Transport Committee on May 11th, 2017

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

There's live video surveillance in most sensitive areas, isn't there?

[Jennifer Sullivan]

Yes, there is.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

You have one more minute.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

One more minute? Great.

Commissioner Oliver, you mentioned that, in certain instances, you can't proceed unless you get permissions. Can you further explain what those permissions are and who they come from?

[A/Commr Joe Oliver]

In terms of the support it provides to Transport Canada, the RCMP relies heavily on the entire Canadian police community. For instance, there are protocols in place to allow the RCMP to do kind of an index check on 187 other law enforcement agencies' records.

When we come across information, because it's their information and there are third-party protocols that exist around it, we have to go to the police of jurisdiction and seek their authority to share that information with Transport Canada. In some cases, that contributes to the delays.

It may be that because of an ongoing investigation that is quite sensitive, they don't want to share that information and get dragged into a potential civil process that is going to expose a witness, an undercover operator, or a sensitive police technique. We have to go back to the original police organization and get that information vetted with their concurrence. Once we get that information vetted, then we can share it with Transport Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Fraser.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Thank you very much to each of our witnesses for being here today. I expect the bulk of my questions will be for Ms. Kinney, but feel free to jump in if you feel you have something to add.

There's been a little bit of talk about the TVA recordings with the respect to the Montreal airport. I find it difficult to have a conversation that has the words “terrorism” and “airport” in the same sentence without producing some kind of hysteria. I would agree with Monsieur Aubin, who has suggested there's more concern than panic at this stage.

I take some comfort in what I've heard today, and I want to seek confirmation. My understanding is that after the system unfolded—in my opinion, the way it should have—the security clearance was revoked for the individuals. The ones who worked for contractors aren't on site today. The ones who may have been employed by the airport are not on site today. Is this really an example of the system weeding out individuals who should not have had security clearance?

[Laureen Kinney]

I would say that, in this particular situation, we're still in the middle of a process. That process allows the employee to present situations that may explain why circumstances arose that caused us to suspend a clearance. It's important that we respect that process and their privacy as well.

I would say, in general, that this is the kind of situation that has come up in other cases. Something happens, and many things happen in an operational environment with all of these people, so very small things can sometimes happen, but they raise an alarm on the local level. They're reported to us, and depending on the level of severity—we've done this in other cases—we suspend the clearance while we seek out further information with our partners. In some cases, we may not take that action if it was not severe at all, but those are normal.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Certainly. How long have these sort of normal security procedures been in place with Transport Canada? Is this roughly the same thing that you've used for a few decades?

[Laureen Kinney]

Yes, the transportation security clearance program was established after Air India in about 1985. I believe we were the first ones in the world to do that.

Obviously, it has been continuously improved and enhanced over the years, but it's a very well-developed process, and it's quite the exercise. I don't think there have been major changes to these types of things in the last 10 years or so, since we got the biometric capability. We can cut off security clearance effectively within half an hour or an hour, if we need to.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Oh, wow, that's terrific.

In response to a previous question, you mentioned that you're doing criminal record checks daily, in massive volumes, which is hard to even comprehend. Of course, the ability to accurately seek a criminal record for an individual depends on the quality of the system that you are searching. I've heard, through testimony on other committees, that there are issues, particularly with CPIC records. Criminal records aren't necessarily being entered at the moment they happen. I understand there are some efforts, through the public safety minister's work, to bring these records more up to date.

Is this an area that we should be investing in and focusing on, to make sure that the quality of your process is yielding the results that Canadians deserve?

[Laureen Kinney]

From Transport Canada's perspective, I am not aware of significant concerns.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Mr. Oliver may be better positioned to answer this question.

[A/Commr Joe Oliver]

I'll just give a bit of an explanation. There are two processes. One is the criminal records repository, which is where fingerprint records are established in order to produce a verifiable criminal record of an individual.

CPIC is the infrastructure, the computer system that accesses the criminal record, but it also accesses information that is uploaded daily by the place of jurisdiction. So, if a vehicle is stolen, that's entered at the local level. If someone is charged, that's entered at the local level. A criminal record comes after there has been a disposition in criminal court.

Daily, the CPIC records are updated based on charges. It could be that an individual is under surveillance. It could be a number of things. What Transport Canada is accessing is that daily updating of that type of information, so they get to see anything new that's in there.

Now, there could be a period of delay between the time an individual comes under investigation and the point when a charge is laid or a record is entered in CPIC. That will depend on the flow speed of investigations.

With respect to criminal records, there is a backlog—these are the paper-based criminal records, which have been in the system for a long time. Today we're moving to a live-scan, real-time uploading. For those previous records, there is a process in place to identify and triage those that are most important to get into the criminal records repository so that they can be processed and searched on a more regular basis.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Certainly. Thank you for that clarity.

I can't recall which witness indicated that there are somewhere in the range of 80,000 annual requests for security reports from Transport Canada. Could you perhaps elaborate on whether you have the capacity to deal with that volume? Quick math would suggest that it's a few hundred a day. This is a phenomenal volume. Do you have the resources you need to do this effectively?

[Brian Rumig]

Yes, we do. We've developed mechanisms and procedures that do, in fact, allow us to deal with the volume that we get from our government screening program. I would mention that Transport Canada is but one of the government departments and agencies that we service through this program, so the numbers are actually probably about fourfold of that 80,000.

We use advanced technology. Obviously, we use the expertise we've developed in our business, but really, the game-changer for us has been the advanced technology that allows us to vet information very quickly and efficiently.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Mrs. Block, go ahead.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I want to join my colleagues in welcoming you here today. This is an extremely important part of an extremely important study, so I am glad to have been able to hear from such a wide range of witnesses.

I want to follow up on the comments made by Mr. Gooch, and maybe ask him to comment on his concerns with budget 2017.

We know that Transport Canada's budget is significantly lower than it was in 2015-16. On Tuesday, the minister was here, and he presented a very ambitious plan for our transportation industry out to 2030. I asked him whether he felt that he had the resources he needed, not only to fulfill his obligations, but also to implement his strategy. He was actually very firm in answering that he did. When I hear that perhaps there are some issues that arise out of a lack of funding in a given budget, I try to put those two things together. I wonder if it's just human resources or dollars that need to be put behind certain initiatives.

Would you be willing to follow up on that?

[Daniel-Robert Gooch]

Yes. My colleagues from CATSA are here, of course, so I'm sure they can elaborate on funding.

Minister Garneau made some important commitments in the Transportation 2030 plan, and we really appreciate that. The commitments to look at service-level standards for screening and being competitive internationally with other countries take us in the right direction.

Unfortunately, the budget did not give CATSA enough funds to reach even the level of service that was being provided last year. We are continuing to work with Minister Garneau and his team on structural reforms to help CATSA as organized and funded, so that's important work, but it needs to come to some finality.

Part of the problem is that every year we're having to come back and present to individuals like you and your colleagues at other committees to get money for CATSA. Travellers are paying this fee, but it's not being directly connected to the service they believe they're paying for. We're spending a lot of our time and money in coming to Ottawa and working with you and your colleagues to get CATSA the funds they need to do their important job every year.

We really need to move to something where resources are growing and declining with changing traffic volumes. We have tremendous growth in this country. We're seeing 5% to 6% growth so far this year alone, with strong growth last year. At the major hubs, it's even stronger. Especially when we look out over the coming decade, we need to do this better.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you.

My next question will be for Ms. Kinney.

How many people work at Transport Canada in the area of security screening?

[Laureen Kinney]

Go ahead, Marie-France.

[Marie-France Paquet]

It will vary between 70 and 80 people.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Also, I perhaps should know this from other conversations we've had, but can you tell me where the funding for the screening of non-passengers comes from?

[Laureen Kinney]

CATSA is funded by appropriations. Those appropriations include the costs of passenger screening as well as non-passenger or worker screening. That is provided through appropriations. Budget 2017 provided funding that would allow for both of those things. That's where the funding comes from for CATSA as a crown corporation. It's from appropriations.