Public Safety, instead of pointing fingers at each other, we should be looking for a course of action that ensures that a situation as deplorable and dangerous as this one does not reoccur.

What checks do you do? I'm not asking you to comment on this particular case, but let's speak hypothetically. How can you explain the fact that we don't know for years that a serious crime has been committed by an individual abroad and that, in the meantime, he is granted refugee status and Canadian citizenship? It has happened, so it could happen again.

How can such major failures occur in Canada? What can be done to correct them?

[Vanessa Lloyd]

I'll perhaps repeat my earlier testimony.

In terms of the service's important role in security screening in this case and in any case referred by our partners that comes before us, we do our work based on the information available at the time. As mentioned in the chronology and in earlier testimony today, the information that there was a potential threat posed in this case surfaced to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service in June of this year.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Lloyd.

That said, how is it that you didn't know about it until June?

[Vanessa Lloyd]

Unfortunately, I will not comment on the specifics of this case in order to protect the integrity of our operations.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

I understand. I apologize for rushing you, but I only have a few seconds left.

I just want to understand. Never mind this case. Perhaps you'll tell me that it is an exceptional situation, it has never happened before and it will never happen again. I would still like to know how, in general, it can take years for CSIS to be made aware of a situation like this.

[Vanessa Lloyd]

Mr. Chair, what I can tell the committee is that there is an increasingly complex and intensifying global threat environment, and this does include instances where individuals are mobilizing to violent extremist activities. This is a priority for our organization, as is the safety and security of all Canadians in this case and in any other case that comes before us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Fortin.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

We go now to Mr. MacGregor.

Go ahead, please. You have six minutes.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I think I'll send my first question to Interim Director Lloyd of the service.

Again, on this video, I'm not going to get into the specifics because I understand the limitations you have in answering in a public forum.

My question is more on the process, and it's going to be related also to the recent changes that Parliament enacted through Bill C-70 and to the complete overhaul that we did with the dataset regime that is under the CSIS Act.

I have a couple of questions for you, Interim Director Lloyd.

Many Canadians are not very familiar with the dark web and the millions of images and videos that are present there. Could you tell the committee about the magnitude of what it's like and about the challenge of sifting through those images and videos in terms of finding that important data that you can then share with relevant agencies to determine whether there are any security threats that have a potential of entering Canada?

Also, what about recent changes in Bill C-70, notably the computational analysis of datasets? We essentially took an analog law and brought it up to speed in a digital era. What do those changes allow the service to do now in sifting through those images and videos in order to make these kinds of important determinations?

I think, on behalf of Canadians, this committee is serving a very important role. While we may not be able to ask you about the specifics of this case, I think Canadians also deserve to know about the kinds of tools the service is employing, about the strategies going forward and about the lessons you've learned from this so that these kinds of instances are not going to happen in the future.

[Vanessa Lloyd]

Mr. Chair, I will start by responding to the honourable member's comments with regard to what I can and cannot say at committee. Unfortunately, I'm unable to answer in detailed specifics about the capabilities, methodologies and tradecraft that we employ in this or in any other case. To do so would jeopardize the integrity of our operations and our ability to conduct our operations securely.

I do thank the honourable member for referencing the changes to legislation that we received through Parliament under Bill C-70, which is an act countering foreign interference. The honourable member is quite right. There were changes to the permissions to and authorities to the service under the act, both with respect to our dataset regime and also with regard to information sharing.

Perhaps I would suggest that it is the latter piece of the change that may be most helpful in this instance, because the permissions that are given there are for the organization to share, beyond the federal government, classified information in order to increase resiliency against threats. As such, the information sharing provisions that we will move forward on under those changes will allow us, in fact, to inform Canadians more about the threats that exist and to be able to equip them to be resilient with regard to those threats.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you for that.

For my next question I'll turn to the deputy minister from Citizenship and Immigration.

We've had some reference not only in the chronology that was given to this committee 50 minutes before we started, but also in some of the conversations through questions about risk indicators and so on. The notes in the documents that we received do state that specific risk indicators cannot be disclosed in order to protect the integrity of the immigration screening program, so that is well understood. Could you give the committee and Canadians who are listening to this some examples of, broadly speaking, what these risk indicators can include?

[Dr. Harpreet S. Kochhar]

Mr. Chair, the risk indicators that we deploy at the initial screening and through the immigration process are very much developed in combination with IRCC, with the CBSA and with CSIS. There are risk indicators that will point to whether there are flags that are because of potential fraud and whether there any other aspects that we should be careful about in terms of our security partners.

Ted may be able to give you a little more in terms of the magnitude of those risk indicators in general and not specific to this case.

[Ted Gallivan]

We ask for 10-year residency, 10-year employment history and 10-year travel history. We compare that against the passport. We also use a variety of open sources of information to test whether people lied or misrepresented themselves. Through the intelligence function, we have certain countries and certain time periods that make us worried about associations, so there is an in-depth review of friends, family members and associates—a bit of a spider web of who the individual works with or spends time with.

Those are some of the tests that are applied to every single case. Then, as I mentioned, the intelligence services feed in a certain roster of individuals and aliases we should be worried about, and that screen is also applied.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you.

I'll leave it at that, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. MacGregor.

That wraps up round one. We're running short on time, so I'm going to propose to the committee that we do a lightning round of three minutes per party. Many of these organizations will be returning in the next meeting, although we will have a slight change in personnel.

Mr. Caputo has a point of order.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I know that we are running short on time. This is our first opportunity, though, to ask questions. I would respectfully ask that we canvass the officials as to their availability to stay, rather than immediately going to a lightning round.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Do we want to do that? Do we have agreement?

Go ahead, Mr. Gerretsen.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

I thought you just said a moment ago that the majority of them were staying.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

The organizations, all of them, will be present in the next meeting. The individuals may not be. Ms. Lloyd will be here, I believe, but I'm not sure who else.

Go ahead, Ms. Damoff.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Chair, if they're all coming back and they've been here for two hours to answer questions, in fairness to them, to give them half an hour—or once you do the round, probably slightly less—to go to the washroom and perhaps get a bite to eat is only fair. It's not like this is our only opportunity to ask questions of these agencies.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Brock, go ahead.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

I understand and appreciate the intervention of Ms. Damoff, but there is one witness in particular—I am the next Conservative to ask questions—from the RCMP who is only here for the first panel. He has other business to attend to, and I want to focus a lot of my questions on him. I'm mindful of three minutes. I could probably get it completed in three minutes, although I would prefer five.

I just want to put on the record that not everyone currently here will be returning for the second panel. I'm also mindful of the fact that you gave us an almost 15-minute recess to allow the minister to leave and to allow us to refresh ourselves and take a comfort break.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Brock.

We'll go ahead, then, with three minutes.

We'll start with Mr. Brock.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Thank you for everyone's attendance. My questions in the three minutes will be directed to you, Deputy Commissioner.

I know that we don't want to talk a lot about the video. I appreciate from a legal perspective why we are perhaps approaching dangerous territory, but I'm not getting into the evidence per se or the ability of the Crown to prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt. I'm taking a look at the video at face value.

There is an unknown quotient here—whether the victim was alive or already dead before this particular accused chose to cut off his hands and feet. If he were alive, it would open up the possibility of attempted murder charges. If the actions of the accused caused the death of the victim, with him in essence bleeding out, we'd be looking at murder charges under the Criminal Code. If the person were already dead and then the dismemberment took place, we'd be looking at a section 182 offence regarding an indignity committed against a dead body.

Are these potentially some of the issues? I'm not asking for a positive confirmation, but rather an acknowledgement that what I just described to you could potentially be live issues in regard to a police investigation.