Justice committee  A warrant or production order that has to satisfy reasonable grounds to believe is a very onerous standard to meet, and rightly so. That's a level of an order that we would need to see the private information. If we simply say, “Look, please hold it and let us go away and do some work,” we may find out that we don't need to come back and access all of that information.

Justice committee  Once we preserve the data, then we're doing more investigation. We're talking to more witnesses. We're examining other aspects of the case, and if we find that we don't have enough information to go get the full production order, then that data is deleted and there's no intrusion into that person's private data.

Justice committee  No, not at all, because once somebody crosses the line from collegial banter back and forth to they've broken a law by trying to extort or defraud, we need to identify that suspect.

Justice committee  I don't believe people have the right to be criminals on the Internet, and if they engage in crime, then we need the means to identify them and stop them, arrest them.

Justice committee  The question you ask is a common scenario. Our school liaison officers dread Monday morning when the kids march into their offices and talk about what happened over the weekend. In the example you provide of text messages and threats conveyed that way, sometimes we don't have a name.

Justice committee  Yes, our organization has one central point of contact. Every investigation in the front lines goes through one coordinator, and she talks to the telcos.

Justice committee  The only way we can compel them is to appear before a judge and obtain a production order.

Justice committee  Often when we just want the tracking information, it's easier for us to write a production order when we only have to articulate grounds to suspect, and quite often that's going to be a dead end. If it's a Wi-Fi café, that's good, because we don't then waste three days writing the full production order when we didn't even need the other data.

Justice committee  Well I understand that the economics of policing is a major focus for the federal committees and government to study. Policing is expensive, and we only have so many police officers. If they're forced to engage in cumbersome processes that take extensive amounts of time to get information that turns into a dead end, then those are situations where those investigators can't work on other cases.

Justice committee  Yes, some of these websites that I mentioned actually have a legitimate purpose for a legal exchange of information or communication. However, when someone decides to engage in criminal behaviour using that website as a legal channel of communication, that's where the problem resides.

Justice committee  Good morning, Mr. Chair and honourable members. I'm pleased to be here as president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. I'm also the chief constable of the Vancouver Police Department. As mentioned, we're the bundle known as the CACP. We represent over 90% of the Canadian police community, including federal, first nations, provincial, regional, and municipal police agencies.