Public Safety Committee on May 12th, 2022

[Richard Fadden]

No, I think that ostracizing anybody is not helpful. That can range from my ostracizing my son if I'm really disagreeing with him.... You need to find a way to dialogue.

If I can just raise a point I made in my opening remarks, I think it's important to figure out who is best equipped to do the dialoguing. On the basis of my experience, I don't think that the police and CSIS are particularly well-equipped to do it. They have entirely different mandates, which are to try to prevent and to deal with actual crimes. It would be like, “Hi, I'm from the RCMP. I'm wearing a gun and I can arrest you. I'd like to dialogue on your views.” It's not to be disrespectful of the RCMP. It's just not what they are paid to do, I would argue. Should they be involved in this in some way? I think so, but it's a role for civil society generally.

As I was arguing, national security isn't national anymore. It's both international and subnational. This is not a partisan comment; I would apply it to both of the major parties. I would argue that it's not a federal issue exclusively. I think until we get our head around that fact, we're going to continue to have difficulties. We have to involve the provinces and municipalities. We do also involve the international environment far more than we used to.

Unless we do that and take advantage of opportunities to deal with civil society, and even in school boards, to start talking about these things early, we will end up having to use control and punitive measures to deal with violence.

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

Thank you.

Yes, and I'll just go back to the Prime Minister's remarks that those who didn't agree with him had fringe, unacceptable views and were misogynists. He is frankly the most powerful man in the country and he should be leading by example. Regardless of how you feel about it, it certainly sets the tone about how other authorities who report to him can act and what they can say.

I'll just throw the last few seconds back to you. Can you further elaborate? When you get that kind of power and speak in that way and double down, for example, what impact does that have on those being driven to extremism?

[Richard Fadden]

I think it has a negative impact, but to prove that I'm non-partisan and have had that beaten out of me after 40 years of public service, I would say that certain members of Parliament who actively supported acts of unlawfulness were not any more helpful.

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

I appreciate that.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

Now I will turn to Mr. McKinnon for his five minutes of questioning.

Sir, the floor is yours.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Again, Mr. Fadden, I found your remarks that we need to focus on the root causes of ideologically motived extremism interesting. I believe you said that this was not a role for CSIS. Is that correct?

[Richard Fadden]

I think they have a role. I do not think they have the lead role.

I think CSIS's job fundamentally is to collect information. That's the the basis of the statute that created CSIS. Their job is to find information, analyze it and pass it on to government, generally to try to prevent problems. That does not preclude their trying to think about dealing with the root causes, but I don't think....

I can remember that when I was director of CSIS we had complaints when CSIS officers knocked on the doors of people, just asking them for information. They said they were being harassed. This was largely because of people who came to Canada from abroad, but you have to remember: the mindset that a lot of people have about CSIS and the RCMP is not entirely positive. It's not their fault. It's their job. I think they have a role, but I don't think they should have the lead.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

You mentioned that there should be a federal framework to address IMVE. Can you imagine what that framework would look like and what kinds of powers or roles it might have?

[Richard Fadden]

First of all, I think it should be a national framework, not a federal one. I think it's one that should be developed with provinces and others. It should, I think, try to identify the harm or the evil that we're trying to suppress. I was listening earlier on when your other witness was before you, and I think there was some difficulty in answering your questions about what exactly becomes a national security issue, what's an old-fashioned crime and what's in the middle.

I think we need more of a dialogue about what exactly we're trying to suppress, and I think that's something the federal government could lead on, because it creates the criminal law, but on the other hand, the provinces implement it through the police. I think it should involve probably roles for civil society, for universities and for organizations and possibly provide some funding.

I mean, that's a very general answer, and I don't mean to be unhelpful, but it just seems to me that limiting ourselves—by “ourselves”, I mean the federal government—to suppressing IMVE and trying to find out about it before we need to repress it is not enough. We need to think about it more holistically and more broadly, both conceptually and with other parties.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Do you see this framework as being not enforcement oriented? It's more about communication. It's more outreach oriented. Is that your view?

[Richard Fadden]

Yes, I would put it on a spectrum. At one end, there's sending somebody to a federal penitentiary. At the other end, it's somebody—I don't know who, but maybe a municipal councillor—talking to somebody who's really unhappy about the vaccine mandate that was mentioned earlier, and there's everything in the middle.

I think part of the challenge, and I admit that it's a challenge, is dealing with every point on the spectrum. I would argue that we made the same mistake—and I include myself in this—when we were dealing with terrorism. We concentrated too much on this end and not enough on the other end and what's in the middle.

I would argue that we have to deal with every point on the spectrum and try to.... We have to accept that violence is unacceptable, period. There is enforcement, there's prosecution and there are arrests, but the idea is to push it to this end of the spectrum to reduce the likelihood that the police will have something to do.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Is the framework a kind of adjunct to our police services and our intelligence services, something that gives them intelligence or something that kind of steps into the community and does, I don't know, various actions...?

[Richard Fadden]

I think it's the latter, because if it becomes known in an instant that this effort is going to feed the intelligence community, nobody's going to talk to them. I think that's just old-fashioned horse sense, if I can put it that way. I think it's mostly people understanding that there's a possibility of a problem.

For the various incendiary people who were in the convoy in Ottawa and who participated across the country, it would be interesting to know if there's any mechanism today that would allow follow-up to talk to them, other than the police going to see if they can arrest them. Now, if they committed a crime, they should be arrested, but most of them didn't commit any particularly serious crime.

But if we don't talk to these people—and I mean other than CSIS or the RCMP—they're going to continue to be annoyed and we're going to have a problem over time. At least, that's my submission.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

In our last panel, CSIS mentioned that the CSIS Act was created in 1984. It needs substantial upgrades regarding IMVE. I'm not sure that would conflict with your perspective, or whether there is still room for those kinds of tools in keeping with your perspective.

If so, what might those tools be in your view?

[Richard Fadden]

I was a bit of an unpopular person to some degree when I was still working, when people asked about whether or not we needed additional legislation on a whole raft of issues.

We may well do in specific instances—I don't mean to close the door—but I think the larger problem is cultural. It's cultural within these organizations, because people feel constrained, either by history or baggage of one sort or another, nd not fully utilizing the powers they have. There's also constraint because of all of you. Every time somebody asks for a power—

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Answer in 10 seconds, please.

[Richard Fadden]

—we in Canada pile on accountability, control, and review, all to the good. However, I would argue that Parliament didn't create the national security agencies to provide opportunities for review; they created them to promote national security.

I sometimes wonder if we don't get the balance in this country. I'm not directing this at any particular government, to be clear. I'm not sure we always get that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Michaud, the floor goes to you for a six-minute block of questions, whenever you're ready.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for being here.

Mr. Fadden, thank you for your participation. Your remarks are very interesting, and I will continue in the same vein as my colleague, Mr. McKinnon.

You talked about a national framework and said that the solution does not lie entirely within CSIS or the RCMP, and that members of civil society would have to contribute more to the solution, as well as universities and municipalities.

Could you please clarify what role those members of society could play? What role could they be given in fighting IMVE, in your opinion?

[Richard Fadden]

One of the challenges we have in Canada in dealing with IMVE, terrorism or things of this nature is that, aside from you and a few of your colleagues, unless there's a crisis, we do not talk about it. We just don't. To be blunt, there are no votes for you from talking about national security unless there's a crisis. There is a whole raft of other problems to be talked about and to be dealt with.

The first thing that civil society could usefully do is talk openly about these things, so that we don't think everything has to take place under the colour of darkness. When that happens, people very quickly find themselves driven to the end of the spectrum that I was talking about. A lot of it is talking about it. A lot of it is having organization.

I hope I'm not going to get myself in trouble today, but I really think that political correctness has reached the point today where it's almost impossible to have a conversation about a whole raft of issues. If you're frustrated with government and society to begin with, this is not helpful. Simply organizing and, if necessary, funding dialogue and conversation that could eventually work their way up to you and your colleagues with suggestions for change is where I would start.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

That is very interesting. That might also be an approach to prevention. There are many vulnerable people who might get caught up in this kind of movement. If we reach out to them before they become directly involved and be proactive by engaging in dialogue about this, I think that could be very helpful to them.

In many cases nowadays, it all starts online. There is quite a rise in online violence and we are trying to create legislation to address that. As said, it will take more than new legislation, but I do think extra effort is needed in this regard. Our reality today is that many things happen in the virtual world and then have negative effects in the real world. We saw this in particular with the “freedom convoy”. Some things that were said online materialized in the real world.

In your opinion, how can we address this situation or enact legislation without unduly affecting freedom of expression? I think that is the big challenge. In your opinion, how can we find the right balance between these two?

[Richard Fadden]

I think you put it very well, and it was what I was trying to say in my opening remarks. If you choose to regulate in this area, you should do so as precisely as possible, articulating very clearly the harm that you're trying to prevent and do no more, and then talk openly about how you're doing it. This may be surprising for somebody who's worked in security for a good chunk of his career, but I would tend to do as little regulating of the Internet and social media as we can actually get away with, because it is a dangerous path to go down. Today, we're doing it for this narrow reason and the next day, we're doing it for something more broadly.

I do think, on the other hand, that we can monitor more carefully what is on social media and what's on the Internet generally. Possibly, we should find some way of not contradicting, but articulating opposing views to those that are set out and that promote violence and other things. That's a very difficult thing to ask of any government, but I wonder if it's worth thinking about and talking about. Maybe encourage universities to do it, I don't know.

I would go back to what you were saying, that we should be very careful if we're going to start legislating what is or is not acceptable. If another country did this in eastern Europe or in Asia, Canada would be the first country to condemn it, so we should be very careful not to go down this path unless it is absolutely clear that there's a harm that has to be suppressed and there's no other way to do it.

I used to have a friend who was the deputy minister of justice, and he used to say he would block any legislative initiative unless he was absolutely convinced there wasn't a non-legislative way of doing it. I'm not sure we do that all the time now as much as we should.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you.

Your answer is interesting.

I remember when learned that Elon Musk was going to buy Twitter, a few days or weeks ago. We raised questions about this in committee, because we had some concerns. We wondered what would be accepted in the interest of freedom of expression and what would be regulated by the new head of a social network where a lot of things happen.

My colleagues can also testify to the fact that we receive a lot of negative comments on Twitter from anonymous accounts that people hide behind to send messages that are in many cases violent.

To your knowledge, do any countries other than Canada have legislation or regulations addressing this?

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Sorry, but we're going to have to wait until Mr. Fadden comes back to talk to us again to hear the answer to that very good question.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you. I will continue later.