Public Safety Committee on Aug. 28th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I call this meeting to order. Welcome to meeting number 117 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

I'm not going to read what I read just a few minutes ago, but use the black headsets and keep them away from the mics.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format. To ensure that the meeting runs smoothly, I'd like to make a few comments for the benefit of members.

Wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For members in the room, please raise your hand if you wish to speak. For members on Zoom, please use the “raise hand” function. The committee clerk and I will manage the speaking order as best we can. We appreciate your understanding in this regard. Also, as a reminder, all comments should be addressed through the chair.

On another item of business, when we have people speaking online, the sound in this room is not very good, apparently because of feedback issues. We are recommending that when someone online is speaking, they should use a headset. Then we should be able to hear them well.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted on August 13, the committee is meeting to review the foiled terrorist plot in Toronto and the security screening process for permanent residence and citizenship application.

I want to remind members that there is currently a section 517 publication ban in place. A section 517 publication ban prohibits the publication of any information, evidence or representations made at or in anticipation of a bail hearing. Any bail conditions, any reasons of the bail court and any evidence or materials relied upon at the bail hearing are prohibited from disclosure.

I asked the House of Commons legal counsel to give us some advice on this as well. I can't find the note, but apparently, documents that we receive during the meeting and exchange among ourselves during the meeting are covered by privilege.

Here it is. While this ban has no impact on proceedings based on the privilege of freedom of speech, members should, out of respect for the judiciary, exercise great caution and not refer to any of the facts relating to the bail hearing for the individuals involved in this case. Furthermore, parliamentary privilege does not provide protection for statements that are made outside of official parliamentary proceedings. Members should be mindful of this when making any comments publicly to the media or when using social media.

We also note the application of the sub judice convention, which suggests that members should refrain from discussing matters that are currently before the courts. Members should exercise caution and not refer unduly or unnecessarily to matters that are before the courts. I think we're all aware of this, but it never hurts to be more aware.

I'd now like to welcome the witnesses.

From the Canada Border Services Agency, we have Aaron McCrorie, vice-president of intelligence and enforcement. With the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, we have Vanessa Lloyd, interim director. From the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, we have Pemi Gill, assistant deputy minister, and Aiesha Zafar, assistant deputy minister of migration integrity. Finally, with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, we have Jennifer Gates-Flaherty, director general, Canadian criminal real time identification services.

We'll go straight away into questions. I propose a break halfway through so that we have a five-minute break. We will start a new round of questions after that.

We'll start a six-minute round with Ms. Lantsman.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Thanks for joining us.

I'm going to go back to what we were talking about when the minister was here. While we appreciate the work of the agencies and the speed at which they acted when they had the information—I can understand why people would say that's how the system works—what we haven't gotten to the bottom of here today is our concern about why you didn't have the information after this individual had been in this country for six years. From the chronology you provided this committee right before we started, he had six different incidents with security checks.

Mr. McCrorie or Ms. Lloyd, how can Canadians be sure that there are proper checks in the system so they can make sure that this didn't happen before, that there aren't terrorists in our midst and that this won't happen again? You can appreciate that Canadians want the answer to that question.

[Aaron McCrorie, Vice-President, Intelligence and Enforcement, Canada Border Services Agency]

Mr. Chair, I can start, and then Vanessa may want to join in.

What I'd like to describe is that, in fact, I think we have a very robust system in place when it comes to security screening. You heard a little about it in the previous session. It starts with the assessment that is done by our colleagues in the IRCC, and then based on risk indicators, comprehensive files are referred to the CBSA and to CSIS to do comprehensive security screening. We can describe in more detail what is entailed in that, but I'd say, from a CBSA point of view, it's about understanding the person who's in front of us, reviewing the information we have, understanding their travel history, their work history and where they're coming from, and then doing in-depth analysis in terms of both open source research and running names and information, aliases, against a range of our intelligence and enforcement databases.

If necessary, then we also dig further into getting information from domestic as well as international partners. We then provide a recommendation to IRCC in terms of....

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

That has all been covered. I just want you to appreciate that this individual, who is allegedly on an ISIS video from 2015 that was publicly available, was in this country for six years before the RCMP thwarted a terrorist plot that would have killed people in the GTA, somewhere in Toronto, presumably, after six security checks. You can appreciate why Canadians are concerned, can't you?

[Aaron McCrorie]

Again, our outcome, the goal that we're focused on, is to ensure the protection of Canada and of Canadians. When we make our decisions and when we do our analysis, it's based on the information we have available at any given moment in time.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

You think this is the most robust process that could have happened in this case. Are you telling Canadians that?

[Aaron McCrorie]

I'm telling Canadians that we have a robust system in place, but as the minister indicated as well earlier, we are asking ourselves this: Do improvements need to be made? We are conducting a review—

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Wasn't there a failure in this?

[Aaron McCrorie]

I would go back to the point that we made the best decisions we could at those moments in time with the information that was available.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Canadians watching this see, again, six security checks, six years, of this individual, who is publicly on an ISIS videotape and who is now behind bars or being held on very serious terrorism charges.

Do you really believe that the system worked as it should? The minister dismissed anything that was wrong with the system today in his testimony. Do you really think that's how the system should work here? Are you really telling Canadians who are watching at home that the system is robust and that everything worked as it should in this case?

[Aaron McCrorie]

What I'm trying to tell Canadians is that we're asking ourselves if there can be improvements made to the system. We're taking a very hard look at that. We're doing that in collaboration with our partners in CSIS and in IRCC. We're going to do a representative sample of cases that have had positive assessments in the past and are going to ask ourselves if we have missed anything, if there are any systemic issues or any gaps in our processes—

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Have you missed anything? There have been six incidents of security checks here. Of course you've missed something. These guys were just arrested. A father-son duo was just arrested in a hotel room 10 minutes from the riding that I represent and within 40 minutes of the ridings that committee members here represent. Of course you've missed something.

Have there been any consequences for anybody who has been involved in any of these checks?

[Aaron McCrorie]

There's nothing to indicate at this moment in time that we had information available to us when we made those decisions that would—

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Is that a problem?

[Aaron McCrorie]

I'm saying that we're asking ourselves if we need to review some of our processes and systems.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

I appreciate that you're asking yourself these questions, but don't you think it's a problem that you didn't know that this guy was awarded a visa here six years ago, after being in an ISIS video from 2015 that is publicly available and that he was arrested with his son days before committing a terrorist attack?

[Aaron McCrorie]

I'm apologizing, but I just have to repeat that, in fact, we made the best decisions that we could at that moment in time based on the information we had. I think we have robust systems in place, but we are asking ourselves, can we do more? We're looking backwards to see if, in fact, we need to do more.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

I don't think there is a single Canadian watching today who would agree that you have robust systems in place if this is what happened. I don't think there is a single Canadian watching today and saying, “Do you know what? The system worked exactly as it should.”

What happened? Where were the failures? Why did this government fail?

[Aaron McCrorie]

I'm not sure there were any failures. Again, we are going to do a respective review to see if we missed anything. If there is, we will make corrections. We have 183 staff at CBSA who every day are conducting security screening. We get about 206,000 per year coming our way, and we issued about, I want to say, 130 decisions last year.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Mr. McCrorie, there's a guy who slipped through the cracks. Can you assure Canadians that there haven't been any more, that there aren't terrorists in our midst and that this won't happen in the future?

I appreciate that you think this is a robust system that worked exactly as it should, but I think people watching this would disagree with you.

[Aaron McCrorie]

I would assure Canadians that we have multiple lines of defence in place. If we don't capture them at the stage of security screening, we also look at people coming to the country. As you heard from earlier testimony, about 7,500 people were “no boarded” prior to even departing for Canada. About 37,000 people were turned away from Canada upon entry.

Then we have an additional line of defence in terms of our inland investigations. Last year we launched 8,000 inland investigations based on concerns about inadmissibility. When we find inadmissibility, we take those cases to the Immigration and Refugee Board, who's the decision-maker. Last year we removed 15,000 people, of whom about 700 to 800 were cases of serious inadmissibility.

There are multiple lines of defence in place. We don't rely on a single point of failure. We have multiple lines of defence. We're asking ourselves, do improvements need to be made? I think that's a powerful message for Canadians. We do want to know if improvements can be made. If there can be, we will make improvements.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. Lantsman.

We go now to Mr. Gaheer.

Mr. Gaheer, go ahead for six minutes, please.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to touch on the line of questioning by Ms. Lantsman. We in Canada obviously have tens and hundreds of thousands of people who seek to get a visitor visa to come to Canada. There are security screening processes to make sure that the wrong individuals don't get access to Canada. Obviously, in this case, someone did arrive in Canada and then filed an asylum claim.

Is it theoretically even possible to search every single video or to conduct a global facial recognition search on every video for the individuals who are applying for visitor visas to Canada? Do we even have the resources to scour the dark web for every single individual who applies for a visitor visa to Canada? Is that even possible, theoretically?

[Aiesha Zafar, Assistant Deputy Minister, Migration Integrity, Department of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Chair, I can start off by talking about how we initially screen temporary resident applicants, those coming in to visit Canada. Every application for an individual who wants to come to Canada as a visitor is screened by the IRCC with that initial security screening. We look at biometrics. Biometrics not only help us identify whether or not any criminality is known but also help us in terms of identity management. This is the first time we're seeing an individual, and we anchor that identity for the individual throughout the entire process.

Our officers are highly trained in different risk indicators. These risk indicators are created collaboratively with our partners at the CBSA and CSIS. Those risk indicators are clues for the officers when they're going through an application on where there might be some type of elevated risk or where there might be an opening to—

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Let me interrupt you. Once we've reached that elevated level of risk for that pool of people, is it possible to conduct a dark web search or a facial recognition search through all the content on the Internet in the world for those individuals? I don't think that's theoretically even possible.