Public Safety Committee on Oct. 29th, 2024

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll start with Commissioner Duheme.

Were any of the alleged killers of Mr. Nijjar known to the RCMP before the killings took place in that investigation?

[Commr Michael Duheme]

The Nijjar case is right now before the courts, so I'm not going to make any comments on the Nijjar file. Disclosure will happen in due course through the judicial process.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

It's been publicly reported that the four alleged killers, Amandeep Singh, Karan Brar, Karanpreet Singh and Kamalpreet Singh, were all temporary residents.

Is that the case?

[Commr Michael Duheme]

I would have to go back in my notes to confirm that these were all temporary residents. I couldn't answer that.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

It was reported in the news.

Can any of the other witnesses comment on that?

This has been publicly reported in the Toronto Sun.

Was nobody at our RCMP services aware of any criminal background of these characters before they were allowed to come to Canada?

[Commr Michael Duheme]

I'm not saying that nobody was aware. What I'm saying is the matter is before the courts, and I'm not going to comment on it.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

This has nothing to do with the current investigation, Commissioner. It concerns whether or not our country is prepared to protect our national security. That's what we're talking about today. If people with criminal backgrounds are coming to our country and are being allowed to come to our country through the temporary resident program and, possibly, through the international student program, that's a serious breach of our national security. That's our immigration system after nine years of this Liberal government.

In the case of Amandeep Singh, who has been accused of killing Mr. Nijjar, were you aware that Amandeep Singh was on bail when the killing of Mr. Nijjar took place?

[Commr Michael Duheme]

Again, I'd have to go through my notes from the briefing, because it happened quite some time ago and a lot of things have happened since then.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

I guess I will enlighten the committee.

As was reported in the Toronto Sun, there was a March 2023 warrant for fleeing police and the dangerous operation of a motor vehicle in Surrey, B.C., last November. He was pinched on firearms and drug charges in Brampton. He was out on bail at the time of the Peel Region incident. He agreed in Surrey that he wouldn't possess firearms or ammo or get behind the wheel of a car. He made his first court appearance on June 16, 2023. Two days later, and this is according to the Toronto Sun, Sikh Canadian activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar was killed.

Why are these dangerous criminals, who are here as temporary residents and possibly as international students—I don't know what educational institution they're attending—allowed to be out on bail?

If we're watching these people, we know they're a threat to national security. Why are they here? Why are they allowed to be out on bail? Why are they allowed to walk Canadian streets?

[Commr Michael Duheme]

The answer to that is, one, questions on the process of providing them visas or access to entry into Canada would be best posed to IRCC. If people are released on bail before the courts, that has nothing to do with the RCMP. It's a judicial process that we operate within.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

I just think that Canadians would be somewhat concerned. We have many of the lead figures from our national security establishment. There doesn't appear to be any sort of coordination between immigration Canada and our security services.

I'm not getting a lot of confidence today that our national security is being protected in this country under this government, when it appears that our immigration system has been compromised in this case and when it appears that our justice system is being compromised. These accused killers are being allowed to walk on the street and go after Canadian citizens—particularly Canadian citizens of Sikh background. That's deeply concerning to me.

I think that should be a major focus of what this investigation is: What processes did our country have that could have prevented this?

Yes, we can talk about briefing foreign media outlets in order to get this information out. We can talk about the fact that the Prime Minister had information on this, but if we're not fixing our systems, like our immigration system and our justice system, it's going to allow these very dangerous criminals to walk our streets.

Commissioner Duheme, how long have you been investigating Indian foreign interference on Canadian soil?

[Commr Michael Duheme]

I wouldn't be able to provide the committee with an exact date.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

It just seems to me that this has become an issue very recently. I suspect it has been a long-time issue, but it really seems to have come to a boil in the last few years.

Can you tell this committee why this has become an issue in the last few years? It seems to have become a big issue.

[Commr Michael Duheme]

The whole question goes back to when the former director of CSIS, David Vigneault, brought to the forefront the immediate risk to Canadians from ideologically motivated violent extremists. That was pretty new to us, because it wasn't on the radar.

I would say that foreign interference, although it was probably happening way before it came to the forefront as it has right now, is a phenomenon that we've learned over the years. It's present more now than what we've seen before because there's probably more intelligence and work being done.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

I want to clarify that I'm not saying this has never been an issue and only became an issue recently. This has obviously been a serious issue.

Thank you for that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

We seem to have bells. Let's find out what's going on with the bells.

While we're finding out, we'll go to Ms. Damoff for five minutes.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you.

I want to start by sincerely thanking all of you and the people who work with you for the work that you've done on this. It was a shock for me to see just how pervasive this issue was in Canada and how Canadian lives were being put at risk, so I sincerely thank all of you for the work that you've done.

Quickly, before I get to some of the questions I had, Ms. Drouin, you looked like you wanted to say something during the previous question.

I just wondered if you could respond, please.

[Nathalie Drouin]

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.

I just want to say that we take the immigration security screening very seriously. It's a process that involves IRCC, CBSA, CSIS and the RCMP. Yes, as in any other field, there's always room for improvement, but it is not something that we are not taking seriously.

I also need to say that we cannot take for granted that those individuals came to Canada with criminal backgrounds. Maybe it is sometimes the situation, but we cannot take for granted that it is always the situation.

Doing a good screening also involves having a very good partnership and relation with the country of origin, as we need to also rely on their information.

That is the information that I wanted to share. Thank you for giving me this opportunity.

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

That's okay.

Would you rely on a police record check from India in doing screening?

I would think that there may be security concerns with doing that.

[Nathalie Drouin]

We never 100% rely on that, for sure, but it is an important input. We need to also do our separate monitoring—

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

That's probably better directed at the IRCC.

Commissioner Duheme, I have a question for you.

You mentioned that the RCMP brought this issue to the government. I wonder if you could just quickly clear this up. There have been allegations that the Prime Minister directed you to go public on Thanksgiving Monday.

Was that the case?

[Commr Michael Duheme]

No, it wasn't the case. I've shared earlier that we never actually pinpointed October 14 as the date.

We knew that we wanted to come proactively, but when you look at the efforts that Madame Drouin and Mr. Morrison took in Singapore, the lack of engagement by Indian officials with our Deputy Commissioner Flynn, the leaks to the media and the fact that they didn't want to talk to us on Monday, October 14, we said that there was no sense in delaying this and we should go out right away to inform the Canadian public.

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

Our study is looking at misinformation and disinformation that's being put out by the Government of India. I'm not sure who is best placed to answer this. Maybe it's CSIS, but I'll let you decide.

Can you talk about the disinformation campaign that's going on now, and the impact it can have on Canadians because of the information that it's putting out.

[Tricia Geddes, Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Allow me to start.

Obviously, disinformation is a really important issue, and not just from a state like India. There are a number of states that we are concerned about regarding how disinformation and misinformation might be affecting Canadians.

Colleagues will be aware that we have established a counter foreign interference coordinator at Public Safety. In addition, some of my colleagues spoke earlier about engagement and outreach being a really core component of that. It's also understanding misinformation and disinformation and deliberating on how we can best provide information to Canadians that counteracts that disinformation and misinformation, identifies it, and calls it out when we see it happening. This is an area of significant effort on behalf of Public Safety right now.

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

Thank you.

Chair, I would like to read this notice of motion, and I don't want to do anything with it today. It states:

That the committee summon Liam Donovan and Lauren Southern to testify on their own for no less than two hours on their participation in Russian-backed interference and far-right disinformation campaigns intended to manipulate the Canadian public, and that they appear before Friday, November 29, 2024.

I'm just giving notice of that today.

I have only 30 seconds left. Ms. Drouin, would you be able to give us some examples of the type of disinformation that India is engaged in on this particular issue?