Public Safety Committee on May 28th, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

I'm sorry, but—

[Chak Au, Conservative, Richmond Centre—Marpole, BC]

Why not take it one step further than the MOU?

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

I'm sorry, but I have to cut you off because we're well over time. Thank you.

MP Ramsey, go ahead for five minutes, please.

[Jacques Ramsay, Liberal, La Prairie—Atateken, QC]

Mr. McCrorie, when we were interrupted, you were in the middle of answering my question.

What is the CBSA's plan for training the 1,000 officers you have to train? Does the agency have the funding to start the training in the next year? Does it have the schools and physical resources it needs?

I have a supplementary question. How will those 1,000 officers be allocated? How many will be assigned to port, land, rail and airport border crossings? How many will be assigned to defence?

[Aaron McCrorie]

Thank you for the question.

Yes, we're on track to hire our 1,000 officers by the end of fiscal year 2028-29. As of May 8, we had over 100 of the 1,000 new officers in place, and 200 will be in training at the college in Rigaud by July.

In terms of your question on infrastructure, management at our college in Rigaud has looked at both our attrition and the need to bring in new staff to meet that commitment for the 1,000. That is part of what they're doing. That is what their plan is, so we're well on track to do that.

In terms of allocation, about 800 of the officers will be uniformed officers allocated to points of entry—for example, land borders, marine ports and rail facilities. We're working through the exact disposition as staff come on. As I mentioned earlier, we'll be doing that on a threat or risk basis. It's where they're most needed. I'd describe the roughly 200 others as operational staff. They'll be brought on as well. We've started to assign them. For example, in my particular organization, I'll have some staff assigned to doing security screening. In the broader program that I'm responsible for, we'll have criminal investigators and people doing inland investigations.

Those staff are coming on board, and we're on track to meet our commitments.

[Jacques Ramsay, Liberal, La Prairie—Atateken, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Pyke, I want to talk about intercepting the contraband that comes into prisons. You hear a lot about that when you visit a facility. I gather it requires a lot of effort and resources, and it's expensive.

What is Correctional Service Canada's plan? Do you have a strategy for each institution or an overall strategy? I'd like you to speak to that.

[Jay Pyke]

Thank you very much.

Yes, we have an overall strategy. Every site has drone-detection systems right now. The issue is this: It's one thing to detect a drone and another thing to interdict it, in the sense of being able to stop the payload from coming in. We have now introduced new technology for drone mitigation. We intercept the signal. We just finished our first pilot site in Ontario. The next site is in Quebec. We're moving forward with the ability to prevent drones from entering our airspace, which will stop the payloads, the drops and the like.

There's another piece to this too. It's technology, so we have to constantly be updating. Typically, you might have had radio-frequency drones, as an example. Now we're seeing more GPS waypoint and cellular drones. We're always evolving the technology.

I am very happy to report that, after the spring economic update, we received $60.4 million, all of which will go towards drone mitigation and cellular mitigation for this very purpose. It's the number one thing we're seized with in terms of contraband entering our institutions across the country. We're also receiving just over $2 million, ongoing, to support those systems in place.

The goal is to be able, within three years, to detect drones, have drone mitigation and prevent drones from entering our airspace, and to mitigate cell signals at all of our establishments.

[Jacques Ramsay, Liberal, La Prairie—Atateken, QC]

Do you plan to use physical elements as part of that strategy, such as moving windows further away or even making them harder to access?

[Jay Pyke]

Absolutely. That's part of the layered approach that we're using. There are different layers. It's one thing to mitigate the interdiction of contraband through technology. There's also old school: physical presence, dynamic security and physical measures. Sometimes we use netting. We reinforce windows. We reinforce areas so that they can't break through because, believe it or not, some of the drones will actually fly to a specific window. It's to be able to reinforce areas so that they can't get into those for certain.

In terms of general infrastructure upgrades, yes, we're in dire need of infrastructure upgrades. Within the Correctional Service, a lot of our infrastructure is older. It was not built or designed with the idea of drone technology, for example, coming in, so a lot of our upgrades consider those pieces.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Thank you very much for those comments.

Given the time, I suggest we suspend the meeting, so the witnesses can take their leave and we can get ready for the third hour.

I want to thank all the witnesses for making the effort to be here today. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Honourable members, please be ready to start the next hour very soon.

The meeting is suspended.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

We are now resuming.

For this third hour, we will be turning our attention to Bill C‑22, as you know.

We have a number of witnesses here, some of whom the committee is familiar with. I'll introduce them quickly. From the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, we have Ramzi Nashef, director general. From the Department of Justice, we have Kimberly Gibner, deputy assistant deputy minister; and Normand Wong, acting general counsel. From the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, we have Richard Bilodeau, senior assistant deputy minister; Shannon Hiegel, director general; and Fenton Ho, director. Lastly, from the RCMP, we have Richard Burchill, chief superintendent.

We can move right into questions from members, starting with Mr. Caputo.

You may go ahead for six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the officials here.

The government is in the process of drafting amendments. Have any of you seen those amendments?

[Richard Bilodeau, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, National Cyber Security Directorate, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Yes, it's part of the process. We haven't seen every amendment that's come in, because they go through the committee and we don't see those, but we do contribute to that.

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

Okay.

Are you able to talk about the government amendments that you've seen?

[Richard Bilodeau]

I'm not at liberty to do that.

I can refer you to the minister's comments yesterday in terms of the amendments he was contemplating and he announced.

I understand that there's a process for amendments to be moved here at committee, and we will be happy to come back and provide our factual support in your consideration of those.

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

I'll continue with you, Mr. Bilodeau.

You have been attuned to the fact that there's been a great deal of criticism of this bill. You'd agree that much of that has surrounded part 2. Is that correct?

[Richard Bilodeau]

It's definitely the part that we at Public Safety have been the most involved in. The discussions that I've had have been surrounding part 2.

Obviously, you've noted the coverage and the discussions. I think, statistically speaking, that would be accurate.

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

If we're being candid, part 2 deals with encryption and the lack of safeguards therein for encryption. Part 2 also leaves nearly everything to a ministerial order that can be secret, and part 2 fails to identify and define the precise categories of metadata. When I say precise categories, it's that metadata being kept for 12 months. Those are just three of the issues.

Would you be in a position, Mr. Bilodeau, to make suggestions or to comment on whether this bill could be split along the lines of part 1 and part 2?

[Richard Bilodeau]

That is not for me to opine on.

The bill that's before Parliament right now in this committee has a part 1 and a part 2.

You talked about what's in and what's out of the legislation. The legislation is intended, as we've talked about, to be a framework that leaves some of the implementation to regulations, not just ministerial orders. There are set things that will need to be put in regulations, like core providers, some of the capabilities and what kinds of metadata will have to be retained in that context for up to a year.

It is intended to be a piece of legislation that brings a regulatory framework to ensure that it keeps pace with what's happening out in the digital world to help and support law enforcement.

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

My reading is that a minister could designate a core provider through a ministerial order. Is that correct?

[Richard Bilodeau]

The legislation, in proposed section 5, provides for core providers to be designated through regulation through publication in the Canada Gazette. That's how core providers are defined as part of the legislation. There are criteria, as you know as well, that set that out. Then ministerial orders can also be used in a way to ensure that potentially targeted providers are able to put in place certain other requirements of the legislation.

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

Okay. I'm sorry; I was thinking about something else. I'll move on from that.

What I'd really like to know about is end-to-end encryption. We all know what that means. A number of companies use encrypted technology. Let's say it's Apple Health or something like that. We could agree that's very personal information that would be contained on your smart phone about your health. I don't think anybody's going to dispute that. It attracts a high expectation of privacy. Let's say that's encrypted. That's different from end-to-end encryption. A company like Signal offers a service that goes from one end to another and nobody can break it. That's end-to-end encryption.

What about when data is encrypted as part of the program? If Apple has the key to that encryption, would they not be required to track that data as part of this bill?

[Richard Bilodeau]

You're correct that there are different types of encryption that can be done end to end if there's a communication. It can be user-encrypted. It's not just about communication. A user could have their own encryption where the provider does not have the key to that information. There are encryption models where the supplier or provider may have the key to that encrypted data.

I can't speak to the Apple example. I'm not a technical expert in terms of what each company does and how they do encryption.

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

Hypothetically is what I'm getting at.

[Richard Bilodeau]

I understand that.

For the legislation, in your example, it does not automatically provide that the provider—Apple, in this instance—would have to keep data. They would have to be designated either as a core provider or through a ministerial order. That process would need to happen before any obligations were imposed on them.