Good morning, Madam Chair and committee members.
Thank you for the invitation to meet with you this morning. I'm very proud to be here this morning to represent the employees of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, men and women who remain dedicated to the protection of Canada's national security interests and the safety and prosperity of Canadians.
This morning I'd like to discuss our role in the security screening of individuals who work in sensitive areas at airports.
I'll keep my remarks brief and will focus on our role in supporting Transport Canada and its transportation security clearance program.
Before describing the CSIS role in supporting Transport Canada, I believe it is important to note two points.
First, the service's role is limited to providing security assessments. CSIS does not issue security clearances; it is Transport Canada's exclusive authority to grant, deny, revoke, or suspend a clearance of an individual.
Second, I would like to emphasize that CSIS is but one partner providing supporting information to Transport Canada, as is witnessed here by the expertise in front of you today.
Madam Chair, members of the committee may be most familiar with our mandate to investigate and advise the government on threats to the security of Canada. Those threats are defined in our legislation as espionage and sabotage, foreign-influenced activities, terrorism, and subversion through the use of violence.
In the context of your current study, however, our security screening program, also a core mandate of our organization, is perhaps most relevant. Under this responsibility CSIS may provide security assessments to a variety of government departments and agencies in support of their authority to issue clearances.
As identified by assistant deputy minister Kinney, under the transportation security clearance program every individual who requires access to an aircraft or to a restricted area of the airport must have a valid security clearance as granted by Transport Canada. CSIS supports this program upon request by conducting security assessments of individuals requiring access to these sensitive sites.
To provide you with a sense of volume, our security screening branch received just over 80,000 screening requests from Transport Canada in 2015 and 2016. When a request is received, preliminary checks are completed against the service's holdings to determine whether there is any adverse information on the individual.
Should adverse information be identified, a variety of investigative tools can then be leveraged by CSIS. Most often these include conducting an interview of the individual. Upon conclusion of CSIS's investigative activity, a written assessment is provided to Transport Canada.
As or when required, Transport Canada may also request that CSIS reopen a file of a cleared individual, should there be cause to do so. In addition to that, should we ourselves become aware of an individual who already holds a security clearance and whose activities are suspected of constituting a threat to the security of Canada, the service can initiate its own investigation and review the individual's clearance.
Madam Chair, CSIS recognizes the vital public safety considerations that exist in the nations' airports. I would like to emphasis that CSIS works closely with Transport Canada officials to ensure that they have information about potential serious national security concerns. In doing so, CSIS continues to meet its obligations to keep Canada and Canadians safe.
With that, Madam Chair, I will conclude my remarks and would welcome any comments and questions.