Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Security and Defence
Issue 10 - Evidence, February 17, 2003
OTTAWA, Monday, February 17, 2003
The Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence met this day at 5:00 p.m. to examine and report on the need for a national security policy for Canada.
Senator Colin Kenny (Chairman) in the Chair.
The Chairman: It is my pleasure to welcome you to the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence. This evening the committee continues its briefings on Canada-U.S. relations in preparation for its trip to Washington to meet with members of Congress and Administration officials during the last week of March.
I am from Ontario and I serve as Chair of this committee.
On my immediate right is our Deputy Chair, the distinguished Senator Michael Forrestall, from Nova Scotia, who has served the constituents of Dartmouth for the past 37 years, first as their member of the House of Commons and then as their senator. Throughout his parliamentary career, he has followed defence matters, serving on various defence-related parliamentary committees, including the 1993 Special Joint Committee on the Future of the Canadian Forces. Senator Forestall has also served as Deputy Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications and as Chair of the Special Senate Committee on Transportation Safety and Security.
Beside Senator Forestall is Senator Tommy Banks, from Alberta, who is well-known to Canadians as one of our most accomplished and versatile entertainers. His television variety program won a Gemini Award, and, as a musician, he has received a Juno Award and the Grand Prix du Disque-Canada. He has served as conductor or music director for many international events such as the Commonwealth Games and the opening ceremonies for both Expo '86 and the XV Olympic Winter Games.
Senator Banks continues to work tirelessly on behalf of Canadian performing artists and recently, he helped to obtain funding for the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra. He is Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources. Currently, that committee is studying the Nuclear Safety Control Act.
Beside Senator Banks is Senator Norman Atkins, from Ontario. He came to the Senate in 1986 with a strong background in the field of communications. He also served as an advisor to former Premier Davis of Ontario. Senator Atkins studied economics at Acadia University and recently returned there to accept an Honorary Doctorate in Civil Law. He has served on many standing committees including Transport and Communications, Foreign Affairs, Social Affairs, and Science and Technology. He was very active in support of the Canadian merchant navy veterans and is a member of our Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs. Currently, Senator Atkins serves as Chair of the Senate Conservative Caucus. He is also an extremely active member of the Senate Committee on Internal Economy Committee, Budgets and Administration.
On my far left is Senator David Smith, from Ontario, who is a lawyer by training. He is a distinguished practitioner in municipal, administrative and regulatory law. In the 1970s, he was elected as councillor and deputy mayor of Toronto. He was a member of the House of Commons from 1980-84 and was Minister of State for Small Businesses and Tourism in former Prime Minister Trudeau's last cabinet. In the Senate, Senator Smith also serves on the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee and on the Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament.
Our committee is the first permanent Senate committee with a mandate to examine subjects of security and defence. Over the past 18 months, we have completed a number of studies. After a seven-month period, the committee completed a study of the major issues facing Canada and produced, in February 2002, a report entitled "Canadian Security and Military Preparedness.''
Then the Senate asked our committee to examine the need for a national security policy. So far, we have released three reports on various aspects of national security. The first, "Defence of North America: A Canadian Responsibility,'' was issued in September 2002; the second, "For an Extra 130 bucks...Update on Canada's Military Crisis: A View from the Bottom Up,'' was released in November 2002, and the third and most recent, "The Myth of Security at Canada's Airports.'' was released in January 2003.
Last week, the committee began its briefings about Canada-United States relations with presentations from the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency. The committee learned that substantial progress had been made in implementing the 30-Point Smart Border Action Plan. We were particularly pleased to hear about the success and rapid expansion of programs that speed the border-crossing process for pre-approved frequent travellers and shippers, without jeopardizing security.
This evening we will hear from the Canadian Coast Guard and then from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
These briefings are an essential part of our preparation for the trip the committee is making to Washington at the end of March. In Washington, we will discuss common security concerns with members of the United States administration and our congressional counterparts.
This evening our witnesses from the Canadian Coast Guard are Mr. Sylvain Lachance, the Acting Director General, Fleet, and Mr. Tim Meisner, the Director of Policy and Legislation, Marine Programs. Welcome to the committee, gentlemen.
Mr. Tim Meisner, Director, Policy and Legislation, Marine Programs, Canadian Coast Guard: I have provided you a package of the information deck. I will take you through it slowly and try to answer some of the key questions, such as: What is the Canadian Coast Guard? What are the key programs and services delivered by the Canadian Coast Guard? What is the Coast Guard's role in marine security? How does the Canadian Coast Guard differ from the U.S. Coast Guard? I think the latter may be beneficial in your trip to Washington in the upcoming weeks.
If you go to the second slide, it is a snapshot of current information on the Canadian Coast Guard regarding its size and scope. As you may be aware, the Coast Guard is a sector of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, DFO, having moved from Transport Canada in 1995.
The Canadian Coast Guard's mission has four components: to ensure the safe and environmentally responsible use of Canada's waters; to support the understanding and management of Canada's ocean resources; to facilitate the use of our waters for shipping, recreation and fishing; and to provide marine expertise in support of Canada's domestic and international interests.
As you can see from the slide on the size of the organization, we have more than 4,400 employees, supported by 5,100 auxiliary volunteers. We operate in five regions with our headquarters here in Ottawa. We have 262 light stations in a system of 18,000-plus aids to navigation. Our fleet comprises 104 vessels, three of which are hovercraft. We have 27 helicopters and two fixed-wing aircraft and operate out of 11 bases.
Slide 3 provides an overview of the legislative authority under which the Coast Guard operates. The first, the Canada Shipping Act, is the Coast Guard's legislative and regulatory framework. It gives the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans specific responsibility for most Canadian Coast Guard services. The Oceans Act establishes the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans as the minister responsible for the Canadian Coast Guard. The Navigable Waters Protection Act provides the department with responsibility for protecting the public right to navigation and provides federal powers to approve works or remove obstructions. As well, we have mandated obligations under the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act and the Fisheries Act.
Slide 4 lists the services that the Canadian Coast Guard provides. We provide these services that cover the longest coastline in the world, in addition to 3,700 kilometres of inland waterways that stretch from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the western end of Lake Superior. To deliver these services, the Canadian Coast Guard has over 3,000 front-line operators to look after our facilities and vessels, and to administer our programs.
The main services we deliver are search and rescue, boating safety, icebreaking operations, communications and traffic services, marine navigation services, environmental protection, support to conservation, protection and science, and support to other government department programs. I will give you a brief snapshot of the responsibilities we have within each one of these programs.
On slide 5 we have search and rescue. In the delivery of search and rescue, the Canadian Coast Guard works closely with the Department of National Defence. Together, we respond to air and marine search and rescue incidents to jointly staff rescue coordination centres. Volunteer assistance also comes from the Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary, which is a key element in maximizing the efficiency of this program. As you can see from a statistic shown on the slide, on a typical day the Coast Guard assists 55 people in saving eight lives in 19 search and rescue incidents.
Slide 6 paints a picture of our boating safety program. The Canadian Coast Guard has a boating safety office that promotes safety through awareness programs. We provide marine safety information and advice, conduct voluntary safety inspections and marine safety demonstrations, and develop and administer recreational boating safety regulations.
Slide 7 gives you an overview of our icebreaking operations. During the winter, our icebreakers are in central and Eastern Canada; in the summer, they can be found in the eastern Arctic. Coast Guard icebreakers are involved with escorts, channel maintenance, providing ice routing information to ships, and providing flood control along the banks of the St. Lawrence River.
Slide 8 is a snapshot of our communications and traffic services. This program provides communications and co- ordination to detect distress situations and ensure timely assistance. We screen vessels to prevent entry of unsafe vessels into Canadian waters. This program also regulates vessel traffic movements and supplies marine traffic information to industry and other government departments such as the Department of National Defence.
Slide 9 is our marine navigation services. The Marine Navigation Service Program provides aids to navigation to ensure the safety of shipping in Canadian waters. It is also responsible for protecting the public right of navigation and for waterway development and dredging maintenance services.
The Coast Guard's marine environmental responsibilities include marine oil spill prevention, preparedness and response. Prevention is basically a deterrence function that includes enforcement of the pollution prevention regulations. In addition, aerial surveillance is used to detect vessels illegally dumping pollutants in Canadian waters. Preparedness for spills includes the development of partnerships with industry to produce new equipment and response strategies to deal with harmful spills. The final activity is response. The Coast Guard ensures an effective and efficient response to oil spills. While private sector response organizations are the first line of defence when a spill occurs, the Coast Guard maintains the capability to provide an initial response to respond to spills beyond the individual response organization's capacity, and to respond to offshore spills and spills north of 60.
Slide 11 provides an overview of support we provide to Department of Fisheries and Oceans activities. As demonstrated on this slide, support is provided for ocean science and hydrographic services, and our fleet provides a platform for enforcement and surveillance activities.
Slide 12 provides a brief overview of other departments and agencies with which we work in partnership to support the management of the marine sector. These include Transport Canada, the Department of National Defence, Environment Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and immigration, and customs.
Slides 13 and 14 provide a brief overview of how Fisheries and Oceans, and in particular the Canadian Coast Guard, contribute to marine security within Canada. As you are probably aware, Transport Canada is the lead department on marine security. Within the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the Coast Guard is responsible for managing the department's marine security activities.
I would like to note that the Coast Guard is neither an enforcement nor security agency. The Coast Guard's role is one of support to the security community, through the collection and dissemination of marine information, the provision of marine platforms and the provision of infrastructure and expertise.
The Coast Guard's mandate continues to be marine safety, environmental protection, and support to maritime commerce. However, while the Coast Guard does not have a security mandate, it does play an important role in the provision of an increased level of security in Canada.
The Coast Guard's primary contribution to enhanced federal marine security is our ability to collect and manage maritime information that is shared with other agencies. In addition, we provide the services of our fleet to the Canadian enforcement community.
Slide 14 provides the specific elements of DFO's contribution to the marine security file. Immediately following September 11, the Coast Guard increased the notification period for vessels arriving in Canadian waters from 24 to 96 hours, and the Coast Guard fleet increased the amount of time spent at sea providing a federal presence. As a result of the federal government's announcement on January 22, 2003, the Coast Guard will implement an automated identification system known as AIS. AIS is a shipboard broadcast transponder system, with which ships continually transmit their ID, position, course, speed and voyage-related data to other nearby ships and to shore-based stations. This will allow the Coast Guard to gather and share information on vessels approaching and operating in Canadian waters.
In addition, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans' Conservation and Protection Program will expand its aerial surveillance program. This will mean more air patrols on both coasts, inside and outside the 200-mile limit. The information gathered by these flights is used for fisheries enforcement and pollution detection, and also provides intelligence on marine vessel activity.
I included slide 15 to provide a brief overview of the United States Coast Guard, and to set out some of differences between the Canadian Coast Guard and the U.S. Coast Guard. The U.S. Coast Guard provides a military, multi- mission marine service that operates with five basic missions. The first is maritime safety, which includes search and rescue, marine safety and boating safety. The second is protection of natural resources, which encompasses marine pollution, education, prevention and response. The third is maritime mobility, which is their way of coining aids to navigation, icebreaking services and vessel traffic management. Their fourth mission involves maritime security, which includes drug interdiction, alien migrant interdiction, and law and treaty enforcement. Finally, they have a national defence mission, which includes general defence duties, homeland security and important waterway security. The last two missions, maritime security and national defence, are principally what differentiates the Canadian Coast Guard from the U.S. Coast Guard, as these activities are the responsibility of other agencies in Canada.
Finally, as a result of its homeland security role, the United States Coast Guard will be integrated into the Department of Homeland Security, effective March 1, 2003. The organization is moving in its entirety, so the operation should not be greatly affected by this move.
We will be pleased to answer any questions you may have on the Canadian Coast Guard, or other subjects.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Meisner. That was a helpful overview. I think it will prove to be a useful introduction to the Canadian Coast Guard.
Senator Forrestall: Have either or both of you read the three reports dealing with a modern Coast Guard and its role? I include in that the report of the Royal Institute that was released a few weeks ago.
Mr. Meisner: I have read all three of them.
Senator Forrestall: In your opinion, what are the pros and cons of giving the Coast Guard a more formal role in securing Canada's coast and protecting her ports?
I should tell you we ask this question because someone will ask us this kind of a question in Washington. We would like to have your expertise.
Mr. Meisner: The Canadian government currently delivers marine security initiatives through a collaborative approach, involving many government departments and led by Transport Canada. We have been meeting collectively over the last several years to come up with the approach to the Canadian government's marine security initiatives announced last January 22. In my opinion, this collaborative approach has worked very well to date.
Senator Forrestall: I am not sure I know quite what to take from that. I asked you for the pros and cons, but I gather there are just pros.
Mr. Meisner: The con I would mention, without getting into the policy side of it, would be the massive undertaking in reorganizing the different organizations participating in delivering these programs now.
Senator Forrestall: Do you feel the same way?
Mr. Sylvain Lachance, Acting Director General, Fleet, Canadian Coast Guard: Unfortunately I have not read the report, only excerpts of it in the media. I will share Mr. Meisner's opinion on this.
Senator Forrestall: The role of the Coast Guard has changed so much, in such a compacted period of time. It seems to many of us that we have not really thought out where we want them to be, with the movement away from Transport to Fisheries and the downgrading of personnel. I do not think we have ordered a new vessel in the last seven or eight, or is it 10 or 12 years?
Mr. Lachance: The last major one was built in 1987, if I recall.
Senator Forrestall: That was 16 years ago.
The Chairman: It was the Sir John A. Macdonald. He launched it personally.
Senator Forrestall: Sir John A. was a great crewman and skipper.
Where should we be going and what should we be doing with the Canadian Coast Guard? My experience on the coast of Nova Scotia is that, if it were not for the fishermen, you would not be able to get in and out of 90 per cent of the small harbours in Nova Scotia. You would not know where the channels were, or someone would immediately discover abruptly that the rocks had moved.
I do not see a role that they are playing. You give us search and rescue. Could you have someone change the dear old Labrador and put a Cormorant in there? We have the Labrador here now, which is even worse than the Sea King. Sea King would have been updating the Labrador.
Where do we think we are going? We have five regions, and they are controlled, somewhat, from here in Ottawa. Is that the way we should continue to go? When we sit down with our U.S. colleagues in a few weeks' time and they wonder what we are doing about coastal defence, do you have any words of encouragement in respect of the Canadian Coast Guard fleet?
Mr. Meisner: Currently, we really do not have an enforcement or security role as the Canadian Coast Guard. The coastal protection is left to the navy. When it comes to working together, we do have a contribution in that we work with the navy transport, RCMP and other agencies in delivering these marine security programs for Canada. I think the announcement made in January reflects the overall integrated approach to marine security, in which the Coast Guard has an important role, but not a large role.
Senator Forrestall: Our ships are not armed. Apart from the master, there is no legal police authority.
Mr. Lachance: The master does not have police authority.
Senator Forrestall: We are not armed. When we have lodgers on board, that is because we do not have peace or police officers on board. We have a fisheries inspector, perhaps.
Mr. Lachance: We do have fishery officers. When we go on fishery patrol missions, we carry fishery enforcement officers on board who have firearms.
Senator Forrestall: In what other instances will we have people with police qualifications on board?
Mr. Lachance: We have missions with the RCMP. Occasionally, we are used as a platform to deliver police officers to a certain location or to conduct a certain mission. In such instances, we would have RCMP officers on board.
Senator Forrestall: Have you ever had the military or the army on board?
Mr. Lachance: We do provide time to the military for certain training.
Senator Forrestall: For certain training. Have you had the JTF2 on board for amphibious training or assault training?
Mr. Lachance: I believe we have, yes.
Senator Forrestall: Then we do play a bit of an active role. I wonder why you hide it and keep it quiet?
Mr. Lachance: We do not have a mandate, but we do have a role, which is different.
Senator Forrestall: You could have an expanded role or a changed role. What would happen if you were a fully functional division of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans? Would you feel a little more at home? You are neither fish nor fowl. You are in the Transport department, where you have been for 120 years.
Mr. Lachance: We still serve the same clients: the boating community, the fishing people and the commercial shipping. We still provide them with our services.
Senator Forrestall: Let me come back to the fleet again for a moment or two. Your last capital ship was 16 years ago now. What capacity do we have for shallow harbour icebreaking?
Mr. Lachance: It is very limited.
Senator Forrestall: How would you relate that to an interdiction scenario or a patrol scenario with respect to coastal defence?
Mr. Lachance: I am not sure I understand the question.
Senator Forrestall: We do this type of work, and we are capable of doing it. Let us take a case this year, from literally late November until, as it looks outside today, probably the end of March. How do we get our vessels into shallow harbours?
Mr. Lachance: We have a fleet of icebreakers that is still in good shape. I am talking about the big ones. Our shallow draft icebreakers that are normally used for small harbour break-up are getting old. They are probably the oldest component of our fleet right now.
Senator Forrestall: Do we have many of those?
Mr. Lachance: We have about six, I believe.
Senator Forrestall: Are they spread throughout Atlantic Canada?
Mr. Lachance: Atlantic Canada, Quebec, and the Great Lakes.
Senator Forrestall: Are there any on the west coast or in the Arctic?
Mr. Lachance: We have a small vessel on the west coast. It falls into that category but does not have icebreaking capabilities.
Senator Forrestall: Do you still shift your officers around and give them stints on the West Coast operations?
Mr. Lachance: Our officers are based mainly in the region and that is where they stay most of their career, if they wish to do so.
Senator Forrestall: Is there no inter-training?
Mr. Lachance: It is very limited.
Senator Forrestall: Why is that?
Mr. Lachance: I suppose that has to do with the way that the staffing works, where people are assigned to a region or a particular level in a region, and that is where they stay, usually.
The Chairman: Out of curiosity, when the Coast Guard switched from Transport to Fisheries, did any of the vessels change their home berths in the year following that?
Mr. Lachance: Not that I remember. We did go through a rationalization of the fleet at that time, and a fair amount of vessels were into commission. Some vessels did go, yes. Because of that reduction, the fleet was re-balanced so the capability would be even from one end of the country to the other, and some ships were deployed from regions at the time.
The Chairman: Did Newfoundland end up with more or less vessels after the change? You do not have to answer me now.
Senator Forrestall also asked you about the icebreakers. What class icebreakers are they, please?
Mr. Lachance: We have 1300s, 1200s, 1100s and 1000s.
The Chairman: If you were classifying them in terms of classes one through ten, what class would they be?
Mr. Lachance: The icebreakers are from 1000 up.
The Chairman: With a 1000 up, it can break one foot in continuous mode at five knots?
Mr. Lachance: I would have to give you the details on that. The most powerful one is the 1300. The classification describes an overall capability, not the thickness of ice it can break. I can provide that to you.
The Chairman: Essentially, these icebreakers ride up on the ice and force it down as opposed to going underneath and breaking it up. They are oval-shaped as opposed to spoon-shaped, and the design is essentially 34 years old.
Mr. Lachance: No, those are the old ones. We have more recent ones such as the Henry Larsen, which was our newest built. It was designed in the mid-1980s.
The Chairman: Are you familiar with vessel supply ships like the Kigoriak and the new designs that they have?
Mr. Lachance: We have one icebreaker.
The Chairman: It has a spoon-shaped hull with the water coming down the sides.
Mr. Lachance: We did buy from the industry the Terry Fox to replace the Sir John A. MacDonald, which has a spoon bow.
The Chairman: How do you find it?
Mr. Lachance: It has limitations for the type of work we do.
The Chairman: Is that bad or good?
Mr. Lachance: It is neither bad nor good, depending on the type of work we do. For certain tasks, it is not as good as the other icebreakers we have because of the stern shape of the vessel. It is a square stern and does not turn as well as other vessels we have.
The Chairman: You mention that you screen vessels that are unsafe and you do it from a distance. How do you do that?
Mr. Meisner: Through the Maritime Communication and Traffic Service, MCTS centres, the vessel has a list of questions it must report into. Transport Canada regulates the safety of these vessels. If a particular vessel is on a list or reports something that is abnormal and Transport Canada is advised, then the ship is either not given permission to come into Canadian waters or told to go to a certain berth where it will be rectified.
The Chairman: With whom do you share the information?
Mr. Meisner: In that particular case of an unsafe vessel, it would be Transport Canada.
The Chairman: Do you have other information as well?
Mr. Meisner: We have connections to other departments such as Agriculture Canada, if it happens to be carrying some sort of commodity that is banned.
The Chairman: You tell Canada Customs if they had X number of containers and what was in them?
Mr. Meisner: Yes. The information is there. We have a list of suspicious ships. If a ship is on that list, as soon as we are aware that it is coming into Canadian waters, we will contact that particular agency or department that put it on the list.
The Chairman: They do not board the ships unless you have a police officer with you and you have a reason to board.
Mr. Meisner: Right. This is purely a communication function.
The Chairman: You talked about oil spill clean up. You have terrific pictures here.
Is it possible to clean up an oil spill if it is off Hibernia and you are in a 6- or 12-foot sea? I warn you that I will quote from Mr. Hopper as soon as you give me an answer.
Mr. Meisner: I am not an oil spill expert. It will depend on the conditions of the weather, the tide and type of spill in the water.
The Chairman: If you had an average day, an average sea and a sunny day, could you expect to clean up more than 10 per cent of the spill?
Mr. Meisner: I would not want to try to answer because I am not an expert in the oil spill business.
Mr. Lachance: No. We drive ship.
The Chairman: Could someone give us that information about how capable it is in bad weather? Mr. Hopper's answer was that if we had an oil spill at Hibernia, he expected it would clean up by the time it hit Ireland — for what that is worth.
Senator Smith: I presume that there was a good rational for the transfer from the Department of Transport to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Have the wrinkles resulting from that transfer been worked out?
Mr. Lachance: Yes, they have been worked out.
Senator Smith: Are there still difficulties of any consequence?
Mr. Meisner: I am not sure. There are obviously wrinkles, but they are day-to-day management things that I am not sure can be attributed to the move or the fact that we have gone through changes in the six or seven years since we have been over there. The basic premise of merging the two organizations was to merge the fleet and have one common civilian fleet and get the efficiencies out of it.
Senator Smith: How long have you been there?
Mr. Meisner: I was with Transport Canada. I came when the Coast Guard came over.
Senator Smith: You moved over?
Mr. Meisner: I was not with the Coast Guard. I was with Transport Canada and the airports group and came over at the same time as the Coast Guard.
Senator Smith: I am intrigued by the search and rescue category — the 27 helicopters, and the picture you show on page 5 of your submission. That is a Labrador there, you say. How many of your helicopters are Labradors?
Mr. Meisner: That is DND. We are responsible for the marine search and rescue aspect; DND provides the air support.
Senator Smith: You do have 27 helicopters that are yours, separate and apart from DND?
Mr. Lachance: That is correct. We have 27 helicopters that are for the Canadian Coast Guard.
Senator Smith: What are they?
Mr. Lachance: BO-105s, Bell 1206s, Bell 212s and one Sikorsky S61. That is the big one on the West Coast.
Senator Smith: I read about this rescue on the weekend involving the Cormorant. I totally agree with you. I think it is a great plane. What was your reaction to the capabilities that it demonstrated?
Mr. Lachance: It looks like they did a good job.
Senator Smith: It set a record, at least that is what the paper reports indicated. On the West Coast, for example, where you have the Sikorsky, what is its capacity?
Mr. Lachance: It is the only one with search and rescue capacity. It is our heavy lift. It has heavy lift capability and search rescue capability as well.
Senator Smith: How will it be decided when you, as opposed to DND, go? Is there overlap there?
Mr. Lachance: I am not sure how they would decide but I think the distribution of resources for search and rescue takes into account capability of DND and the Coast Guard.
Senator Smith: Where is the main base?
Mr. Meisner: The search and rescue centre on the West Coast.
Senator Smith: Whose jurisdiction is it under?
Mr. Lachance: Department of Defence.
Senator Smith: Would they make the call on these other 27 helicopters, the smaller ones? Would they be sending them to look out for things?
Mr. Lachance: The other helicopters that we have are not equipped to perform search and rescue missions — search, possibly, within the VFR rules, but not rescue missions.
Senator Smith: They are not used to pull people out.
Mr. Lachance: No.
Senator Smith: I am wondering about the statistic you cite in your brief. It says, "On an average day, the Coast Guard saves 55 people and saves 8 lives...'' Is that on an average day?
Mr. Lachance: Yes.
Senator Smith: Eight times 365 would be over 2,900 a year. Really?
Mr. Lachance: Yes.
Senator Smith: It is interesting that most of these helicopters can do the search and rescue. You are comfortable that this is an accurate statistic?
Mr. Lachance: From our vessels particularly, yes.
Senator Smith: Okay. That would be nearly 3,000 a year.
The Chairman: It is seasonal.
Mr. Lachance: It is quite seasonal, yes.
Senator Smith: I am bowled over by that number. Most of these helicopters do not do it, but that is good.
My experience with the Coast Guard is limited. For years, I had a boat that I kept in Cobourg. That is a Coast Guard locale for Lake Ontario. I have been told that it is Cobourg as opposed to other harbours because, geographically, it is closest to the centre of the lake. Every so often, you will see it cruising around. It is probably a 70- footer.
Mr. Lachance: Yes, that is true.
Senator Smith: It is in that range. Let us think of sin, of skullduggery, of things on the edge. If the crew of that Coast Guard boat sees a boat heading to Rochester carrying a bunch of people who they do not think are planning on going through normal immigration procedures or if the crew has reason to believe there may be illicit cargo on board, the crew would not stop that boat?
Mr. Lachance: They have no power to stop it.
Senator Smith: Would they phone the Americans? Who would they phone?
Mr. Lachance: They would get in touch with the Marine Communication and Traffic Service. The network would do it its thing.
Senator Smith: No one else has boats like that 70-footer to stop such a boat? No other agency has boats like that?
Mr. Lachance: Some police forces have boats. The Ontario Provincial Police have a boat.
Senator Smith: The only OPP boat I have seen in the area is perhaps a 20-footer with a 100-horsepower outboard motor. That does not remotely compare with a 75-foot Coast Guard boat. The American Coast Guard has boats to stop boats heading toward the States. If suspicious boats are coming in, though, your hands are tied. Have they always been tied?
Mr. Lachance: The mandate has never been given to the Coast Guard to do police work.
Senator Smith: What is your understanding of why that has never happened? I am not asking whether you agree with that situation. I realize you are civil servants; I do not want to put you in an awkward position. What is your understanding of the rationale of the policy-makers who would determine things such as this?
Inevitably, the Coast Guard has known of suspicious boats but did not do anything because your hands were tied. The question would be raised again. What is the rationale as to why you have none of these powers?
Mr. Meisner: I cannot speculate on the rationale. When the Coast Guard was created in 1962, it had much the same mandate it has now, which was promoting vessel safety and boating safety and supporting maritime commerce. I can only speculate that the incidents that have happened since that time did not justify, for the policy-makers of the day, changing the mandate of the Canadian Coast Guard.
Senator Smith: Let me address one off-the-wall activity that has received a fair bit of publicity recently — namely, the exporting of stolen cars. We read that, for example, in Montreal and Toronto, thousands of cars are stolen annually and they wind up in container ships that seem to sail out of our harbours with impunity.
Have you ever heard of an instance where the Coast Guard saw a cargo ship that they thought might be full of stolen cars? In the grapevine, have you heard of such a thing?
Mr. Meisner: I have never heard of anything. If they did, they probably go through the communication channels and advise those who could do something about it.
Senator Smith: If one of the bigger Coast Guard boats was watching a suspicious boat go right by, you would not have the jurisdiction, even in an extreme case like that, to intercept and stop them on your own?
Mr. Lachance: One would have to know that that kind of cargo was on board. If they are carrying closed containers, the chances of anyone knowing about the presence of stolen goods on the ship are remote.
Senator Smith: So this sphere of activity is one that you never encounter?
Mr. Lachance: That is correct.
The Chairman: Who did the job before 1962?
Mr. Lachance: I guess the Coast Guard got its name in 1962, but there was previously an organization called the Canadian Marine Services that performed those duties.
The Chairman: That was a part of the old MOT?
Mr. Lachance: That is correct.
Senator Atkins: Even further back, during the war, did MOT or National Defence perform those duties?
Mr. Lachance: I could not tell you that. I would have to look into our history books.
Mr. Meisner: At one point, the functions were under the Department of Fisheries and Oceans before they went to MOT.
The Chairman: If you go back far enough, it was the Colonial Office of the Royal Navy.
Mr. Meisner: The Coast Guard and its functions have quite a chronology throughout the years.
Senator Atkins: They used to have military along the New Brunswick shore during the war.
Senator Banks: I am a prairie chicken so this is mostly new to me — not entirely, though. Most Canadians would be distressed about the anecdotal situation that Senator Smith has referenced. If something is going wrong near a big Canadian ship with Canadian officers and with a Canadian flag flying, while working at sea or on a large lake, there is literally nothing that could be done because of a lack of authority. That is a comment; not a question.
Can I get a thumbnail version of the various sizes of the 104 vessels in the Coast Guard fleet? I know some are quite small but how far down does that go in the 104 count? Does that include Zodiacs?
Mr. Lachance: No. We do not go into Zodiacs. We go down to about 47 feet.
Senator Banks: That would be the smallest vessel counted among the 104?
Mr. Lachance: Yes.
Senator Banks: How many of those are "ocean-going vessels''?
Mr. Lachance: We have about 42 that could be called ocean-going vessels. The rest are basically coastal vessels.
Senator Banks: My main concern has to do with the North and sovereignty. Many people are greatly concerned about our lack of presence, our inability to exercise a demonstrable sovereign presence — showing the flag — in the North. We lack the ability to do icebreaking in the North 12 months of the year. As you said, our biggest icebreakers do not go there in the wintertime.
To some ignorant people, like myself, it seems absurd that Canada can claim so much ice-bound territory — although the ice-affected area seems to be growing gradually smaller — and yet we do not have year-round icebreaking capability as other nations do.
Are there any plans afoot to allow for Canadian sea-going, if not a naval, presence, in the North in the winter months?
Mr. Lachance: No, there is no such plan, sir.
Senator Banks: With respect to the over-the-horizon recognition of ships of interest that are coming to Canada with cargo or persons of interest on board — the Eastern Canada Vessel Traffic Service, for example — and with new technological applications, there is no interdiction authority that resides in the Canadian Coast Guard; is that correct?
Mr. Meisner: Correct.
Senator Banks: If a ship loaded with heaven knows what is coming towards Canada, and it ought not to be, and the Coast Guard is much closer to the vessel than the navy, can it just sail right by you, thumbing its nose? Could a ship get in front of another ship and slow it down by zigzag motions? Is there literally nothing we can do? Would the criminal go by literally saying, "Hello, fellows, we are sure glad that is red and white instead of white and red''?
Mr. Meisner: The premise of the regime of the security of domain awareness is an interdepartmental approach. With the DND having their over-the-horizon radar, we would have an understanding of what vessels were out there, and we would have a long-range tracking system to tell us which ones are so-called suspicious ships. You will know about them far enough out that you can send a navy ship to intercept them before they got to Canadian waters.
Senator Banks: I am just surprised, as I think others would be, to learn this is true in those circumstances.
Senator Wiebe: Correct me if I am wrong, but for the benefit of Senator Banks and myself, coming from Saskatchewan, it is my understanding that the Coast Guard has personnel and a presence in the Prairie provinces. Is that correct?
Mr. Lachance: We do have a presence on Lake Winnipeg.
Senator Wiebe: Are there none in Saskatchewan?
Mr. Meisner: We have responsibilities under the Navigable Water Protection Act. It is mandated within all provinces because it covers freshwater. I cannot answer whether we actually have staff in Saskatchewan, but we do have responsibilities there.
Senator Wiebe: It is my understanding that the Coast Guard does have a presence in Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba, especially as it relates to large lakes and fisheries. I must check this out. However, I was hoping that you could save me a little bit of groundwork.
However, it is my understanding that officers of the Coast Guard are responsible for large reservoirs that have been built and that stock fish. When those gates are open to irrigate land, some of this fish cannot be contained in the reservoir. There is regulatory concern, on the part of the farmers who are irrigating, if a fish happens to land on their property out of water.
Mr. Meisner: I am familiar with the subject you are talking about. However, it is the Department of Fisheries and Oceans fish management issue — which is not the Coast Guard. It is the same department, but not part of the Coast Guard.
Senator Wiebe: It is not Coast Guard personnel that are actually doing that, then?
Mr. Meisner: No, but the Coast Guard also has a role in that same circumstance for our navigable waters protection, where something constructed in any navigable waterway has to get a permit.
Senator Wiebe: So the Coast Guard would have to look after the permit for the construction?
Mr. Meisner: Anything that is constructed in water that is deemed to be navigable needs a permit.
There is also another permit that is required from the fish management side so that you are not destroying any fish habitat. However, that is not within the purview of the Coast Guard.
Senator Wiebe: It is right that there are actually Coast Guard personnel there, then, because they have to authorize the permit and check it out.
Mr. Meisner: I am not sure we are actually based there. We have a jurisdiction there. I can find out if we have any people in Saskatchewan.
Senator Wiebe: That would help me out.
In response to Senator Forrestall's first question, you said that was some amalgamation that took place within the last year within the department with which you were happy. Could you explain that?
Mr. Meisner: If I recall correctly, I think we were talking about the ability to respond to a marine security incident. I replied that we worked collaboratively with other agencies and departments to come up with a Canadian approach to marine security. There was not any reorganization. It was just different agencies and departments working better together.
Senator Banks: The question Senator Wiebe is talking about that Senator Forrestall asked was the transfer from transport to fisheries, and did that cause any difficulties.
Mr. Meisner: Pardon me; I thought you were referring to something that happened in the last year.
Senator Wiebe: It seems to me that in the last number of years, the government tries to solve some departmental problems by setting up a new branch of a department. As a result, we are getting many different agencies responsible for the same thing; there is a tremendous amount of overlapping. My feeling is that rather than doing that, we should be consolidating many of the different agencies. I could probably give you a number of areas of consolidation that would be to the advantage of the security of our coastline.
Since your responsibility, Mr. Meisner, is policy development, do you suggest policy in that regard to your department to encourage the amalgamation of responsibilities and agencies?
Mr. Meisner: Not at the agency level. That would be a higher-level policy. I think it would be more for the Privy Council office and machinery-of-government issue.
Senator Wiebe: If you see something that could work better by amalgamation, are you able to make that suggestion to senior policy people?
Mr. Meisner: Certainly. If there was something that I thought could be run more efficiently or effectively, it is within my mandate to make a recommendation or suggestion.
Senator Wiebe: There has been a suggestion made that possibly the Coast Guard and the military, especially the navy, should be looking at some sort of an amalgamation. What would be your response to that suggestion?
Mr. Meisner: I do not think I would want to respond to that at this stage. I have not given it any thought. It would be pure speculation.
Senator Wiebe: That is fair.
The Chairman: Senator Wiebe asked for some information. If you could provide the clerk with that information, please. We would also be interested in knowing the location of the five regions and headquarters, if you have a map that lays that out. We would like a brief outline, including names of the 104 base fleet vessels that you have, including the hovercraft, the 27 helicopters and two fixed wing aircraft, and the 11 bases. They are items on page 2 of your chart, background on everything except bullet 1, and bullet 4 and 5.
If that is not clear, the clerk will run through it for you again.
Senator Atkins: You brief mentions lightstations. Are these lighthouses?
Mr. Lachance: Yes.
Senator Atkins: They are now called lightstations because they are automatic rather than human manned?
Mr. Meisner: Most of them.
Senator Atkins: How many do we have manned?
Mr. Meisner: I believe we have 51. I may be off, but it is on that order of magnitude.
Senator Atkins: On both coasts?
Mr. Meisner: I believe there are 26 in Newfoundland, 24 on the West Coast and one in New Brunswick. I may be off by two or three either way.
Senator Atkins: Did these replace existing lighthouses or were they strategically placed in different locations because it would provide a better navigational network?
Mr. Meisner: Are you referring to the automated lightstations?
Senator Atkins: Yes.
Mr. Meisner: I am not sure I know the exact detail with regard to that question. For the most part, they are in the same locations.
Senator Atkins: Are you going to get rid of the rest of the manned ones?
Senator Forrestall: Ask him if the technology works.
Senator Atkins: That is the next question.
Mr. Meisner: We are satisfied with the technology and the way it is working.
Senator Atkins: Will you continue to reduce the number of manned lighthouses? I have to report back to Senator Pat Carney.
Mr. Meisner: I am not sure if there are any plans in the works either way concerning manned lighthouses. It will all be determined through the modernization of our aids to navigation program. That will be one component as technology improves; but there are no solid plans at this stage.
Senator Atkins: I have a question regarding inland waters. I am thinking, for example, of the Saint John River. Has the Canadian Coast Guard cut back on the number of buoys and navigational indicators that are important for navigating a river like the Saint John River or even the St. Lawrence River for that matter?
Mr. Meisner: I cannot answer specifically with respect to any particular waterway. In general, we have reduced the number of aids to navigation as both the technology for aids and ships improves, we have less demand for those standard aids.
Senator Atkins: Do you mean reflectors and those sorts of things?
Mr. Meisner: There are automatic communications devices onboard.
Senator Atkins: That takes me to another question I had about ships. We know the number of them, but are they being continually upgraded in terms of technology?
Mr. Meisner: Do you mean our ships?
Senator Atkins: Yes.
Mr. Lachance: In terms of electronics, yes. They are upgraded as the electronics become obsolete.
Senator Atkins: Is that a continuing refit?
Mr. Lachance: Yes.
Senator Atkins: In terms of the integration of communications systems, for instance, is there a network that works with Transport Canada, National Defence, Environment Canada and the RCMP? Or does communication through the Canadian Coast Guard go to a centre point in which it is then redirected to whatever authority?
Mr. Meisner: In principle, it is basically the latter. Through our Marine Communications and Traffic centres, we receive the communications and then fan them out to the appropriate organizations and their communication networks.
Senator Atkins: Take me through an example, say, on the East Coast. If you were to run into a situation where you think the issue is broader than your own responsibilities as the Canadian Coast Guard, how would it work?
Mr. Meisner: Let us use the example of a suspicious vessel. Let us say the RCMP has put a certain ship on the list. As soon as that ship reports in with its name, our Marine Communications Traffic Service operator would check the list. If it were on the list with an RCMP designation beside it, then the RCMP would be contacted immediately. We would give the position of the ship and where it is headed.
Senator Atkins: Let us use the example of the RCMP. They only have one helicopter in Atlantic Canada. If they need any helicopter services, can they go to the Canadian Coast Guard for assistance?
Mr. Lachance: Yes, they can. We have a memorandum of understanding with the RCMP for that purpose, for ships and helicopters.
The Chairman: Could you please give us the number of days contracted by each department and the cost to the departments to whom you provide this service? You do not need to give us that information now. You can provide it subsequently.
Mr. Lachance: Yes.
The Chairman: How much of the cost is recovered? Is it a break-even operation or a profit-making operation? You probably do not want to tell me that.
Mr. Meisner: I can tell you it is not profit making.
The Chairman: If we could have that information, together with the other information you will be providing, that would be helpful.
Senator Atkins: In terms of human resources, is the Canadian Coast Guard up to full strength?
Mr. Lachance: Yes.
Senator Atkins: Can you tell me about your recruiting process?
Mr. Lachance: We have to recruit through the Public Service Commission. As for officers, we recruit them and send them for training at the Coast Guard college in Sydney, Nova Scotia. For ship crews, we recruit locally.
Senator Atkins: Do you get many ex-navy officers?
Mr. Lachance: We do get some personnel from retired navy people, yes.
Senator Atkins: So there is a Coast Guard school.
Mr. Lachance: There is a Coast Guard College, yes, in Sydney.
The Chairman: How are you doing with your operating budget? Has it been cut back? We hear reports that you are not steaming the same number of hours you were last year. We hear reports that there are Coast Guard individuals who do not have adequate uniforms. We have heard that you had to break off an exercise on the West Coast with your American counterparts because you ran out of money. They thought the exercise went rather well until you had to stop because you did not have enough money.
Tell us whether you have enough money. Tell us where it is pinching because we know you do not have enough.
Mr. Lachance: We certainly have a capital problem.
The Chairman: You cannot buy new ships, is that right?
Mr. Lachance: Not enough, that is correct.
The Chairman: If you were buying new ships, how many would you be buying a year? In a perfect world, if you were to go ahead with your business plan as projected, do you need one or two a year, if you are to replace your existing fleet?
Mr. Lachance: We would be buying maybe four or five a year, and perhaps more.
The Chairman: When was the last time you bought one?
Mr. Lachance: We are buying some right now. They are 47-footers.
The Chairman: When was the last time you bought an icebreaker?
Mr. Lachance: 1987.
The Chairman: How old is your oldest one?
Mr. Lachance: The Louis St. Laurent, which was built in 1968.
The Chairman: What is this business about not getting enough cruising time or going at lower than normal speed to conserve fuel. Is there anything to that? Is that just stuff in the press or is it actually happening?
Mr. Lachance: Given that it is quite cold outside, the ice season is severe and the price of fuel has gone up, those are conservation measures to keep operating within budget.
The Chairman: Have you had any restrictions on your budget? Have you been told that you have to find money out of the budget for fiscal 2003-04, or for fiscal 2002-03, money that you thought was yours at one point and is not yours now?
Mr. Lachance: Not that I am aware of.
The Chairman: So the reductions we hear about involving your ops tempo are not true; is that right? We have had cold winters before. We assume you always go slower in winter.
Mr. Meisner: We have had budget reductions since project review in 1995-96, and we are still living within those reductions. I do not think there has been any reduction this fiscal year or last fiscal year.
The Chairman: What about sailors who do not have adequate uniforms and are wearing their own clothes because they cannot come up with a complete kit? Do all of your crew have complete kits?
Mr. Lachance: Most of them. Oh yes, they do.
The Chairman: Most of them, or all of them?
Mr. Lachance: Some may not have them due to shortage of stock or things like that, but there is enough.
The Chairman: You do not attach much weight to the press stories we have heard that report a shortage of clothing and equipment for members of the Coast Guard? That is not true?
Mr. Lachance: There may be cases, but it is not widespread.
The Chairman: Are you telling us that, generally speaking, it is a rare exception?
Mr. Lachance: Yes.
The Chairman: What about the story of the operations with the Americans that had to be stopped midway because you people ran out of gas? Is that true?
Mr. Lachance: I am not aware of that one.
The Chairman: It did not happen?
Mr. Meisner: I am not saying it did not happen. We are just not aware of it.
The Chairman: It hit all the papers. Could someone look into that, please? In the last three months an American Coast Guard commander came back and said, "Those Canadians are terrific guys but they have a funny kind of government that does not give them the money to do the job.'' I am paraphrasing, but that was the essence of it, and it was reported sometime since November. The essence of the story was that partway through an exercise the Canadian Coast Guard, not because of operational needs but because of financial needs, could not complete the exercise.
Senator Forrestall: I would like to have some information that you can send to us later. Could we have a brief description of the bulk of the work done by the bulk of the helicopters? I would like to know how you get to remote locations where there are weather stations — lighthouses, foghorns or automated systems — and how you get to manned stations. Is that the bulk of their work?
Mr. Lachance: They are used for navigational work and to maintain lighthouses and lightstations. They are also used in support of icebreakers in the Arctic. Icebreakers do carry helicopters when they go up in the Arctic for ice reconnaissance and general shipboard duty. There are few wharfs in the Arctic, so one way to shuttle between shore and ship is by helicopter.
Senator Forrestall: Do you have an icebreaker in the Arctic today?
Mr. Lachance: No.
Senator Forrestall: Did we not winterize one there last year?
Mr. Lachance: We did winterize one in the polar ice pack with Project SHEBA three years ago.
Senator Forrestall: Do we have any working relations with your Russian counterparts in the Arctic waters with respect to pollution, for example?
Mr. Lachance: No.
Senator Forrestall: Do you ever speak to or meet with them?
Mr. Meisner: Yes.
Senator Forrestall: In what capacity would you do that?
Mr. Meisner: There is an organization called the Pacific Heads of Coast Guard Agencies comprising ourselves, the United States, Russia, Korea, Japan and China, that meets twice a year to have a dialogue on common areas of interest. It is not formalized through a MOU. They basically have meetings and discussions.
Senator Forrestall: Am I right in assuming that it is only the Russians and the Canadians who are in the Arctic with icebreaker capability?
Mr. Lachance: The Americans have gone into the Arctic.
Senator Forrestall: Is the icebreaker that they built up there?
Mr. Lachance: They had the Polar Sea and the Polar Star in the Arctic.
Senator Forrestall: Are they there now?
Mr. Lachance: No. They do not have the capability to operate in winter.
Senator Forrestall: They do not?
Mr. Lachance: No.
Senator Banks: Does anyone?
Mr. Lachance: The Finns do not. The Russians probably have.
Senator Forrestall: We do not exchange information with them?
Mr. Lachance: No.
Senator Forrestall: Is that a good thing or a bad thing, or does it matter? Obviously it is not important. However, I would have thought it was.
Mr. Meisner: I am not sure if it is a good or a bad thing. We have conversations and dialogue with them, but not joint operations.
Senator Forrestall: Is the Canadian Coast Guard doing any monitoring or scientific work with regard to the thawing up there?
Mr. Lachance: We provide a lot of support to scientists going to the Arctic to measure climate change and such things. We carry scientists on our vessels to the Arctic, either on an opportunity basis or in a dedicated fashion. The old Franklin icebreaker is currently being refitted and will be converted into a scientific platform to conduct experiments in the Arctic in the summertime.
Senator Forrestall: Do we have any programs on stream for the coming season?
Mr. Lachance: I believe we do for the next season, yes.
Senator Forrestall: Will there be one major program or a series of programs?
Mr. Lachance: There will probably be a series of programs. The Franklin will be a dedicated vessel, but we probably have other opportunity basis programs that will take place, as they do every summer.
Senator Forrestall: Are there any oceanographic vessels up there, or is there such a thing any more?
Mr. Lachance: No.
Senator Forrestall: Is there an oceanographic fleet?
Mr. Lachance: No.
Senator Forrestall: Have they all been scrapped?
Mr. Lachance: The Hudson is still operating, but she does not go north.
Senator Banks: Do you give consideration to whether we can continue to claim sovereignty in a place that we cannot be? I am talking about our navigable waters claim, which is disputed by some who say, "No, those aren't yours; they are everyone's.'' Do you consider that in your policy decisions?
Mr. Meisner: No, not really. That is a question better left with the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Senator Banks: In answer to an earlier question, you said that members of the Coast Guard usually stay in the region in which they were recruited. I suspect that you are aware of the report of the Auditor General last year wherein she commented that there was not really Coast Guard but rather a bunch of regional Coast Guards that do not have much to do with each. The Auditor General thought it would be more efficacious if they had more to do with each other and if there was a more centralized management.
What is your reaction to that criticism? Have you reacted to that criticism? Do you agree with it and, if so, have you started to correct it?
Mr. Meisner: I believe that the comment of the Auditor General was that we are operating like five Coast Guards — not that we actually are — and that there are certain things that we need to put in place to make it operate more as a single national entity. We have not responded to her report yet.
Senator Banks: Was she partly right?
Mr. Meisner: She is partly right. We have five regions with distinctions; you will have differences in each region, which contribute to operating differently. We also have similarities in every region that makes us work as one united Coast Guard. There are pros and cons to her observation.
Senator Banks: Is there planning afoot to address those observations?
Mr. Meisner: We just received the report a couple of months ago and we are now in the process of developing an action plan to respond to it.
Senator Banks: When that is done, please let us know.
Do we have a complete radar picture of our coasts on your watch?
Mr. Meisner: Not that I am aware of. The DND has a radar picture, as well. I am not sure what the completeness of the two organizations is.
Senator Banks: Are the communications you send about a shipment or a person of interest secure?
Mr. Meisner: I would have to check into that.
Senator Banks: Would you let us know that, as well?
Mr. Meisner: Certainly.
The Chairman: I wish to thank the witnesses, for appearing before us. Their presentation has been instructive.
We appreciate having heard your views and to have had an overview of the work you do and the responsibilities of the Canadian Coast Guard. We intend to pursue some of these issues further. We look forward to having you back before the committee to assist us in our examination. It is possible that we may ask to visit some of your facilities to have a better look at them.
The information you have given us will be useful to the committee when it travels to the United States, particularly in respect of the differences you have drawn to our attention between the American Coast Guard and the Canadian one. On that subject, if we could have a short précis of where we are the same and where we are different, that would be useful.
We will continue our briefings on Canada-United States relations in preparation for its trip to Washington to meet with members of Congress and administration officials during the last week of March.
Before we hear from our next witness, I would like to welcome back Senator Jack Wiebe, from Saskatchewan, who is one of Saskatchewan's leading citizens. He has served as Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan. He has also been a member of the Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly and a highly successful farmer. He is currently the Saskatchewan Chair of the Canadian Forces Liaison Council.
Senator Wiebe is the Deputy Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, which is currently looking at the impact of climate change on farming and forestry practices across the country. He also sits on the Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament, and on the Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs.
Honourable senators, our next witness is Mr. Ward Elcock. Welcome to the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence.
Mr. Ward Elcock, Director, Canadian Security Intelligence Service: Mr. Chairman, I will try to answer to the best of my ability any questions that you may have.
Senator Forrestall: I have a couple of questions pertaining to the budget of CSIS, which was to increase in December 2001 by 32 per cent over a five-year period.
Current estimates suggest that part of that increase will be held back, if not taken away. Is there an explanation for the apparent reduction in the projected CSIS budgets in 2003-04, from $259 million to $253.7 million; and in 2004-05, from $268 million to $261.6 million? Excluding capital costs, that will have to be done with respect to instruction and to the attendant normal increases in operational costs. Is it fair to say that your budget is frozen and will continue to be frozen?
Mr. Elcock: No, I am not sure what the senator is referring to. The budget increase we received is over a five-year period. I am unaware of any freeze or reduction in what we will receive.
Senator Forrestall: I am pleased to hear that. I had heard differently but I am pleased to hear your positive comment.
Mr. Elcock: There has been no freeze, as far as I am aware, unless there is something that I have not heard about, that would surprise me.
Senator Forrestall: By May 2002, the budget of 2001 had allowed CSIS to rebuild its human resources to 2,300 from a low of about 2,000. Is that correct?
Mr. Elcock: We now have about 2,100 staff. It is my guess that, by the time we are finished, we will have closer to 2,400 staff. Guessing the exact figure is difficult because it is an imprecise game. It will also vary over time because there is always a certain ebb and flow of the people you have and the skills that you want.
The department's human resources will number approximately 2,400.
Senator Forrestall: How many of those would have less than five-years training or experience?
Mr. Elcock: Obviously, the greater proportion of the people that we are hiring in the current period will have — since they are being hired in the five-year period — will have five years or less.
Senator Forrestall: As your baby boomers disappear and your new recruiting begins, the department will have many new people on staff. I do not know how many will retire in the next seven to eight years but I am concerned about how you will replace them. How is recruitment shaping up? Are you able to attract new recruits and are you able to retain them?
Mr. Elcock: We have not had a problem since the inception of the service in 1984. We had a constant policy of hiring regardless of whether we were reducing or increasing our staff numbers. We have continued to hire to ensure that we did not have gaps in our population.
Obviously, some of the former RCMP officers are now reaching retirement age, as are some of the baby boomers. There are obviously some gaps in places. For example, the RCMP ceased hiring for a period before 1984 and people were not being hired for the security service in that period of time.
However, we do not envisage any extraordinary challenges. We have never had any problem in finding a flow of people from whom we can get good highly qualified candidates, and we do not foresee any problem in the future. Since September 11, in particular, the number of people who apply has gone up.
Senator Forrestall: I am pleased to hear you mention your success in this regard. I would like to ask you about recruiting and retaining members in some of the critical ethnic and religious minorities, such as the Muslims, the Palestinians, the Sikhs and the Sunni. How are you doing in that field?
Mr. Elcock: It is important for us, as a service, to represent the country and draw our people from across a number of ethnic backgrounds. Canada is, increasingly, a multi-ethnic country. We do not hire a specific group of people to target the same specific group of people. We hire so that the population of the service is representative of Canadian society. To the extent that we need specific language skills or that kind of assistance, we would hire for that specifically, and have had no trouble doing so. Indeed, one of the advantages of being a multi-ethnic country is that it is not hard to find a broad range of language skills, which often is not the case in some other countries. We have not confronted any problems in that respect.
It is sometimes difficult to recruit people from some communities to work in a service like CSIS. They may come from a country where the security or intelligence services are less popular than they are in Canada. As a result, they may not be willing to join a service like ours. However, we have had a fair amount of success in attracting people from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds and we try to do that to the extent we can.
Senator Forrestall: As the nature of our country changes, it seems important that as we recruit we encourage the trust of these people.
Mr. Elcock: That is absolutely the case, senator.
Senator Forrestall: I am pleased to hear you say that. I will leave the criticisms aside.
With respect to manpower and what not, you seem to be painting a rosy picture here. Do you see any pitfalls ahead? We are going off to the U.S., and you can always pick up the phone and tell them what you want them to say to us.
Mr. Elcock: I suspect that I would have as much success with senators or congressmen in the United States as I would have here with parliamentarians or senators.
The Chairman: You would be spectacular.
Mr. Elcock: You have asked me a couple of questions, senator, and the answers are relatively positive in the sense that we do not have, as far as I know, any problem in our budget at this juncture. One can always use more money if there is more money to be had. However, the reality is that our present challenge is to absorb the money we are in the process of getting from the original December budget following from the events of September 11.
As to people, our situation has been generally pretty good. There are challenges but they are not extraordinary challenges. We do, however, as a country and as a service, live in interesting times. The effects of September 11 are still being felt. The al-Qaeda has not disappeared. There is a level of threat that gives all of us cause for concern and we may be on the verge of a war that may have its own problems. It is not exactly a rosy picture, but we are in the business of trying to look at those things, assess them and gone on rather than being panicked by them.
The Chairman: To clear up the question of financing, Senator Forrestall was referring to the CSIS 2001 public report where budget and staffing levels were extended out to 2006-07. It looked like an increase from $196 million to $205 million in 2001-02, followed by constant funding and constant staffing at the 2004 level into the future, with the exception of some money for inflation and capital costs that are not clear to us. Have we got the right picture of your funding?
Mr. Elcock: If you are referring to the funding that came out of the December budget, that was not a regular amount. It tends to fill out in later years.
The Chairman: Are you saying there is a balloon element to it, as you get closer to 2007?
Mr. Elcock: Yes, it is not equal tranches through each year. You cannot assume it will automatically go up the same amount year after year. It is over a five-year period, but the money is provided in varying amounts. I do not recall the specific breakdown.
The Chairman: Therefore, if you were an investment banker, you would say it is a balloon payment.
Mr. Elcock: In a sense, yes.
The Chairman: Thank you. That was unclear in the information coming from the report.
Mr. Elcock: At that time, it was unclear precisely how it would come to us. However, these things become clear with time.
The Chairman: We have been hearing stories that folks are stealing your best people.
Mr. Elcock: Certainly, in the period after September 11, there are a number of departments who have new needs for people with the kind of experience that CSIS officers have. There was a spike for a short period of time in terms of the number of people looking for jobs. However, it was not an extraordinary spike. Generally speaking, our departure rates have been very low — especially in comparison to private industry — and they have slowed in the last few months. Our retention rate has been good in the last while. I would hardly say we have lost very many of our best people.
The Chairman: Are you saying that the ones that have gone have been the second- or third-rate ones?
Mr. Elcock: No, I only meant that we have not lost very many people.
The Chairman: The rumours we heard seemed logical because it seems cheaper to buy the knowledge and experience than it does to train it and acquire it. How long does it take you to train someone to be competent in the fields in which you specialize? Can someone do that in year one, or does it take three years or five years? At what point are you confident that you have an agent who is capable of operating relatively unsupervised?
Mr. Elcock: It depends what you mean; there is not an absolute. In technical terms, the initial training period for our officers is essentially five years, This is the time when officers are on probation, when we put them through a period of training and education classes and so on. At the end of that period, they are fully incorporated into the service.
That said, even in the first year, anybody who joins the service is working on a desk and making a contribution after a period in a classroom. Obviously, not quite the contribution that somebody who has 10 or 15 years experience will make, but they are in the process of making a contribution. Indeed, some of our younger officers have skills that allow them to make contributions very early on.
The Chairman: What if you have a choice of a surgeon with one year out of medical school or 10 years' experience?
Mr. Elcock: There is no question that we would rather have people instantaneously do their five-year qualifications and be at a five-year or ten-year level. However, it takes a period before they are fully competent and experienced enough.
The Chairman: However, the surgeon analogy is not a bad one from your point of view?
Mr. Elcock: We do not cut people open, but obviously, somebody with 10 years' experience is preferable to somebody with less.
The Chairman: Has it been your senior people who have been going — who have this 10- or 15-year experience — or has it been the one-year people?
Mr. Elcock: As I said, in the last while we have not had a very high loss rate at all. It has been commensurate with what it has been over the years. We would have more concern if it were younger officers leaving, rather than the 15- year officers. We have not had very high departure rates among 15-year officers. Both would give us concern, but obviously, if you put five years into training an officer and they leave, that is a large investment for not much return.
The Chairman: Before we return to the list, with Senator Forrestall, you started giving us an overview of the concerns you saw facing Canada from your unique perspective. Would you care to spend a couple of minutes assisting the committee with that overview? Could you give us a run through of the risks and threats you see from where you sit?
Mr. Elcock: There is a wide range of risks reflected in the activities of the service, as we have said in our public reports. Counterterrorism remains our primary concern. As I have said on a number of occasions, the Sunni Islamic extremist and terrorist groups, and al-Qaeda in particular, remain our particular concern.
Having said that, we also have a large program in respect of counter-proliferation, dealing with the acquisition by various countries of dual-use products or material that could be used in a nuclear, biological or chemical weapons program, amongst others. We still have a very large counter-intelligence program. Intelligence services have not disappeared, and the desire of some countries to collect intelligence in a variety of parts of the world, including Canada, continues and it provides work for us on a continuing basis.
It was, in a sense, very little change for us on September 11. We are still concerned about most of the things we were concerned about then. The proportion of energy and effort we would put into al-Qaeda and the Sunni extremist and terrorist groups has been the biggest change. We have put more efforts into that. It will be over a period of time, as we bring in new officers, that we will be able to look back at some of those other concerns and put some of the resources back into those programs. Obviously, much more of the effort now goes to counter-terrorism, and in particular the Sunni terrorist and al-Qaeda investigations.
The Chairman: Is there anything you would care to add to that?
Mr. Elcock: I am happy to try to address any concerns the committee has. However, we have pretty carefully sketched out, in our public statements and in any statements that I have given, the kinds of concerns we have. Those are primarily the areas of concern for us, counter-terrorism with a real emphasis on specifically Sunni extremists and al-Qaeda.
The Chairman: In terms of dealing with immigration, how far behind are you on the immigration load? If someone is coming and you are starting a file today on someone, say in country X overseas, how long does it take before you are able to pass a judgment on him or her?
Mr. Elcock: Are we talking about an individual who arrives here as a refugee claimant, or someone who has come to a Canadian embassy to become an immigrant?
The Chairman: I would take both, but the latter was the question.
Mr. Elcock: I do not have the current rate off the top of my head, senator. In most cases, it is processed fairly quickly. If it is an in-Canada case, it is now done electronically and, unless there is a hit when running it through our database, which would obviously necessitate some kind of investigation, it would generally happen very quickly.
Similarly, in many cases, applications from abroad would also be handled electronically. Similarly, the transmission of files back and forth across the ocean enables us to deal with the information more quickly than it would otherwise be dealt with, with the transmission of files back and forth across the ocean.
Once you get into an investigation, then it obviously becomes more difficult. Those cases will inevitably take longer, depending on the specifics. If you are looking at someone from a country that is in disrepair, where records are not extant and information is difficult to find, it will obviously take longer than somewhere where you can easily check records and make an assessment that gives you comfort.
The Chairman: Shifting the subject slightly, we have had people who run airports tell us their ground crew are checked by CSIS. How much comfort should this committee take when we are told that ground crew is checked by CSIS?
Mr. Elcock: It would be my hope, Mr. Chairman, that you take great comfort in that.
The Chairman: Is that because you do a full field investigation and you understand who their friends are and what their bank accounts are like?
Mr. Elcock: Depending on their level of access and what is required, we would do a check through our system. In some cases, that would necessitate further investigation, in others it would not.
The Chairman: If you had to break it out in terms of percentages, would 98 per cent simply be typing their name into a computer and getting a hit or not, and 2 per cent be a field investigation?
Mr. Elcock: I am not sure it is 98 per cent to 2 per cent, but it would not be 50-50. A relatively small number of cases would have a hit, but there would be a number of cases that would have hits that would take longer. It is a relatively small proportion, but I cannot say 2 per cent is right.
The Chairman: If someone comes back to us and says they have been checked by CSIS, what they are telling us is that you have determined whether they are a person of interest or not.
Mr. Elcock: When we run someone through our database, it is not simply a records check. It is a fairly extensive check on everything we would have in our database, on connections and associations and so on.
It is a fairly thorough check, as distinct from simply running someone through a criminal record check. It is a slightly different process.
The Chairman: They go through the Canadian Police Information Centre, CPIC as well.
Mr. Elcock: They would go through CPIC as well; however, using our database is different from simply seeing whether you have a criminal record.
The Chairman: If you were checking on a groomer or a baggage handler at an airport, and sent the name back to the airport authorities saying, "they look fine by us,'' people should be confident that these people have not come to your attention as being problematic. They are not involved in subversive groups or they do not have friends that would lead you to be curious about them.
Mr. Elcock: That would be correct.
The Chairman: How confident would you be then that they were not putting drugs or other material on the aircraft or taking it off, after having done one of these checks? Is that an indicator or a predicator of their reliability or honesty?
Mr. Elcock: Whether they were doing that or not would have some indication as to their reliability. However, we would have very little unless it appeared in our records, because it was an association with other information. We do not investigate people's drug habits, nor do we do much in the way of investigation of the importation and distribution of drugs. That is really a police function. We would likely have some information in our files and we might come across a situation like that, but the reality is we would not be the primary agency. That would be more for the police. It is generally their responsibility.
The Chairman: My point to you is this: CSIS is being used as a good seal of approval.
Mr. Elcock: In respect of national security risks, yes, it is.
The Chairman: When we are looking at a baggage handler or a ground worker around an airplane, the message comes back that we do not need to search those people physically, because they have had the seal of approval from CSIS. We do not necessarily share that view, but I want you to know how it is coming back to us. This good housekeeping seal is almost as though it has a star on it and the words "Ward Elcock-approved'' underneath.
Mr. Elcock: When we give someone a clearance, it means they can be given a pass with some security. However, the issue of whether or not people should be searched is not an issue that is part of our investigation. I know the committee has reported on that issue in the past.
The Chairman: Absolutely. You are an innocent bystander in this. We understand that, but we want to know where your zeal is going. If you are examining other government employees, do you do it more thoroughly than you do ground agents?
Mr. Elcock: It depends on the level of clearance that someone might be requesting in the context of a public servant. In some investigations, a full field is required, and in others it is not.
Senator Wiebe: One of my concerns is in regard to those who claim refugee status, and especially those who come to our country from another country via air. When they board the aircraft, they must have proper documentation or they are denied the opportunity to board that aircraft. Yet, for some reason, when they land in our country, their documentation is missing. They cannot provide it. Here in Canada, that individual is asked to fill out some forms, is given a brief examination, and then in most cases is released into the community.
Is CSIS part of that brief examination at the airport? If not, is CSIS advised or notified that that individual has been granted refugee status and released into the community? If you are advised, do you follow that up in terms of security on that individual?
Mr. Elcock: This is a relatively recent introduction and it was actually agreed to before September 11. Citizenship and Immigration Canada, CIC asked us to begin a program of reviewing all applicants for refugee status, which we had not done prior to that. It was really only if someone came to our attention through our own investigations.
We now receive all of the refugee claimants and obviously do what we can to investigate those specific individuals. Obviously, that again is not a perfect situation. In some cases, people are either trying to hide their identity or indeed have false documentation that takes some time to clarify, or they are coming from a country where it may take some time to establish their bona fides. It is not a perfect world. The process does involve a beginning of a review of each refugee claimant as they arrive, as part of our process now.
Senator Wiebe: I can understand that being part of the process for someone that may come in by land and not understand the system within Canada. However, for someone coming in by air, having had the documentation in order to board that aircraft and knowingly destroyed that documentation, it would immediately send up a flag that that individual is trying to pull something over on our country.
When that situation happens at an airport, are the immigration officials at the airport trained enough to provide the proper screening for that brief examination or does CSIS have an individual there to be able to undergo that? Is that individual who has knowingly already broken the law by stepping off that airplane and destroying his documentation held until the situation is cleared by CSIS?
Mr. Elcock: The issue of whether or not he would be held is a question you need to address with Immigration. We often assist in interviews at airports and have people at the airports or make someone available if CIC requests it and we do not have an office at that particular airport.
Senator Atkins: Following the same analogy, when that person gets off the plane, he or she is protected by the Charter, which makes it difficult either for Customs and Immigration or even for you. Do you find that the Charter makes your job more difficult? It is rhetorical question.
Mr. Elcock: Mr. Chairman, the only answer I can give to that is that we do operate within the law, whatever the law happens to be. The Charter does not really impact on our work because our work is simply trying to identify the individual and obtain some information. The Charter would be more relevant to the interaction between the individual and CIC and the law endorsement officials. We are really there as an information gatherer and as an organization that is attempting to make sense of who the individual is and where they come from.
Senator Atkins: I would think it would interest you if that person gets off the plane, fills out documents and then is let out into the country. Do you have any suggestions for how those people can be tracked? I gather there are a lot of them here and we do not even know where they are.
Mr. Elcock: That is part of the immigration process, and they can give you a better sense of how that works. From our point of view, obviously we are doing a check of the individuals when they arrive. We have a record of them. We have a capacity, as we go down the road in the investigations, to see whether they come to our attention in a way that would give us any cause for concern. The reality is that most of the individuals that are of concern that come in through that stream would be making contact with someone who is already someone we know something about. If there is a problem, it is usually not one that escapes our attention for very long. That being said, we are in the business of trying to know what we do not know, so there are always risks.
Senator Wiebe: In one of your earlier responses, you mentioned that because of the changes after 9/11, a manifest is now available as to who is on that plane, and you have access to that. When you receive that manifest, does that manifest also show the kind of documentation that that individual presented before boarding the aircraft?
Mr. Elcock: For those coming in from abroad, I think the information is the passenger's name, date of birth and so on. We would that information against our database, which includes not only people from Canada but also people from elsewhere and people with other connections. I do not know whether that information shows which documentation they have. It may well do.
Senator Wiebe: When you run that through your database, is that done prior to the plane landing?
Senator Atkins: Taking off.
Mr. Elcock: In this case, I do not think we are getting a stream at this point in advance of the plane leaving.
Senator Wiebe: Is that the eventual plan?
The Chairman: There is much more information coming forward than that. It is how they paid for the ticket, where they sat, with whom they are travelling with. There is a plethora of information available in addition to name, origin and date of birth. Are you telling us that none of that information is coming to you?
Mr. Elcock: At this juncture, I do not think we are getting a feed of that information. We can get that information when we need it for an investigation, but at this juncture we are not receiving that information as a continuous stream.
The Chairman: Could you have it on anyone you asked for?
Mr. Elcock: We can get access to it, yes.
Senator Smith: Would not there be a fundamental difference between countries where, to visit Canada, you required a visa as opposed to a non-visa? In other words, if it is a country where you do not need a visitor's visa, you could show up at the airline counter three hours before the flight and pay cash, I suppose. Because you did not need a visa, we would not have any advance notice of that other than a passenger list, maybe while the plane is in the air. However, in the case of a country where you do require a visa to visit here, would there not be a fundamentally different procedure as to advance information?
Mr. Elcock: Yes. We would probably, in some cases, have checked the visa application before it was granted.
The Chairman: Mr. Elcock, you commented about the processing. We understand that for immigrants there is a two-year delay, there are 50,000 involved and there are warrants outstanding for 25,000 of them. You do not have the capacity to keep track of that number.
Mr. Elcock: What are we referring to? I do not think there is a two-year delay in our dealing with immigration applications.
The Chairman: We had an immigration deputy minister before us in November who said that 50,000 people were involved, that there was a two-year delay and that warrants were outstanding for 25,000 of them.
Mr. Elcock: That may well be accurate, Mr. Chairman. I am not quite sure. That is an immigration number and immigration process.
The Chairman: If you have people who landed without documentation and they are out wandering around the country and no one knows where they are, you said that you will come across them, because sooner or later they will talk to someone they should not and you will pick up their trail at that point.
Mr. Elcock: No, I said "individuals who would be of concern to us in that stream.'' Many people who come into the refugee stream will never be of concern to CSIS and have no relevance to our investigations.
The Chairman: Absolutely. Presumably, most of them will never be of interest to you.
Mr. Elcock: They may be of interest to the police; others will be of no interest to law endorsement agencies. They are here to improve their economic situation.
The Chairman: The fact that bench warrants are issued for them leads us to believe that no one knows where they are on a given day. That is to say, they are not where they are supposed to be on a given day. A reasonable person can deduce from that that we still do not know where they are.
Mr. Elcock: If immigration has identified that as a problem, then they, along with law enforcement, would be working to rectify it.
The Chairman: If you were interested in these people, you also would have the same problem in finding them until they rectified that problem.
Mr. Elcock: If we are looking for a specific individual or run across someone in the course of our investigations and that individual is of concern to us, the question is how we would deal with that. Obviously, we would go to CIC in the case of someone who gave us concern and who is coming out of the refugee stream.
The Chairman: If there are 25,000 people with warrants outstanding, that means the authorities — whoever they may be — including CSIS, do not know where a significant number of those people are.
Mr. Elcock: If it is an issue of warrants, Mr. Chairman, this is not a CSIS issue. In our case, it would be a relatively small part that of population. We obviously have initial interest in terms of trying to clarify who those individuals are, where they came from and whether they are of concern. CIC makes the decision whether to release that individual from the airport or wherever they have landed. Subsequent to that, if we receive additional information that allowed us to go back to CIC and let them know a certain individual is a problem, then it would be a question of trying to find that individual if, for some reason, they had not reported. Other individuals come to our attention because they come to Canada and they slip into the population and start to deal with people of concern to us that we already know about. Obviously, the question is then how we deal with them.
The Chairman: You reconnect with them at that point. However, there is a finite incarceration capability at the airports. It has not been expanded significantly recently. People seem to get moved through that exercise fairly promptly. Are they all moved through having received the seal of approval from CSIS?
Mr. Elcock: In some cases, we may not be able to provide information. The reality of refugees arriving is that in some cases we will be able to identify the individual and have some idea of the connections and their reliability. In many other cases, we may not have that information at the airport and it is a question for CIC whether or not there are enough indicators to cause them not to release the individual.
Senator Banks: I have been intrigued by what you have been saying. I wish to take a step back from the individual who has gained your attention by one means or another. For the sake of discussion, let us accept the fact that the number of refugees who are in Canada and of whom we have lost track is in the order of 20,000 or 25,000. We have heard that from a number of people, although it would not make much difference if it were 10,000 or 20,000. Does not the fact of that number of refugees being in Canada who have, for whatever reason, gone outside of the system represent, in your mind and that of your agency, a question of national security?
Mr. Elcock: I am not sure that I would phrase it as a question of national security. One would obviously like to live in a world where there was no backlog of people out there and you had reliable information on all the people who were coming into Canada and knew where all of them were.
Senator Banks: It is not only a backlog but also a number of people who have presented themselves at the border and someone said, "You do not look like a threat. You have the protection of the Constitution, so go away and we will contact you when you are supposed to present yourself for the next part of the process at this place at this time.'' However, they do not show up and we cannot find them. It is not a question of a backlog. Canadians are concerned about this. You know they are; you have read about it more than I have.
Canadians are concerned that the existence of several thousand refugees who have escaped the system and who we cannot find is a question of security. Are they wrong?
Mr. Elcock: Assuming, for the purpose of the question, that it is 25,000 people, the number who would be a national security concern to us is relatively small. I use that in the context of the issues we are looking at. Someone might argue that having a criminal in Canada is contrary to Canada's national security, but that is not part of the national security interest for which we are responsible.
Obviously, we are trying to identify that at the airport, sometimes on inadequate information. The determination to release someone may or may not be made with all of the information one would like to have. Ultimately, if someone is allowed to enter Canada at that point, then the question is: Are we able to develop other information that will be part of the refugee process further down the pipe?
When you arrive at the airport, you are not granted refugee status. There must be a review of your case. If someone does not show up for that review of their refugee status, it is a question of whether they come to our attention through other investigation.
Again, we are in the business of trying to find out what we do not know already. By definition, it is conceivable that there are people and groups out there that we have not run across but our coverage is pretty good. Generally, if someone is of concern they will come to our attention sooner or later.
Senator Banks: Were the people we have heard about who have later come to be a concern to you and to others — that is, those who came here as refugees — identified at some point as "persons of interest'' or did they turn up as persons of interest and then did we find out that they were refugees? My impression is that it the later. In other words, the proportion of people among the 25,000 — if that is the right number — who ought to be persons of interest would be higher than would be the case in the general population.
Mr. Elcock: I hope I am getting the question right. The reality is that a number of individuals of concern to us do come out of the refugee stream. However, it is not only the refugee stream that does, from time to time, generate concerns. Even people who go through the immigration process and present documentation and all sorts of things may turn out to be something they did not appear to be.
Yes, there are occasions where individuals come out of the refugee stream. We have become aware of them, and when we review the status they came out of the refugee stream.
Senator Banks: Leaving that train of thought for the minute, is the Safe Country Agreement in place now?
Mr. Elcock: I think it is just now. I cannot remember.
Senator Banks: Have you seen any effect of it yet?
Mr. Elcock: There is bound to be a fairly large effect, since many of the refugees who enter Canada do so from the United States — or they have in the past.
Senator Banks: That is a point that we have been quick to make when we visit our counterparts.
Mr. Elcock: It is not often understood in the United States.
Senator Banks: I will come back to that in a moment.
I have a rude and awkward question. I know you have dealt with this issue and that you deal with it every day. The fact is that, at the moment, a large proportion of the people in the world about whom we have concerns of national security and of general public safety are practitioners of a certain religion and come from a certain part of the world. Some say there are other people in other parts of the world who are just as dangerous but, as far as we know, they have not done anything yet.
Is it possible to say with a straight face that we do not do racial profiling? In other words, is it possible to say with a straight face that a fellow who looks like you or me can arrive here on a plane from Damascus and, all other things being equal, be subjected to the same interest as someone who does not look like you and me?
Mr. Elcock: The concern with racial profiling, as much as anything else, is action that is purely racially based, when it is solely an individual's skin colour or religion that arouses suspicion. The reality for us as an organization is that skin colour and religion do matter. You are looking at a range of factors. Someone may be of interest not only because of his or her religion or perhaps not even because of religion. A person may present himself or herself as a Christian by birth or as a convert but if that person went to a specific school at a specific point of time in a specific part of the world, that person may be of concern to us. Even Caucasians originally from Canada or the United States could be of concern. It is a range of information that causes people to be of concern to us; not their skin colour or religion specifically.
Senator Banks: Further to Senator Forrestall's last question, we will be going to Washington soon and meeting with people such as Secretary Rumsfeld and General Myers and even the closest advisers to Ms. Rice. It is my observation that those people have a good handle on the facts about Canada. They appreciate that we are good friends but that sometimes our priorities are not exactly the same.
However, we will meet with many other people — members of Congressional committees and state representatives — who are perhaps less knowledgeable than we would like them to be about Canada's reasons for doing certain things. When we go, we will try — as we always do — to present and to represent Canada's interests. Part of that effort will be countering what we believe to be wrong perceptions on their part. One such perception is the high proportion of refugees who used to come to Canada from the United States.
Talk to us for a minute about things on which you could forewarn us, forearm us or, help us in that job.
Mr. Elcock: I am not sure what I could offer. Honourable senators know the problem as well as I would know it. There are false perceptions in the United States. The reasons for those perceptions may be lost in the midst of various newspaper articles or appearances before a Senate or Congressional committee by people representing a particular point of view. There are perceptions of the situation in Canada that can make life complicated. The challenge is simply to dispel those perceptions when we go there.
It may be easier for us because we deal with certain agencies that may have a better understanding of the nature of the problems that they face. I suspect there is probably a larger challenge in dealing with congressmen and senators on the other side of the border.
Senator Smith: Mr. Elcock, this is the first time CSIS has been before us since I joined this committee. To ensure that I have the fundamentals straight, I want to go back to basics and to the genesis. I recall the commissions that preceded the establishment of CSIS. I knew Mr. Justice MacDonald quite well. I was in Parliament in the early 1980s when this legislation went through.
If we are talking about the raison d'être of CSIS, it then had a very heavy Cold War emphasis, among other things. It was not quite the paranoia of Igor Gouzenko, but I remember being on a particular mission to the Soviet Union in 1982.
By coincidence, I was in Russia on a business trip in the fall of 1989 when the whole thing was collapsing. Over a couple of weeks, I was in Moscow, Leningrad and Estonia. The wall was starting to come down and we caught a bit of that on CNN through surreptitious means. They were not quite dancing in the streets because they were not sure it was for real, but I never saw such big grins on the faces of people in Estonia. They looked very different from the people in Moscow.
The 1990s must have been quite a period of adjustment for CSIS. It took a while before it was clear that the wall really was falling down and that the Cold War was over and that this was for real. There must have been some fundamental rationalization on what CSIS would be all about. Can you tell us about that? The same thing must have happened after September 11. It seems to me you have been through two big transitions. What can you tell us about that to give us a better feel for your organization?
Mr. Elcock: I am not sure I would characterize it that way.
There is no question that, as the Cold War ended, there was a perception in the intelligence community, and perhaps even stronger beyond the intelligence community, that somehow the world had fundamentally changed. It seemed we would no longer need spy agencies or intelligence agencies. I think it was the President of the United States who described the world at the time as becoming "a kinder, gentler place.''
Mr. Elcock: Unfortunately, that reality did not come to be. From a counterintelligence point of view, the number of intelligence agencies around the world and their freedom to function increased over time. Indeed, I think there are more intelligence agencies out there doing their own thing now than there were in the days of the Cold War. One might almost wish sometimes for the order of the Cold War. At least there were people telling the others what to do.
Now it is more complicated even in the counter-intelligence world. In truth, even as early as 1984, CSIS was beginning to move in the direction of counterterrorism because that was around the time of the downing of Air India. That was when counterterrorism became an important issue for CSIS and that has been progressive. Concern about counterterrorism, and in particular, concern about the threats from al-Qaeda and from other Sunni big terrorist organizations did not come from September 11. That came some years before that, and had been our major area of investigation for some years before September 11. There is no question that September 11 intensified that investigation, but the reality is it started before that.
Senator Smith: There must be personal security checks for government employees. Do you have any idea what percentage of the manpower that function might occupy?
Mr. Elcock: We have a specific branch — security screening — that does that for the government in respect of refugee clearances and so forth. In a sense, that feeds into the wider organization. If a further investigation is required of a government employee, it means someone in Nova Scotia must ask questions.
Senator Smith: Is this a couple of hundred people?
Mr. Elcock: I cannot remember the number of people at security screening. It is a smaller portion than less than one- third of the organization. The reality of much of that work now is that much of it is electronic rather than paper driven. In a sense, the number of people we actually use to do that has fallen, rather than grown. However, our responsibilities in that respect have grown broader as we have taken over responsibility for screening nuclear institutions in some provinces.
Senator Smith: Would the counterterrorism be the biggest percentage of manpower?
Mr. Elcock: About two-thirds of the operational resources would go to counterterrorism. Part of what happens in security screening is to look at a first line of defence in dealing with people who are trying to get into the country who may be of concern. To keep people out is as important to counterterrorism as investigating someone who is here.
Senator Smith: I have noted sections 14 and 15 of the act that authorize the service to provide security assessments on immigration applicants. Do you do them in the overseas countries where they apply from, or is it all done here?
Mr. Elcock: Some would be done here. Clearly, most of that would happen here in the case of somebody who is applying for security clearance in the government. In the case of somebody coming in from abroad, we might do interviews and look for the collection of information abroad because the individual is abroad.
Senator Smith: With regard to the refugee issue, I had this experience 23 years ago when the government in Chile fell. It was also around the time that the Joe Clark government fell. That government had put in a visa requirement for visitors from Chile to Canada because they were of the view that the bulk of them who were claiming refugee status were really economic refugees who wanted to jump to the front of the line by using that route. When the Trudeau government came back in, the minister had to decide whether to leave that visa requirement in place or lift it. I was sent to Chile to talk to many people, including the Communists and other embassies, and, most importantly, our own personnel. They thought that of those who were applying for refugee status, only a small percentage was bone fide. In fact, virtually everyone we talked to in Chile expressed a concern about what could be done to help those who left to be able to go back with impunity to have things the other way around.
Would it be fair to say that your investigations would not get into whether or not these were bona fide refugee claimants, but focus instead on whether there is a security concern? You concern is whether the individual is involved in terrorism rather than somebody who cannot meet the normal criteria of the point system because of occupation or language skills or whatever, and prefers to sort of jump to the front of the queue by going the refugee route? It is my impression you do not look at that issue. You leave that up to immigration. You focus on the security and, perhaps, terrorism aspects. Is that reasonably fair?
Mr. Elcock: That is correct. There are other things, we would be looking for, but that is essentially accurate.
Senator Smith: Other than the personnel security checks and the role you play with regard to some immigration matters, are there any other spheres of activity that we have not touched on that we should be aware of?
Mr. Elcock: In terms of screening?
Senator Smith: In terms of what your people do.
Mr. Elcock: I think I have tried to describe some of the others. We are an operational agency. We collect intelligence in respect of threats to the security of Canada, and that means counterterrorism, counter-intelligence and counter- proliferation and a certain amount of interest in transnational criminal activities. There are a variety of activities we would have people looking at.
Senator Smith: We have been hearing from the media about container ships carrying hundreds of stolen cars and they are shipped out of the country with apparent total impunity. When we were in Vancouver, we talked to the former head of the disbanded port police, and he acknowledged that he knew some of it went on, but they had no handle on it. The Coast Guard earlier tonight said that they had not seen any suspicious activity.
Would you ever be informed of this? Have you heard about this issue or does it fall between all the cracks? It is staggering to me that you can have container ships coming out of Montreal, particularly, just packed full of stolen cars and no one is stopping it. Would you ever hear about this or pick up information?
Mr. Elcock: If we received any information about that kind of activity, we would provide it to the police. It would be essentially be an organized-crime problem, most likely for the RCMP or possibly for one of the larger municipal forces, or one of the provincial forces across the country for them to investigate.
Occasionally, when we have information of that kind, we pass it on to police. The same would be true of information related to drugs; we would pass that on to the police, as well.
Senator Smith: If we are ever talking to the Montreal police, I will ask them about this.
Senator Forrestall: Could you inform us about the elevated threat in the United States? I guess it has been, or is about to be, downgraded. Can you comment why there was not a parallel voice about threat here in Canada?
Mr. Elcock: I had not heard that the threat level in the United States was about to be downgraded. If it is, I am sure you are right.
I have said on a number of occasions that as a country we are not immune to a threat of terrorism. I do not think there is much doubt that the United States is the primary target of the groups associated with al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda itself. That said — as people found out in Bali — it is not only Americans who are targeted, and not only Americans who may be killed in the process.
There are reasons for Canada to be concerned. Whether or not we need to have exactly the same system as the United States has with its threat level warnings, different colours and so on, is another a question. If, indeed, we had specific intelligence about a threat in Canada, we would provide that for law enforcement and elected officials to take the decisions as to what level of security should be provided for any particular place, person or whatever that was threatened.
Absent that, the question is: What is the appropriate level of security at any particular point in time? That is based on the nature of the information we might have on the generic level of threat. There is no doubt in the last period of time that it has been somewhat elevated. Again, it would be for ministers and law enforcement agencies to decide whether the security in place was sufficient given the level of threat, or if it needed to be upgraded. They would make that judgment and provide whatever information should be provided to the public.
Senator Forrestall: To the degree that there is a sense of parallel, do you agree that you cannot easily separate our two situations?
Mr. Elcock: Do you mean between the United States and us?
Senator Forrestall: Yes.
Mr. Elcock: There is no question that the primary target of al-Qaeda and its associated organizations is, indeed, the United States and United States' interests.
Senator Forrestall: It was not a question, then, of our being afraid to cry wolf that we did not elevate —
Mr. Elcock: I am not sure I would want to characterize the American situation as crying wolf. Certainly, they have followed a practice of providing a great deal of information. In some cases that has created some difficulty.
Senator Forrestall: It seems to me that al-Qaeda has done a good job of scaring most of us just by opening its mouth or waving.
How often would a CSIS agent be called out to a border point to conduct a more in-depth interview, if you would, with a potential immigrant or refugee claimant?
Mr. Elcock: It would be as required. In some cases, we have people close to the border. We have a regional office in Windsor. We are opening another one elsewhere in Ontario. We would have people there on call all the time. In other cases, we would have to get somebody from one of our offices to the border point. We go as needed and as soon as we get a call from Immigration.
Senator Forrestall: It is a daily part of your overall routine, then?
Mr. Elcock: Yes, it is.
Senator Forrestall: It is not an exaggerated one, then?
Mr. Elcock: No.
Senator Forrestall: At any one time, approximately how many of these refugee claimants have their locations, activities and associates monitored by CSIS? Do you do that as a matter of policy? In other words, if you are doing some work with respect to someone, do you keep a special tab on his or her whereabouts?
Mr. Elcock: If refugee claimants are arriving and claiming refugee stats, we will be looking at them from the point of view of trying to provide CIC with our best judgment on whether the individual is a problem or not. If someone comes to our attention in the course of our investigations — even if he or she is a refugee claimant — we would only be able to investigate them to the extent they fell within the provisions of the CSIS Act and were regarded as a threat to the security of Canada. If that were the case, they would become a target of the service, depending on the level of their activities and their connections.
With regard to the numbers, I will not comment on the number of people beyond what I have said in the past. As a rough guide, even in our counterterrorism investigations, we are probably targeting on an average basis some 350 people. However, they would be a wide variety of individuals; some would be refugees and some would not be refugees.
Senator Forrestall: I do not worry too much about the 25,000 figure, but I do worry about the 300 or 400. That is the urgency and the importance of that response. Hence, the question: Do you keep a particular tab on them?
Mr. Elcock: People who are of more concern to us get more attention than those who are of less concern. We have different ways of keeping tabs on people.
Senator Forrestall: I bet you do.
How serious a threat to North American security is this policy of letting thousands of refugee claimants live unsupervised in Canada while their refugee claim is being adjudicated?
Mr. Elcock: You are taking me into a question of policy that I suspect is better answered by someone else.
Senator Forrestall: I am calling on your vast experience and knowledge.
Mr. Elcock: Honourable senators, our job is to look at people in the stream whom we can identify as a threat to the security of Canada and investigate them. That would be a small fraction of those 25,000 people.
Senator Forrestall: With respect to those 300 or 400 people, how would you then target or separate brand "X'' from brands "Y'' and "Z''?
Mr. Elcock: I am not sure I understand the question.
Senator Forrestall: If there are 25,000 people out there whose claims are being processed, and there are 300 or 400 of that 25,000 on whom you might wish to keep a fairly close tab, it is those 300 or 400 about who I am concerned. With respect to those 300 or 400, would CSIS like to see a change in government policy that would require their detention or retention until such time as your work is completed?
Mr. Elcock: Honourable senators, I assume that if we advised CIC that an individual was of real concern to us because of something that we knew about the individual, they would probably hold that person. They do have the capacity to do that. In a case where we do not have enough information to allow them to make that decision, or the information is equivocal, they may have to take the decision to release the individual. At the end of the day, that is up to them.
Once somebody has joined the general population, people come to our attention because of their activities. We do target people who come within the definition of a threat to the security of Canada. We are actively looking at people we know to be adherents of a specific group. Building a picture is what intelligence agencies, as distinct from police agencies, do. We are in the business of trying to build a complete picture of an organization, its organizational presence in Canada and the individuals connected with it, out to the limits of that organization. In that way, we have a sense of who is there, what they are doing and what their connections are here and elsewhere.
Senator Forrestall: Has your organization been able to unearth intelligence that would lead you to believe that North Korea and Iraq — one or the other or both — have the means or have at hand weapons of potential mass destruction?
Mr. Elcock: I am not sure I can go further at this stage, honourable senators, other than to say that, clearly, the activities of North Korea give a number of countries, including Canada, some considerable concern in terms of activities with respect to weapons of mass destruction. We would have some interest in the activities of that government.
Senator Forrestall: I would hate to be in the path of these instruments of mass destruction.
Thank you for coming and for your candidness. I appreciate it.
Senator Banks: Mr. Elcock, without naming them or the part of the world from which they come, are there organizations that are not on the list that you would like to see on the list?
Mr. Elcock: Which list are you referring to?
Senator Banks: The list of organizations that are banned in Canada.
Mr. Elcock: You are referring to the list under Bill C-36?
Senator Banks: Yes.
Mr. Elcock: We have a role to play in that as one of the organizations that can do a report to ministers that may ultimately lead to an organization being put on that list, or prepare evidence that would convince ministers to put a name on the list.
There are two lists at this time. There is a list under UN aegis to which Canada has contributed a number of names of organizations. Any assets in Canada of organizations on that list are frozen. We are currently in the process of trying to move some of the organizations from that list to the Bill C-36 list because the two lists have radically different thresholds. One is a Criminal Code list and the other is under a regulation.
The Chairman: Senator Banks was asking you your batting average.
Mr. Elcock: Our batting average is pretty good, Mr. Chairman. However, particularly because of the criminal law threshold, the process of adding names to the list takes more time than it did to put them on the regulations list.
The Chairman: Mr. Elcock, thank you very much for appearing before us. As always, it was instructive for us. We enjoy exchanging questions and answers with you. We appreciate your assistance in helping us prepare for our trip to Washington. We look forward to meeting you again in the future and having the opportunity to hear your views at that time.
The Chairman: The public portion of this meeting is adjourned. The meeting will continue in camera.
The committee continued in camera.