I'll address the first question as succinctly as I can.

For instance, at Pearson International Airport, if you were to have outside of regular business hours a late flight leaving—and Peel Regional Police are the police of jurisdiction—and there's information that comes from a family member that someone's travelling to go to join a terrorist entity in Syria, that requires immediate action, but the person is not flying under his or her own name, and there may be other information held within different government agencies. Peel Regional Police would not have access to that and it could frustrate the process—and respectfully, Peel Regional Police at the airport might not be as intimately aware of national security issues and the laws surrounding them.

So those are some of the gaps that we see. Pearson is certainly a great example of an airport where you have a municipal or regional police service, a non-federal police service, as the first responder.

To the second issue, it's interesting because with hate propaganda, there has been much concern for many, many years about free speech. People have made public announcements and statements that might walk the line of hate propaganda, and relatively few charges have ever been laid because of the protection of the Attorney General consents. Advocating terrorism offences is similar. Certainly I think back to a book, The Turner Diaries, which is described as hate propaganda but is not illegal to possess. It is illegal to sell or distribute it, and when a major bookstore many, many years ago was bringing in that book because there was a demand for it, I ended up in a meeting with representatives from the book industry, the government, and customs. I see that the law is there. There are protections in place, but they're important because there are certain jihadist leaders—and some of them are dead—who have videos of their teachings that the often radical converts are following and that lead them to go from just a radical point of view to a criminal, extreme view, and terrorism.

So it's important that we try to address that. We also have religious leaders in communities—and not strictly in the Muslim community—who have stood up and preached or advocated support for what I would say is terrorism elsewhere, and there is no accountability. There is no stopping them, and it certainly has impacted on the national security of the Canadian public.

When I first came to intelligence in 1993, everything came into the Toronto police intelligence unit on a piece of paper and then we got faxes, then email, and then we got web access. I carry three BlackBerrys. The information out there is overwhelming.

I don't disagree that if the net is too broad it becomes of lesser or little value, but I also look and wrestle with—and I'm pretty technologically advanced, and certainly have lots of younger people who are—how important the information is because of the small threats.

I spent four and a half years in sexual assault in Toronto in the early days before we were so connected, chasing an unknown Scarborough rapist. Those gaps and the criticism that came from them is important for us to consider.

Justice Campbell wrote a report about information not being shared. It's interesting because of the reams and reams of information. I can think of a murder I worked on, the murder of a young girl in Toronto, which took 10 years to solve, and of the DNA evidence coming online. That information can be overwhelming and we should be careful in how much we collect, and then what we do with it is equally important.

I think there are threads that can help solve or prevent crime that have to be assessed and used to protect our public. I think that's important, but I always wrestle with the collection of everything. It overwhelms us very quickly.

It's interesting, and I've certainly equated the terrorist threat and criminal radicalization, criminal extremism. That to me is no different from a gang problem we have in Toronto. I remember many years ago that we wouldn't admit to having a gang problem, but clearly there's a gang issue.

The radicalization into extremism and terrorism is not unlike it would be of those going street gangs, or certain other organized criminal groups. Within Toronto we've expanded to include radicalization. Many young people are just being led down the path. I say respectfully to elders that maybe in their day it was about going to California and joining the Hare Krishnas, which was not criminal and was not an issue. But what lured those young people there? What's luring them into terrorism, into that criminal extremism toward terrorism?

So we have expanded within the Toronto police. I also know that the Government of Canada, Public Safety Canada, has gone across the country countering violent extremism. They initially partnered as a pilot program with Toronto to expand the Toronto role. I know that across the country it certainly is a live issue. There are numerous...and it's international. I got an email from a peer in Australia who is coming here to Ottawa in May and who then wants to come to Toronto to look at exactly that. We're all struggling with it. It's a challenge, and with respect, the police are not the only ones and not necessarily the best ones to deal with it, because much of it is in the pre-criminal space and we need community groups and professionals who can better help us.

Good morning, everyone.

Wai xast skelhalt ipsi nuxsil. Echa es quist Ascasiwt.

In our nsyilxcen language, that simply means: Good day, my friends and relatives. My traditional name is Ascasiwt.

I want to begin by acknowledging the fact that we're on unceded Algonquin territory,

I want to thank the committee for the opportunity to be here this morning.

I want to commend Pam Palmater for her outstanding presentation here this morning. I want the committee to know that I certainly support pretty much everything she presented to the committee.

I don't have a detailed brief. I'm not a lawyer. I will start by reading a press release that we issued under our organization, the Union of BC Indian Chiefs. I may make a few comments about the bill itself, but I will rely on the exchange of questions to give further expression to our concerns.

With that, this press release is dated February 20, 2015, and it states as follows:

Anti-Terrorism Act Bill C-51 Will Infringe on Indigenous Title and Rights

(Coast Salish Territory/Vancouver, BC – February 20, 2015) This week, the Harper Government introduced Bill C-51, Anti-terrorism Act, 2015. Bill C-51 will radically and dangerously expand the powers of Canada’s national security agencies and greatly infringe upon the rights of all citizens without making us any safer or secure.

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, President of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs stated “The Union of BC Indian Chiefs believes the sweeping scope of Bill C-51 directly violates the ability of all Indigenous Peoples to exercise, assert and defend their constitutionally-protected and judicially-recognized Indigenous Title and Rights to their respective territories.”

“It is absolutely appalling that as Indigenous Peoples protecting our territories we may be faced with the many insidious, provocative and heavy-handed powers that are granted by this omnibus Bill C-51. The Harper Government has dramatically changed internal government practices, policymaking structures and decision-making processes to serve an explicit natural resources development agenda. We have witnessed the gutting of environmental legislation, clamp-down of scientific analysis and comprehensive surveillance programs of Indigenous and environmental opposition,” said Grand Chief Phillip.

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip concluded “As an act of civil disobedience, I was arrested at Burnaby Mountain because I believe mega-projects, like Kinder Morgan and Enbridge pipelines, do not respect the Indigenous laws and inherent authority of Indigenous Peoples to protect their territories, land and waters from the very real potential and increased risk of oil spills and increased coast tanker traffic along our coast. I believe under the draconian measures of Bill C-51, I would be identified as a terrorist. Regardless, I will continue to do what is necessary to defend the collective birthright of our grandchildren.”

That public statement pretty much captures the essence of our grave concerns about Bill C-51, and I know that we stand in good company, in that at least four former prime ministers, several former Supreme Court justices, hundreds of academics and luminaries, the Canadian Bar Association, and other groups across this country—other human rights groups, civil rights groups, civil liberties groups—have all spoken out in opposition to this bill. The criticism is pretty much to the effect that this bill was cobbled together in the heat of political expediency, and it reflects many fundamental flaws and gaps.

Along with other indigenous leaders, including the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Perry Bellegarde, we also call for the scrapping of Bill C-51 and call upon the Harper government to entertain a process that is more inclusive, that takes the time necessary to ensure that the constitutional and human rights, the civil rights, of all Canadians are taken into serious consideration in putting together a bill of this nature.

We believe that Bill C-51 is less about jihadist terrorists being under every bed or in every closet in every bedroom across this country and more about increasing the output of the tar sands and facilitating the heavy-oil pipeline proposals across this country and the megaproject agenda of the Harper government. It will serve to severely undermine the constitutional and human rights of indigenous peoples, rights that are certainly reflected in the declaration of indigenous rights that was embraced by the vast majority of countries in the United Nations. It certainly flies in the face of our constitutionally enshrined rights, and it most certainly flies in the face of our judicially upheld rights by the highest legal authority in this country, namely the Supreme Court of Canada.

Most recently the Tsilhqot'in decision, the Chief Roger William decision, stated very clearly that as indigenous peoples we have an inherent responsibility to our future generations to ensure that the environment and resources of our territories are kept intact for future generations. You can see that the Government of Canada has other notions vis-à-vis energy development in this country with respect to pipeline proposals from sea to sea to sea.

Those essentially encompass the concerns we have. I agree wholeheartedly with Pam Palmater and her recitation of the oppressive and repressive legislation over the last several hundred years that has attempted to sever our cultural and spiritual connection to our lands and territories, to our culture and language.

I believe there is sufficient and adequate provision under the Criminal Code and the current national security apparatus to accomplish the same goals that are reflected in Bill C-51. Like the national chief, I too have brought the most recent report. It's a 44-page report from the RCMP security service critical infrastructure intelligence team, which I believe is a broad association of national security organizations.

This shows you how diligent the government is at suppressing indigenous rights in this country.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members.

I've come here not only as an individual but also in terms of the prior role that I had with the government before I retired. A few years ago it was determined that there really wasn't any overarching coordination to ensure intelligence collaboration within the federal government. As a result, I was seconded to the Treasury Board Secretariat from the RCMP to be the director general of the information sharing environment in 2012.

As a result of that, I was there to establish a program for intelligence sharing across Canada. The program, which we called the ISE Canada, was to collaborate with agencies like CRA, CIC, DND, RCMP, CSIS and others. After eight months, due to the priorities of the Treasury Board Secretariat with the Shared Services Canada initiative, the funding was withdrawn, but I could just give you an example of one project I worked on while I was there.

It was a pilot project. I worked with two different agencies on a 400-kilometre stretch of the border between Canada and the United States. What we wanted to do was share intelligence files between the two agencies in a controlled environment, the control being that one group was in one room, the other in another room. What we wanted to do was to demonstrate whether both parties knew what investigations each was working on, as they said they did, or were there some missing links between the two agencies.

This was a very small, controlled environment, and what we found was that there were over 40 files that both of these organizations had no idea the other organization was working on. There were things like organized crime, gang involvement, importation of drugs, guns, and weapons importation. What it demonstrated was that although we thought we were sharing information, we really weren't doing a very good job of it.

The proposed anti-terrorism Bill C-51 will enable the creation of a Canadian information sharing environment. This program will increase security for Canadians by supporting intelligence and information sharing within government and supporting provincial, territorial, and municipal agencies.

Sharing information in a manner that is consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and with the protection of privacy will enable intelligence partners to support information sharing initiatives nationally and internationally with the right information to the right person at the right time.

It will enable effective and responsible intelligence sharing by driving collaborative intelligence initiatives, so it will be accurate, timely, reliable, proactive. What I'm talking about here is suspicious activity reporting. For example, we have an oil refinery where the company reports a hole in a fence. The municipality next door has a laundry and dry cleaning facility that had a break-in the night before and 40 uniforms are stolen that all belong to that oil refinery. The next municipality over had a large theft of fertilizer. We start putting these pieces together, and then add onto that an intelligence agency has a report from an informant that Mr. A was talking about causing some damages to an oil refinery. If we look at each one of those independently it really doesn't mean much. But when you start putting the pieces together, it means a lot.

It will enable efficient sharing through standards and shared technology to address common intelligence sharing needs. What I'm talking about here is accuracy. I'm talking about ensuring that the databases are accurate. It will improve nationwide decision-making through secure and trusted sharing between partners, being proactive, accurate, timely, and reliable.

It will protect the privacy rights of Canadians by developing a strategy for information sharing and protection. When I talk about protection, I'm talking about accountability, to have an independent third-party, non-partisan expert group of individuals to be the oversight group that monitors the information sharing.

I was in an airport on the weekend when the weather came in. I was in the interior and was stuck there for eight hours. It was a very small airport and had a small coffee shop. I was sitting there and there were only two plugs in the wall, and a fellow beside me used one for his computer and I used the other one. I started talking to him. He is a retired school teacher from a very small community, and he brought up Bill C-51 and said that he certainly didn't agree that they're going to share every piece of information with every single person in Canada.

I happened to mention I was coming here today, and I said “Well, that's not quite true. Some people have looked at the act and dissected small pieces of it, but when you look at the whole information sharing act, you'll see that there is accountability built in, that everyone wants to make sure that the information is shared in a manner that is accountable and responsible.”

The creation of the Canadian ISE program will achieve the following outcomes: it will support the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness to ensure effective coordination of Canadian intelligence information in the security or intelligence communities; establish an ISE senior level inter-agency advisory group to enable governance related to information sharing standards and initiatives; establish a cross-government ISE privacy accountability committee to ensure information or intelligence sharing privacy compliance with the legislation; promote information sharing culture across all partners through training and support initiatives; support Canadian participation in Beyond the Border and other information sharing initiatives; develop a national strategy for information sharing and protection; encourage the use of data standards among all agencies; support and encourage provincial, territorial, and municipal involvement; demonstrate successes by involving agencies in projects to identify information and intelligence gaps and inefficiencies; and identify leaders in business process, operations, standards, architecture, security, access control, privacy protection, and accountability.

Bill C-51 will ensure accurate, timely, and reliable information sharing while protecting the privacy of our citizens.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and members of the committee. It's dangerous to ask an academic to speak for only 10 minutes. I'm going to read from a prepared text.

I thank you for this opportunity to address the committee on the important matter of Bill C-51. This is the second occasion in which I have testified in this House on omnibus anti-terrorism legislation. The first occasion took place nearly 14 years ago during the debate over Canada's first anti-terrorism legislation, Bill C-36.

Times have changed. We now live in a post-al Qaeda age, but the fundamental issue that we struggled with as a society in 2001 remains the same in 2015, that being how to meet security threats in such a way as to maintain a necessary balance between the powers given to security and intelligence agencies and the protection of democratic rights, including privacy rights. The 2004 national security strategy was aptly entitled to reflect this challenge of securing an open society.

Let me begin by saying that we are hobbled in our analysis of this bill by three things. One is the absence of any update by the government of its counterterrorism strategy, which was last produced in August 2014 before the recent cycle of terror attacks, including those in Canada in October 2014; in Sydney, Australia in December 2014; and in Paris in January 2015.

A second is the absence of any inquiry report into the tragic events of October 2014 that would help us understand any legal, operational, or analytical deficiencies that might have contributed to the failure to prevent those attacks.

The third deficiency is the lack of any substantial explanation for the need for the individual parts of the bill, either in the language of the bill itself, in the brief backgrounders prepared by the Department of Justice, or in statements made by the government that have referred in boilerplate language to the evolving terrorism threat and the need for new capabilities to meet it.

The evolving terrorism threat can be considered to have three dimensions, namely, the threat posed by jihadist terrorist groups engaged in insurgency campaigns abroad to seize territory and build state-like capabilities; the campaign of individual homegrown jihadists to inflict violence in the domestic sphere; and the connecting tissues between these threats, which are the foreign fighter problem and the broader issue of cyber incitement. Bill C-51 addresses two of these three strands and does so in a tactical, as opposed to a strategic, way.

I would divide the bill into three baskets. First, those elements that can genuinely advance security capacities in a reasonable and proportional way. Second, those that do not advance our security capabilities or fail to maintain the vital security rights balance. Thirdly, those parts of the bill that deserve to be put on hold for deeper reflection and not be rushed into law before the summer recess.

In the first basket of appropriate security enhancements I would place the proposed information sharing act, part 1 of the bill; the proposed changes to Canada's no fly list, part 2 of the bill; and selected components of part 3 of the bill concerning amendments to the Criminal Code with respect to peace bonds, preventative detention, and the dismantling of websites conveying terrorist propaganda.

To be sure, parts 1, 2, and 3 of the bill would greatly benefit from some detailed amendments, in particular to bring greater clarity, heighten their efficacy, reduce their over-breadth, and bolster the security rights' balance. I have respectfully suggested some key changes that could be made to the bill in the detailed brief I submitted to the committee.

The provision that I would argue should be abandoned in its present form concerns the criminalization of the promotion and advocation of terrorism. While such a criminal sanction might be emotionally satisfying, as currently presented in the bill it operates at a remove from the commission of a terrorist act and is in effect a speech crime. In addition I would argue that the operational burden on our national security agencies tasked with investigating such speech crimes is not commensurate with the likely payoff. We must understand that security and intelligence capabilities are finite and must be carefully deployed to maximum benefit.

Provisions I would put on hold for further study include parts 4 and 5 of the bill. We need to have a proper conversation about security certificates, which are the subject of part 5. In the time I have remaining, Mr. Chair, I will focus only on part 4.

Part 4 of Bill C-51 gives CSIS explicit and broad lawful authority to engage in disruption or threat diminishment operations. I think many Canadians do not understand that CSIS already conducts forms of disruption operations associated with their intelligence collection mandate and that such operations were reviewed some years ago by the Security Intelligence Review Committee.

The SIRC study summarized in its 2009-10 annual report noted that the CSIS director had testified in Parliament in May 2010 that disruption operations should principally be left to the RCMP. Whether or not the current CSIS director would disagree with his predecessor and why is not known. SIRC recommended two things: the creation of appropriate internal policy controls for CSIS disruption operations and the provision of strong ministerial directives. Whether these recommendations were accepted and acted upon is not known, but I think it would be important for this committee to satisfy itself about this matter.

I would also urge that CSIS disruption powers be focused on operations abroad against Canadians, under appropriate controls. A domestic lead on disruption or threat diminishment should be left to the RCMP where it currently resides, and where I think it belongs. The RCMP has developed important capacities in this area through its inset teams, through front-line policing, and through community engagement or outreach programs.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, it should surprise none of us that first drafts of complex legislation may not be perfect. It is vital that parliamentary consideration be aimed not only at improving the bill and ensuring that it balances security imperatives and rights protections, but also at ensuring to the greatest degree possible a Canadian social consensus. If these are not difficult enough goals, it is important as well to be very clear about what is missing in the bill and will need to be addressed another day if not provided for in amended legislation.

The missing pieces include the need for greater measures for intelligence and security accountability; greater mandated government transparency in regard to national security; and acknowledgement of the secret elephant in the room, which is the counterterrorism mission and capabilities of the Communications Security Establishment, whose enabling legislation passed with the Anti-terrorism Act in 2001, and which desperately requires fixing, from my perspective. It is also important to understand that Bill C-51 does not address a critical need, which is improvements to Canada's threat assessment capability. It is no good sharing a great deal of information, no good having new powers to collect new kinds of information, if you can't make sense of it through a robust threat assessment capability. Finally, of course, there's the issue of new resources to match new powers about which the government has been so far silent.

Thank you.

I retired from the RCMP after 35 years, most of it on the intelligence side. I was also a liaison officer, a diplomat, in Islamabad, Pakistan. When I was there I was responsible for 17 countries, including Afghanistan and other “stans”, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq. I was there to develop and work with intelligence agencies in an effort to share information. That was in 2002.

I've been a guest speaker at a Middle East law enforcement policing function on intelligence information sharing. I was a guest of the Greek government in 2003, prior to the Olympics, on intelligence sharing internationally. As the director general of the information sharing environment, I worked a fair amount with the United States and EUPOL, looking at different ways in which we could effectively share information while being safe, secure, and of course, ensuring the privacy of Canadians.

My experience is fairly worldwide, and I have been retired for only two years.

Thank you for the question. The short answer is yes. The longer answer is absolutely yes.

I don't think there's any doubt in our minds that the real intent of Bill C-51 is to coerce and intimidate indigenous peoples away from defending and protecting their hard-fought international rights expressed in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, our section 35 rights in the constitution of this country, and the hard-fought battles through the Supreme Court of Canada.

This bill will criminalize pretty much everything that has brought us to this point in our history, in terms of being able to assert our rights and ensure that our interests are fully protected. As I know you have heard in previous presentations, much of our history would have been lost if this legislation had been introduced 40 years ago.

I have been involved in these issues for more than 40 years. I served as chief of our community for 14 years, and for 10 years before that I was a member of our council. This is my 16th year as president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, and I'm the chair of our tribal council. I'm 65 and I have 14 incredibly beautiful grandchildren whose future I am gravely concerned about, given the direction in which this country is moving.

Certainly. As a field agent or as an individual who was working on a street-level intelligence-gathering process, they would report first to their first supervisor. Depending on what job they were doing, they would report daily to the supervisor as to what actions they'd taken. That supervisor would be accountable to another level of supervision. The levels of supervision would go up until there was an overall commander responsible for that investigation or that project they'd been working on.

Daily reports would come in. The overall officer or person in charge would review what had happened by all the different investigators who were working that day to ensure that they were compliant with the processes for whatever job they were doing, whether in information sharing or in an enforcement action with regard to a judicial request. They would be reporting daily through supervision levels.

As well, each organization would have its own internal audit process. They call it quality assurance. They might not do so daily, but they would review that to ensure that if there were any changes in legislation or any changes in processes, the supervisors would be well aware of those and they could pass that information down to the investigators.

Thank you, Mr. Easter.

My comments regarding CSE being the secret elephant in the room really refer to the fact that CSE is one of our leading national security intelligence agencies, with a three-part mandate, as you will know. It includes foreign intelligence gathering; cyber-security, a cyber-security mission and a third part, which is assistance to law enforcement and security agencies in Canada.

I think what we will see with Bill C-51, if it passes in either unamended or amended form, is that CSE will be deeply engaged by the various new provisions in Bill C-51 under the third part of its mandate, in which it really relies on the lawful authority of other agencies to conduct the collection of electronic information, whether at home or abroad. I think in a way that is leading CSE into a secret space where it shouldn't be left, in terms of Canadians' understanding of the significance of its role.

The second thing I would say briefly—and I mentioned it both in the longer brief and in the prepared statement—is that CSE's enabling legislation was passed in 2001 as part of the Anti-terrorism Act. I commented on that enabling legislation at the time and raised questions about it. It was an experiment, enabling legislation, and I think it's an experiment that hasn't passed the test of time, as successive CSE commissioners have complained over and over again that there are aspects of the legal authority under which CSE operates that are simply insufficient, particularly with regard to ministerial authorizations.

I think Bill C-51 presented us with an opportunity to update and amend CSE's legislation, an opportunity that has, to my mind, puzzlingly not been seized by the government, and it's left Canadians not appreciating how crucial its role is in the counterterrorism field.