Public Safety Committee on May 12th, 2022

[Marie-Hélène Chayer]

If I may, sir, we do our assessment based on collected intelligence by other organizations. When we provide our assessment—

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

Have you received any intelligence about the 30 church burnings?

[Marie-Hélène Chayer]

Sir, I really think I am not the best person to answer that question.

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

I just find it interesting, because you do have extensive stuff in your public report about ideologically motivated extremism, religiously motivated extremism and politically motivated extremism, and yet 30 churches being burned down in Canada last year didn't merit a mention.

I also note what it says on page 30 of your report:

CSIS continues to engage with community leaders, members, and advocacy groups to offer support and solidarity and to reinforce the Government of Canada’s position that there is no place in Canada for racial prejudice, discrimination and hate.

Can you tell us if CSIS has ever reached out to show support and solidarity with the communities of the 30 churches that were burned down in Canada in 2021?

[Marie-Hélène Chayer]

I would defer to my CSIS colleague.

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

Go ahead.

[Cherie Henderson]

Thank you for the question.

What I will say is that the service is always extremely concerned with any violent form of extremist activity. In this case, it had already gone into the criminal realm, so the RCMP may have further comments.

What we are always doing is trying to get out ahead to see if we can determine where the threat is coming from in advance of those horrendous sorts of activities. Absolutely the burning of churches—

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

Of course, but your report does talk about a lot of things that happened in the past, so clearly you're not just talking about the future. You have talked about terrorist attacks happening since 2014, ideologically motivated violent extremism, and yet in 2021 there's not a single mention in your public report about 30 churches being burned down in this country.

[Cherie Henderson]

Well, what we are trying to do is make sure that we understand the underlying threat so that we can try to prevent that sort of activity happening into the future. We definitely are always very concerned about any serious acts of violence that can impact the national security of our country, so—

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

Can you tell me, yes or no, has CSIS reached out to show support and solidarity with the 30 church communities that had their churches burned down last year?

[Cherie Henderson]

I can't speak to certain investigations that may be ongoing, but we are definitely concerned with any acts of violence that impact national security and could threaten Canadians.

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

Do you know if you've reached out to show support and solidarity?

[Cherie Henderson]

I can't speak to what may be happening in the operational space in an unclassified environment.

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

Okay.

It would have been nice to have a statement of concern, at least, from CSIS for these communities, considering the fact that at 4 a.m., in my town of Morinville, over 50 people had to be evacuated from their homes because a church was burned down. There was a massive threat that a seniors home and apartments were going to be burned to the ground. It was only due to the heroism of 50 local volunteer firefighters that this blaze was brought under control.

This could have been potentially one of the highest mass casualty terrorist events on Canadian soil in our modern history, yet it doesn't seem to have merited a single mention by our security services. I want to put that on the record.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you, Mr. Lloyd.

I now turn to Mr. Chiang, for six minutes/

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning. Thank you to the witnesses for being with us today.

My question is directed to the RCMP. What type of communication does the RCMP have with the integrated terrorism assessment centre and other threat assessment agencies to ensure that threats of terrorism can be adequately addressed by law enforcement agencies in Canada?

[D/Commr Michael Duheme]

We work very closely with Madame Chayer's team. We actually have a couple of people embedded in ITAC to assist, to provide the law enforcement perspective, and to better illustrate the overall threat when Madame Chayer and her team are developing the threat assessment products.

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

What measures can be taken to enable law enforcement agencies to act more proactively to prevent instances of violent extremism before they arise?

[D/Commr Michael Duheme]

I'm a firm believer that it starts with prevention. We need a strong prevention outreach program, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, to get to the folks before they actually get into that world of violent extremists.

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Have you been having any success with that? Do our laws need to be updated to ensure that law enforcement has the proper tools to ensure safety of all Canadians?

[D/Commr Michael Duheme]

It's sometimes difficult to measure success when you're looking at outreach. The thing I would say with regard to our laws is that, as you have probably heard at committee, social media is a big platform of concern for us when these messages are spread and the senders garner additional membership for their causes. If there's legislation to be looked at around social media platforms, that's something we should be looking at.

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you so much, deputy commissioner.

Ms. Soper, as a director general of national security policy, what do you believe are the areas we could improve in Canada to enhance our national security capability?

[Lesley Soper]

I would begin with the significant effort we're placing on the prevention end of the spectrum, including work within our own Canada centre. I might ask that our expert, Robert Burley, speak to the amount of work that's going on in the IMVE space.

Between terrorism listings, the items that Mike Duheme already referenced, the no-fly list, and the SATA list, there are a number of tools we can lever to begin to minimize the threat to Canadians, and also to work concertedly on the prevention end of the spectrum.

There is more to be done. There's a significant amount of strategic thinking occurring across all of our national security organizations to understand whether or not the framework that we have in place is adequate. We're keenly interested in some of the recommendations that are likely to come out of this committee to understand where we might place our resources and better impact outcomes in this space.

[Paul Chiang, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you.

Speaking of resources, do you think the threats we are receiving in Canada are local threats? Or do you think there are foreign actors involved in IMVE threats against us?

[Lesley Soper]

My colleagues at both ITAC and within the RCMP and from CSIS would be better able to paint a picture of the types of actors we're speaking of, but I think what is most important to understand about IMVE is that it is a homegrown phenomenon. It's not a phenomenon unique to Canada by any stretch; it is transnational in nature. Many of these organizations have cross-border and transborder relationships, but these are not threats being perpetuated from abroad. These are threats that are being fostered within our own society.