Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Legal and Constitutional Affairs
Issue 4 - Evidence for March 25, 2009
OTTAWA, Wednesday, March 25, 2009
The Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affaires met this day at 4:05 p.m., to study the provisions and operation of the DNA Identification Act (S.C. 1998, c. 37).
Senator Joan Fraser (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: I see we have a quorum; I call the meeting to order. Today, the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs meets to study the provisions and operation of the DNA Identification Act.
[English]
This is the subject of great technical complexity but also of great very interest. This committee started the act when it was first going through Parliament back in 1998. The act, indeed, sought a provision that there be a parliamentary review of this act since it was new territory for most of us. That is the study we are now doing; we are doing parliamentary review of the act and how it has worked in practice to find out whether we need to recommend any changes, updates or preserve the act as is.
As I say, DNA is the subject of some complexity. On this occasion, we are taking a slightly different approach. We are beginning with a very special witness, Dr. Ronald Fourney, Director of National Services and Research at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, RCMP, who can tell us all about DNA and the DNA data bank from a technical perspective so that we understand what we are talking about as we go forward and consider the legislation.
[Translation]
Mr. Fourney, we are very happy that you could appear before the committee. We will let you start. Generally, we wait before asking our questions. But since this is not an ordinary testimony, if some senators do not understand something in your presentation and if we have to stop you, we will do it.
But right not, I ask you to start and then we will ask you questions. The floor is yours.
[English]
Ronald M. Fourney, Director, National Services and Research, Royal Canadian Mounted Police: Thank you. It is a privilege to return after 10 years. I remember some of you from then. I promise I will not give you an exam at the end of my presentation.
I am taking a slightly different perspective tonight. I have prepared my own notes, primarily so I do not forget to tell you what I want to tell you because there are so many great things happening. It is important for me not to miss anything here. Much has happened since we last met. I have brought some props to show you more of what is happening.
I hope this will be interesting — and entertaining as well — because it is important for you to understand just how vital and important this technology is to forensic applications.
I would like to start off with the classic comment that it is the Locard's Exchange Principle from which we always work. Back at the turn of the 20th century, Edmond Locard said that a cross-transfer of evidence occurs whenever a person enters or leaves a room. We hope that some of that transfer of evidence remains long enough for us who are crime scene investigators to go in, gather it and hopefully find a bit of DNA there to help solve some of the problems.
Forensic scientists are essentially experts in association. This usually implies the comparison of samples found at the crime scene with known reference samples. Consequently, forensic scientists always harbour the intent to identify, to find that which is unique through comparison. The same principle applies with DNA. We are constantly looking at an unknown sample with a known sample.
In reality for us, it is a case where we have to collect the evidence, examine and find out what the evidence pertains to, process the evidence if it is biological to obtain DNA and then interpret that evidence to define what we have.
As a molecular biologist working with DNA for 20 years in the forensic field and a few years before that in molecular evolution and cancer genetics, it became apparent to me that the basic human identification from person to person resides in the molecular structure, your genome. The DNA — and all of us have 3 billion base pairs or 3 billion pieces of that DNA — is wrapped intricately into every one of our cells. We have enough cells that if we did not stretch those but just lined them up, we can go back and forth to the moon over 1 million times. As Locard indicated, if you enter a crime scene, we hope that just a few of those cells will be left, and we will be able to examine those.
Major revolutions in identification have occurred over the years. In fact, the fingerprint revolution occurred in Argentina in 1891, where a young Argentinean police captain identified the murderess of two young children through blood fingerprints left at the scene of the crime. We had to wait 100 years for something as specific, unique and important to forensic human identification as fingerprints, and that came on November 21, 1983. In my view, that was the watershed moment when forensic DNA analysis took hold. Unlike many research science breakthroughs, forensic science breakthroughs often occur through tragic circumstances because of necessity.
On November 21, 1983 is a 14-year-old girl by the name of Lynda Mann was sexually assaulted and murdered, left to die, on a small footpath in Narborough, Leicestershire, England. The genetic calling cards were present, as she was sexually assaulted, but it took a few years for people to put everything together. In fact, they did not have DNA at the beginning in 1983. They did have conventional protein markers, what we call serological markers. Unfortunately, using the best technology, at that particular time without DNA, it might have left some kind of information that would match 10 per cent of the available male population of Britain.
Out of curiosity, in the local university, Professor Alec Jeffreys was working on the evolution of diving mammals. He was actually interested in speciation. He wanted to know why some whales and porpoises and other mammalian animals could dive and hold their breath for long periods of time. He was particularly interested in studying the molecule called haemoglobin, which is our oxygen-carrying molecule. He knew that if he went to the genetic blueprint, that is, our DNA, and started looking at it, he might be able to tell the differences between populations of these mammals. When he first came out of his laboratory, the dark room at the time, he not only could tell the difference between the whales and the porpoises, but he could tell the individuals of each one. We had a classic identification down to an individual. That got picked up early on by forensic scientists because they realized they had a particularly important tool for identification.
Unfortunately, a second sexual assault and murder occurred in 1986, less than five kilometres away from that first murder. Once again, the calling cards of the crime scene were left, the genetic evidence, but this time they tried DNA. When they looked at the DNA, a few very important components of information came out. The first one is that they matched. The semen samples and the DNA that was extracted from the crime scene from the very first murder two years before matched the second crime scene.
Interestingly enough, at that second crime scene, a 17-year-old kitchen porter came forward and told the police that he knew the victim and confessed to the crime. The police at that time said that if he did the second sexual assault and murder, he is probably linked to the first one too. Therefore, they applied this new technology. They went to Alec Jeffreys and the forensic science services in the UK at that time, and applied DNA. The second, very important piece of information that came out of it was that the person they had just arrested and who confessed to the crime did not match the DNA.
In my view, the basic take-home message for all of you right now is that DNA is the perfect tool in forensic science to exonerate the innocent and protect those who are not guilty. In the very first instance, in this particular murder case, it exonerated an innocent individual.
Now, they were faced with the problem of who actually committed the murder. They went and processed over 4,500 male individuals in a certain age group throughout the entire area. The first time through, no one matched the crime scene DNA profile. Overnight, in a pub, one of the police investigators overheard that someone had donated a sample on behalf of his friend because his friend was afraid of needles. Through a forged passport, this person had come forward and said, "I am so and so, and I am donating this sample,'' and it was not the right person. When they heard that, they went to Colin Pitchfork, knocked at his door, took a sample, and it was a perfect match. Not only did it match those two murders and crime scenes, but it matched a great number of other ones. In fact, I think he got a double life sentence, 10 years for each rape and three years for each additional sexual assault. This was a serial predator.
I will have to tell you that I am biased; DNA is my favourite molecule. I worked with it for many years. It is a very simplified molecule, only made out of three components: sugar, phosphate and an organic base, a chemical base. There are four variations of that base. This is the ultimate simplicity in a molecule, but inside your DNA everything that you will ever be, and everything that you have been, is encoded.
Why do forensic scientists like DNA?
There are four reasons. It is highly discriminating. No two people will have the same DNA unless you are an identical twin. An identical twin is a clone, essentially. The egg is fertilized and split, and you will have identical DNA.
There is genetic continuity. The DNA you are born with is usually the DNA you will die with. When I say usually, it is the truth. You may have a few mutations here and there during the course of your life, but, in reality, you are what you started with. When I usually give my talks on this, I have my student cards showing how I started in Grade 6 all the way through to my university card. You will see that my hair has disappeared, but it is the same DNA.
It is sensitive. When we first started 20 years ago, we needed blood the size of a quarter or a dime. When we recently identified the human remains of the victims of Swiss Air — a tragic circumstance — 10 per cent of what would fit on the head of a pin would be all we would need to identify an individual.
It is the stability that is one of the most important and intriguing aspects of this uniquely evolving molecule. It is the very fact that it contains all our genes, that it is so stable through many generations. What we know from a forensic scientist's point of view is that not only can you study the evolution of humankind through thousands of years but, for us, we can go back through time and identify perpetrators from old crime scenes. I would like to call this our forensic or justice time machine because we can reach back and identify individuals through DNA left many years ago.
If we have a repository of such individuals, criminal offenders, for instance, in a databank, we have the perfect tool to match crime scenes from the past with crime scenes from the future, as well as crime scenes that may lead to exoneration. It is not only finding a match, but it could also exonerate an individual. I will not talk too much about the databank today. I will talk about some of the forensic applications, but I know that we will be involved with the databank for quite a few more sessions.
Interestingly enough, in those 3 billion base pairs, or 3 billion pieces of DNA, there are essentially four variations.
I brought in these props; this is my LEGO DNA here. As I said, we essentially have four variations. If we were to take the entire DNA from our cells, which would be about three centimetres of DNA for each base pair, and link it together, we would have enough DNA in a single cell to go the entire east, west and north coastal waters of Canada. That is a substantial amount of LEGO blocks.
What is curious about all this is that 99.9 per cent of you are identical. I hate to tell you this: You may think you are different, but the person beside you is 99.9 per cent the same as you. It is that .1 per cent that is so vital and important for us that we want to zero in on the differences.
To give you some perspective, if we had all the coast lines of Canada covered with LEGO blocks, only 90 kilometres of LEGO blocks would be different. How many do we need to identify an individual? We needed about 12 metres when we first started. Today, with our new technologies, we need about 1 metre to 2 metres. I will even show you how we can do it with one LEGO block, with one piece.
We just do not look at all the pieces of DNA. We look at particular, specific regions of DNA that I call "freely evolving'' or "polymorphic.'' The bottom line is that they are different. The reason we look at them is because they are different. If we looked at the same pieces, it would not help us in making identification.
We have actually joined together worldwide with a number of different laboratories to pick out 13 to 18 to 16 different markers. I call them "loci.'' In reality, they are specific pieces of LEGO blocks that allow us to identify individuals. In the data bank, we use 13, and typically, in operational case work, they will use 9. Because they are different in individuals, by having these variations, it allows us to discriminate between individuals. The more markers of difference we have, the better the discrimination or the potential to discriminate between individuals.
I would like to talk about the product rule a little here and discrimination. Picture the fact that you have 23 pairs of chromosomes, or 46 chromosomes. If you are male, you will have an X and a Y chromosome, and if you are female, you will have an X and X chromosome. On each one of those chromosomes, there is probably an area that is highly changeable, what we call polymorphic, freely evolving. We will zero in on those.
We happened to look at 13 of those. To give you an idea of how we look at discrimination, let us pretend, for instance, that one of those areas was the gene that would encode for bilingualism. Therefore, I could say that in a room such this, we could have one quarter of the people have the bilingualism gene. Let us take the gene for brown hair; maybe half of you have that gene for brown hair. Unless you can tell me everyone who has brown hair will also be bilingual, then those are freely independent variables. That means we have two pieces of discrimination now: brown hair and bilingualism. We multiply the one quarter by the one half and get one eighth. Then I could take a very rare gene — and the one I would like to use in this city is fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs — that could be 1 in 20,000 or something. It would be a very rare gene for discrimination.
As you can see, we would multiply that along with the one quarter and one half. If we do that 13 times — and I will just check my numbers here — the most common profile you will see is 1 in 250 billion people. That is the most common.
Senator Nolin: Who likes the Toronto Maple Leafs?
Mr. Fourney: You do that 13 times.
Senator Nolin: They are such a rare breed.
Mr. Fourney: Absolutely. I know I have had a judge in the past who told me that, once the numbers got higher than the national debt, it is big enough for him.
However, the rarest profile has 39 zeros after it. A colleague of mine, Dr. George Carmody, was faced with a problem going to court a few years ago of how to explain such large numbers. Dr. Carmody went to an environmental research group who estimated that the number of snow flakes that fell in Canada during 1995 was 1 to the 10 to the 24. That is 24 zeros. That is septillion. The average discrimination that we employ at a crime scene exceeds the number of snow flakes that would fall in Canada in a single year. That is highly discriminatory.
Senator Milne: Is that just using 13 markers?
Mr. Fourney: That is right. If you have a brother or a sister, you have certain relatedness. In fact, you will share a lot of DNA because you have the same parents. Therefore, the discrimination is between random individuals. It is much less discriminatory between individuals in a family because you will share part of your DNA.
That must be taken into consideration as well when we do forensic investigation. One of the first things people try to do is exclude certain individuals who may have had access to the crime scene. It is a logical, quick thing to do.
In DNA typing for forensic DNA analysis, we have always pushed the envelope, at least since my 20-year involvement. Pushing the envelope for us has meant doing more with less, doing it in less time and always doing it without loss of quality, so it is valid and reliable.
Doing it in less time means a faster turn around, more direct contact with the investigator, the ability to assist ongoing investigations and, probably by default, the ability to process more samples in the same amount of time, which leads to greater efficiencies.
The sample barrier also means doing it without loss of quality. In other words, when we evolve or change technologies, we may gain from the ability to have a more sensitive or faster result. However, at no time do we try to compromise any of the quality. We do not want a less accurate result. Whenever we push forward and change technology in this field, it is always with the assumption, then validation and then with complete acceptance that it is as good as it was before but offers additional advantages.
Part of the way we can change how we do things is not only via instrumentation or new technologies but also in having a better idea of how to apply that technology. It is not just buying a new robot or a sequencer but also how you use that: being smarter with getting samples at the crime scene and taking the best evidence first and processing it, maybe ahead of other evidence.
I will cover a number of different topics today. I do not know how much detail I will go into. I will show you a few props to explain it. I would certainly welcome any questions on this because it is extremely challenging, even for me, to keep ahead of this technology game. Molecular biology is the only area evolving faster than computer technology.
Let me tell you about a few things we do not do, or that we do but that we can do better. For instance, in 2007, I did a review of what was new in DNA and forensics over the previous three years, and that is where some of these ideas are coming from. It was surprising to me that I was able to identify over 2,200 papers, specifically on just the DNA technology that we use in the laboratory today called short tandem repeat, or STR technology.
However, on technology employed to actually find the evidence at the crime scene, better ways of processing the evidence for DNA and actually using what we find at the crime scene — not getting into the lab — I found only five papers.
A great disproportionate amount of effort went into the technology in the lab and, in my view, not enough into the technology to find or identify what we would actually process biologically.
The way I like to attract my students' attention on this is to say that in 1863, the London underground opened; the first water closet, or toilet, was invented; Sir Henry Royce and Henry Ford were born; President Lincoln declared the first Thanksgiving holiday in the United States; and a scientist by the name of Christian Schonbein carried out the first catalytic presumptive test for blood. Guess what? It is the same basic test we use today. That was in 1863.
In 1853, the U.S. bought some land that became New Mexico and Arizona. The streets were first lit with the gas lamp. Brahms composed the Sonata in C Major and Levi Strauss sold his first pair of blue jeans to the gold miners in California. It was also the very year that a confirmatory test — that is, a test that specifically identified blood as blood — was invented, and it is the basic test that we use today. It has been modified along the way. However, you can see where I am coming from here. Yes, the chemistry has been very sound, but the actual procedures we are using to identify some of the evidence, I think, can be improved in the future.
There are a couple of reasons for that. Some of the pre-screening tests or presumptive tests — and presumptive tests are tests that say that it could be blood, it could be ketchup or it could be something else. Most of the time, those tests that we use are very specific in the sense that it could be only a few things. That is a presumptive test. A confirmatory test, such as the second test I talk about, the Takayama test, actually has the haemoglobin component of the blood interact with the crystal. The only substance that will ever do that is blood. That is why we call that a confirmatory test. No other substance will cause that change.
We use both types of tests in the forensic lab when we pre-screen our evidence. For a number of reasons, in the future, I would like to see us being better at finding the evidence and bringing it to the purpose of DNA. This is an area where much work must go forward. By no means do think that we are not doing a good job with the tests that we have, I am just saying that, as a scientist, I always look for improvement — faster, better, quicker and more sensitive.
The good news about this is that changes in technology will occur that will match the DNA processing as well. For instance, with some of the tests that we use for identifying if it is blood or semen, the DNA procedures are more sensitive than the test to find it. That will present interesting questions in the future because cells will be found at the scene of the crime that we may not know where they came from, but we will be able to say that they are the DNA from that person. I believe there will be evolution there as well of how we use the DNA and the information we have.
It is interesting, though, that there is a technology out there that we will be introducing, I hope — and this is my technology side of today's talk. If we think of DNA as the blueprint that tells us how to build the building; and if we think of the proteins in our bodies as the bricks and mortars of the building, there is another particular molecule called RNA, ribonucleic acid, which is the interpreter of the blueprint. We can call them the architects. The architect reads the blueprint and knows when to build the proteins at a specific time. The architect also knows when to build a staircase, a washroom, a laundry room, and so on. Particular areas in the building, or cells or proteins, will be specifically made that will reflect the nature of the tissue they came from.
That will be a very exciting future for us because I know of several labs now that are using RNA to tell us what the nature of the tissue is where the proteins are coming forward. It means that I may have a stain on a piece of clothing that is semen — we have some particular ways of identifying that today — but this new test will be able to say that it is semen because it encodes for the protein that is found in semen basically. The nice thing about this is that we can automate it using fluorescent technologies and robotics. In the future, we will see faster preparation in the front end.
Right now, one of our time-limited steps is doing the careful search at the beginning of any case work to find the evidence; because if we cannot find the evidence, we cannot process it for DNA. A terrific amount of excellent, well- trained individuals spend a great deal of effort looking for the best evidence. We hope to make their lives better in the future and their job faster with new technology.
I would like to talk a bit about the techniques we actually use today, the short tandem repeats or STRs. I do not want to bore you too much with this because I promised myself it was more important to tell you what things do as opposed to how they work. My understanding is that you will all be visiting the lab, or have a chance to come to the National DNA Data Bank, and you will have a chance to see this right front and centre in real time.
Currently, I told you we were using 13 different tests. A couple of new procedures out there are comprised of 16 tests. We will probably be looking at developing more tests and developing more markers in the future. Before you say anything, it is important to realize that the pieces of DNA that we are looking at do not code for anything that we know of. We cannot tell you if you will have hair loss; if you are prone to diabetes; if you will be tall, short or have blue eyes, with the markers that we currently use today. All we know is that they are variable from person to person and, because of the fact that they are variable, it means that they are freely evolving, and the chances are that they will never code for anything. They are spacer pieces of DNA within our genome or blueprint.
In the future, we would like to look at a few more of those markers and add them. We want to do that because more discrimination is better than less. Also, when we are working with degraded samples, DNA found at a crime screen, it is not our best sample. This is the big difference between us and many research scientists or people working in clinical diagnostics. Our samples are the twilight zone of samples. We do not know where they come from, how long they have been there, or what environmental insult they have been exposed to. Therefore, our techniques have to be very robust; they have to be valid and reliable. Believe me, we have to be able to present these in a manner in which people understand them and accept them in a court of law.
We hope that by looking at more elements of differentiation or polymorphisms or markers, that if we have degraded samples, we have more tests that might come forward to give us a result.
The United Kingdom database has over 4 million offender samples in it, and the U.S. Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, database has even more. Therefore, as our databases get larger, it is important to have more discrimination than less so that we are always able to search and get the best match possible.
Let me tell you about another technology that is coming around that is pretty exciting. It is called mini-STRs. What do you think is the difference between an STR and a mini-STR?
Senator Baker: Size.
Mr. Fourney: Size; you got it. Remember I told you we were looking at a 12-metre section of LEGO blocks? Mini- STRs are now looking at a couple of meters. That is a big deal because as DNA gets broken down or degraded or environmentally insulted by fire, explosion or just old — we find it buried in a piece of an old cotton shirt somewhere in someone's backyard for many years, for example — the DNA gets shorter. If we actually target particular regions, that will tell us the differences between people, but target regions that are smaller and the chances are that we will be successful in getting a result out of this old, degraded material than with the procedures we normally use in the lab.
This was used very effectively in the World Trade Center to identify the casualties of that horrific incident. Fires, explosions and all types of tragic circumstances killed those people. Basically, the human remains were very difficult to work with. They employed this mini-STR technology to try to get the identification because it was able to work with smaller pieces of DNA.
I think you will see that come around in the future. It is commercially available now. The good thing about this is that pieces of DNA that they are looking at are the same pieces — but they use a similar technology as well — as the big pieces of DNA we have in the data bank. If we use mini-STRs, I do not have to redo the data bank. It is just adding to it because they will look for those same pieces of DNA; they just use a smaller piece to start with.
Another technology that is exciting is called Y-STRs, as in Y chromosome, the male DNA. It is a little boring. They do not have as many changes as some of the other pieces of DNA that we like to look at, but they have some interesting features. You only have one copy of that Y-DNA in your cells, but it is paternally inherited. In other words, you will pass your Y-DNA down to your son, to your grandson, and you will pass it down many generations. There is a pro and a con in that.
The advantage of that is that it is a terrific technology for us to identify individuals who may be missing in mass disasters or tsunamis through family relationships; for instance, you may not have any parents left, but you could have a grandfather, and you could use that DNA to identify the grandson who is missing.
The other feature you should know about is that because there is not very much variation, we inherited all the changes in DNA as a group. It is called a haplotype. We have to use many more of these to get the same level of discrimination. It has been very important and useful in research in that it has led to studies of our ancestry. People study the Y-STRs to find out where we come from, geographical relationships and the migration patterns of humans. It is so carefully passed down from generation to generation.
A study was done in Germany. I believe they collected 419 people with the same last name, and they were able to split out two groups of those 419 people through looking at the Y-STRs. Many studies have been done.
In fact, I went on the Internet last night. A large research study is ongoing, and you can go to the web page at www.yhrd.org. They have 72,082 variants recorded today in hundreds of different populations around the world because people are interested in what we call our ancestral and geographical places of origin. It is a terrific tool to reach back in the past.
Why would we want to use that in forensic science? Sometimes when a sexual assault occurs the epithelial cells found from the female victim are also included with the male component. It could be blood or semen, for instance. We have processes that can separate some of the spermatozoa or male component from the female epithelial, but often if it is a degraded sample or an old sample or — if there is any kind of trauma — the separation is not good. However, if we use Y-STRs, we always get the male component completely separated from the female component, and it will tell us who the potential individual would be. It has also been used in the past by colleagues of mine in other forensic labs to identify multiple donors of spermatozoa or sexual assault victim situations because it is able to discriminate between different males as well.
There is a limitation to that, simply because it gets very complex when we have multiple pieces of DNA from different people. However, it is a very important tool to allow us to look at the differences between male populations, from a research point of view, and it is also a good tool for sexual-assault analysis.
I will also talk a bit about Y-chromosome analysis in a minute, for other reasons.
The most polymorphic or changeable component of our entire genetic makeup is called single nucleotide polymorphisms, SNPs. That is the single LEGO block. A SNP is an individual, one base pair or half a rung of your ladder that is different from other people. Roughly 5.6 million of those are recorded to date in our bodies, and roughly 100,000 of those are being studied right now for various reasons.
Where SNPs are important is if you think of the degradation scenario where smaller pieces of DNA are broken down, you will have SNPs. It was SNPs which also helped identify people from the World Trade Center, the tsunami and other mass casualties.
There are three variations in SNPs: You can have a replacement, where someone has a blue LEGO and another person has a yellow LEGO; you can have a deletion, you do not have that yellow LEGO, it is lost in evolution; or you can have an insertion, a yellow and a red LEGO.
The interesting thing about SNPs is that they are essentially what we call biallelic, a yes or no answer. You only have two variations. It is like the traffic light is on red or it is on green. Because of this very simple mode of identification, we can automate it using robotics and fluorescents, et cetera. The great thing about that is that we can do 100,000 SNPs at a time. To tell the difference between individuals, I only need 80 to 100.
I am sure that you are thinking that if this is the panacea of forensic science, why do we not use it? We have traditional technologies in DNA, but more importantly we have a yes or no answer from a person. However, we have a mixture because a sexual assault could be a male and female component, two males or two females. We will not get a yes and no answer with a SNP, we will get a yes-yes or a yes-yes-no; a whole bunch. As a result, mixtures are difficult to work with. We still need another technology.
Where SNPs will be useful is in looking at such things as Y chromosomes and other studies where it will help make the process much faster.
SNPs have been found for identity testing; linage testing, that is, through a family relationship you inherit your SNP; ancestral informative, your origin or geographical location; and even phenotypic markers. With phenotypic markers, that means people are studying SNPs to identify skin, hair and eye colours, amongst other things. For the very first time we have physical traits that can be traced through a genetic technology.
Some people will have problems with that from a privacy and security point of view. On the other hand, many people actually go on the Internet for what we call "recreational'' genomics. They give a piece of their DNA to try to figure out where they came from, who they are and so on. To find out whether they have a propensity for baldness or whatever, they will do 100 of these things.
I will warn you that SNPs are not perfect. It will not be the only mutation or change that will prescribe a particular trait because we are on a continuum. We need many genes to actually prescribe a particular trait. For instance, I could go on the Internet and find out that I have a 68 per cent propensity to be bald. What the heck can I do with a 68 per cent bald propensity?
I will give you another example. A trait that is easy to follow or that you should physically identify with is height. Someone had the bright idea to find the height genes. In 2007, they took about 22,000 or 16,000 individuals of different heights. They found 16 potential areas, SNPs, that appeared to be controlling height, but it turned out that maybe 2 per cent of their "guesstimation'' for height was in those 16 areas. When they did an analysis, they took a person who had all 16 of those SNPs for height, and they took a person who had the fewest. The difference was less than one inch. Not exactly telling, is it? You must be careful what you hear about SNPs, but they are a very important future tool. I think you will see them as a rapid screening technology for the future.
Let us talk about automated DNA extraction. When I first talked to you folks back in 2008 — I think some of you saw our robots and everything — there were only four robots that I knew of at that time. A robot is essentially a machine that has these little tips — and you will see this when you do the tour. It controls the way we can pick up small volumes of liquid.
I have brought in a couple of our sample sets. Our robot reads a bar code. You can see that there are 96 wells here. They are encoded with letters on one side and numbers on the other side. We call it X-Y coordinate. By reading this bar code, I know where every single sample is on this plate. That is how we can encode and track every sample at any time. Automation is a terrific tool for quality assurance and for tracking everything that we want to track. I believe it was this committee, on December 10, 1998, that said that it was important for us to know at any point in time where the sample was and what we were doing with it. We wrote a software program called Sample Tracking Control System, STaCS, because we wanted to track this at any one time. It is an intellectual property of Canada, sold throughout the world and found in major forensic labs — for example, in the FBI and in Florida; California may have it as well.
We had a selection at that time of four robots. I did some work with the Australian government less than a year ago and 18 companies there — they cut it off at 18; there was probably about 25 or so — are specifically designing robots for DNA analysis. Presently, we have 96 sample wells, but in the future we will have 384 samples. You also notice there is a smaller volume. We are able to get DNA results faster now and more samples on a single plate with less material. That is important. As our sensitivity increases, it allows us to locate pieces of evidence that are harder to find in smaller amounts. It also preserves the evidence for other tests and other people who may wish to test that. I think the future will be different types of robots.
That is a blood stain collection card, which is red ink — there is no blood on this card. You probably cannot even see it, but there are three holes there. I will pass that around. That is a 1.2 millimetre hole. That will hold about 750 cells. I need 2 per cent of that to get a DNA result. You can see the little fragments of the hole punch there from this punch. You can see that for yourselves. This is ink. There is a tube here, on this side.
Senator Milne: You get about 15 cells, that is all?
Mr. Fourney: I will get into that. You are getting ahead of me now.
We are comfortable with above 80 to 100 cells at least, because there is safety in numbers. If we have a contamination or someone else's cells are there, we want more. We use between 250 and 500 picograms of DNA. A picogram is one thousandth of a billionth of a gram.
We solved the problem of how to automate the sample extractions for the blood stain collection card. That is how we collect our samples. They are punched out, the whole thing is automated, and we get DNA results from it.
At forensic crime scenes, we have the twilight zone of samples now. We do not have something that is collected in a clean environment with a person wearing gloves, et cetera. Forensic crime scenes are a bone; there are stains on walls, or there is something buried in a backyard for many years. How do we get the DNA from that and automate it? That brings me to the next little trick that we have here.
The black solution in the bottle is just a buffered solution with a bit of detergent in it. However, the black particles in there are magnetic micron or magnetic partical beads. We can put 150 cells across the head of a pin. One cell is 10 micron. The beads in this container are the same size as a human cell. To give you an idea, the smallest grain of sand at the beach is nine times bigger than the beads that you are seeing here, these black beads. The beads are a piece of iron, a ferric core. We have a piece of iron wrapped with silicon and on the edge of the silicon; we have something that binds DNA. We can basically break down the entire DNA on our crime scene sample, swabs, various stains and everything, put them in a tube and add the beads to it. The beads have a coating that binds only to DNA. We use something similar to this magnet. This is a magnetic component. Because these beads have an iron core, we put them on a magnet.
Do you see what is happening? All those beads are now stuck to the magnet. That is called magnetic bead extraction. That is the trick to extract DNA from our crime scenes using automation. That is the future. We did that 250,000 times for a large case out West that would have taken about 12 years to process using conventional labour- intensive procedures that we would normally find in the lab. That is what magnetic bead extraction is all about. The secret is due to a magnet. You now know why kids play with magnets.
I think you visited us and saw the sequencers. The sequencers fluorescently tag a piece of DNA, which then goes by a camera called a charge-coupled device that takes a picture, and we get different sizes of DNA in different colours.
The Chair: No. Someone else visited you. We have not yet had the pleasure. We intend to do so, but we must get through a couple of procedural hoops before I, as chair of this committee, can say that we will be visiting you. However, that is our firm intention.
Mr. Fourney: That is the one piece of equipment that I could not bring to you, unfortunately. It is a big, expensive piece of equipment. You will see lots of them in the future.
When we started with this about 10 years ago, we had one procedure. It is fairly labour-intensive to load it. Nowadays, it is done in a capillary array, which is a small tube. We started with 1, moved to 8; we have 16; there are 48; and in the future, there will be 96. Each one of these little tubes or capillaries is loaded automatically by a robot, and 20 minutes later, it is photographed with the DNA, which is great. The hard part is interpreting that. I will talk to you about that.
Someone asked me how much DNA we need. The RCMP uses around 83 cells of DNA, at the very lowest level. We would like to see quite a bit more, but that is our cut-off. It is interesting that some laboratories in the world have gone lower — what we call low copy number or low template number. They are down in the region of 20 or 25 cells. That may sound really terrific because they can now get very important pieces of DNA information from very small amounts of material. When it works, it is terrific. Our friends in the U.K., in the Forensic Science Service, in particular, have done this over 30,000 times. I received a note from them this week. I asked them, "How often have you used this?'' They use it extensively. We do not use it that much in North America because, for one thing, we get pretty good results with the technology we are using.
On the other hand — and we will look at this in the future — as we bring the number of cells down in low copy number, we also have other problems that potentially will creep in, such as contamination. It is very difficult to interpret the DNA results when we have contamination.
In a fairly famous case, called the Omagh bombing case, in the United Kingdom, the judge questioned some of the low copy technologies. The Forensic Science Service had to go back and demonstrate that the technology they used was effective and highly validated; but they also pointed out it is only as good as the people collecting the samples.
I can type your DNA if you started to sneeze or talk to me, and I had a piece of paper a small distance away. Not much material is needed. However, we have to be careful about safety in numbers: More DNA representing the individual of interest needs to be present than contamination. It is always a situation where we do not have control of the crime scene, and that is why there is safety in numbers.
Some day we will visit low copy number, I am sure of it. We will have specific training and procedures and have the law enforcement individuals involved.
For instance, in the United Kingdom, they have to develop what we call elimination databases. They are so worried about the low copy number that they have police officers' DNA on file to compare it to the crime scene in case something becomes contaminated accidentally. This is the technology, and they have 150,000 police officers on file in United Kingdom in their elimination database.
Let us talk about what we do with all this DNA information in particular. We need some way of interpreting it. We used to do it by hand; now we have expert systems. An expert system is any type of artificial-intelligence software that uses a pre-programmed set of rules to provide interpretation or conclusions and tries to parallel the human logic decision-making process derived through expertise and experience.
One of the most challenging aspects of forensic science is interpreting a large amount of DNA evidence. Put yourself in the position of the people who had to identify the remains from the World Trade Center or the tsunami. That is a tremendous amount of information coming in at one time. Some type of electronic software is needed to keep track of everything, to help manage the information and look at the results.
However, it is only as good as what is programmed into it. The expert systems take everything from our interpretation and how we know what a DNA profile will look like, the height of its peaks and various checks and balances and different components that we, as molecular biologists, will look at; it is all programmed into the software to help us make this evaluation.
I would like to talk a bit about DNA in mass disasters and kinship searching. I believe when I talked to you 10 years ago, I had just finished the Swissair flight 111 mass disaster identification; a couple of weeks before, we had identified the last individual.
That was done through incredible cooperation and tremendous work by numerous individuals. DNA played a role in that, but so did dental X-rays and a great amount of excellent work by investigators and people at the scene.
We quickly found out that we were overwhelmed in the DNA that we did for the Swissair flight. We even had to develop our own software package to keep track of the material, and we did that. A young scientist called Benoît Leclair did an excellent job developing that software for us. His software was used in certain variations in the World Trade Center as well.
The reason we could identify individuals from the Swissair flight or the World Trade Center is because we receive half of our DNA from our mothers and half from our fathers. If you had a son or a daughter aboard that aircraft or at the World Trade Center, and you were to obtain your parents' DNA, you can figure out if a child was your son or daughter. That is called kinship analysis.
Another technology is called familiar searching. Familiar searching is an investigation technique that extends comparison of the crime scene DNA with that of close relatives in forensic DNA databases by taking advantage of the fact that close relatives will have similar DNA motifs and profiles.
Kinship analysis is a process often used to identify missing persons or victims of mass fatalities through DNA comparisons of known reference samples taken from family members. There is a little bit of difference, but it is based on the same principle. If you are a child of a parent, or a sibling, we can identify you through your close relatives. It is based on probability calculations, as well as certain statistical calculations called likelihood ratios. That is how we helped identify some of the missing people in the Swissair incident.
Police and other groups, primarily in the United Kingdom, are now extending this to finding potential individuals who could match a crime scene, by looking for people within the database who have not a perfect match but a close match. When a piece of crime scene evidence does not result in a perfect match in the database, if we look for less than perfect matches, we could possibly identify close family members. From there, we have narrowed down the population of individuals that we may wish to interview.
This has been successful 16 per cent of the time it was applied out of 160 cases in the United Kingdom. Where it was successful, it was incredibly successful because these were very old, difficult cases. I believe in a few instances it led to exonerations.
It is a very powerful technique, but like any technology, we have to weigh when and how we will use it because now we are not just looking at a particular individual, we are looking at other members of the family.
The same thing can be applied for Y-STRs and another technology called mitochondrial DNA. I do not want to bore you too much with that, but it is a special piece of DNA found outside of the nucleus and found in organelles.
You have organs in your body such as a heart and a liver; and a cell has organelles, special little areas that have mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondria are the powerhouse of a cell, providing energy. In there is a single piece of DNA, which has been very useful because it is passed down maternally.
The Y-DNA is passed down paternally through our sons and grandsons; and on the maternal side, mitochondrial DNA is passed down. Therefore, we can apply this same analysis through the mitochondrial DNA. The great thing about that is we have a large amount and many copies of mitochondrial DNA. Therefore, it often becomes the very last source of DNA from the oldest and most badly degraded samples, and it has been extremely valuable in solving some of the oldest cases.
We do not employ mitochondrial DNA at the RCMP, but we have access to its use. We do not use mitochondrial DNA because, although we could, it is very sensitive and requires a lot of extra skill. The number of times we would use it suggest that it would be better for us to outsource it to a professional lab. One of the labs we use is involved with forensic anthropology and is highly experienced in this area. Some day we may use it — the FBI uses it — but it is another tool in our tool box.
Finally, we can do this in an automated fashion with micromachines or biochips.
I have an example here of one of the best micromachines I have ever seen. Do you know what this is? You should know now that I have turned it on. That is the "tricorder'' from Star Trek. I would like to tell you it works, but, unfortunately, it was my son's favourite toy.
Some day we will have a tool similar to this, a micromachine that will be able to measure DNA at a crime scene. It is not that far away because some of you have probably seen something similar, a blood glucose monitor. You put a little bit of blood on a strip and plug it in.
My wife will kill me because she teaches this, and I do not know how it works. You put it in with a bit of blood on the chip, and it will take a measurement. It is a simple micromachine.
I was excited about eight or nine years ago when they started to work on these DNA micromachines. The technology was available, but unfortunately the size was an issue. They went from the size of a room down to the size of a small car and then to the size of a suitcase. It is getting close. I saw two prototypes last year that will extract the DNA and separate the spermatozoa from the epithelial cells using sound sonication on a chip. The wells on the chips are 10-microns wide, which is the same size as a cell. You can fit 10 cells on the width of a piece of paper, so we are not talking about big channels. These prototypes will also detect what the DNA profile looks like.
The two ways of doing this are a modular design that separates the cells with one biochip, analyzes with another and detects and reports with yet another; and an integrated design in which everything is done together. I have seen a modular design where one chip is done, and then it is pushed over to another. I have seen part of an integrated design that we are really excited about. Perhaps in about one or two years, we will have something very similar to a tricorder that will allow us to process the sample quickly and possibly at the crime scene, or at least in the laboratory setting where we can control the circumstances.
In my view, that is the direction of the future of technology.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Fourney.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: We have today new senators who were not here ten years ago. I will gladly give them my turn if they want to ask questions.
The Chair: Then, I should put all the names on the list.
Senator Nolin: I am ready to let my colleagues ask questions.
[English]
Senator Baker: Some of the members around this table were not present when you appeared before the committee in 1998, but most of us have read Jack Pine.
The Chair: Senator Baker, this briefing is more technical than legal. Dr. Fourney will return. This briefing is not about policy or the law.
Senator Baker: I was making reference to Senator Nolin's point and your evidence before this committee has been quoted extensively in case law. I imagine that this hearing will also be quoted quite extensively in case law.
My question is about the automation in the RCMP's investigative unit. The automation took place prior to 2007 was investigated by the Auditor General.
Mr. Fourney: Yes.
Senator Baker: The Auditor General found that the automation incorporated in the RCMP lab was not very good when compared to the manual process. The instances were raised where you had 100 drops of blood on a piece of clothing that an RCMP investigator submitted to your automated process, but it could not find a trace large enough to study. Then, the RCMP investigator became frustrated and sent it back to your lab. I see you nodding, Mr. Fourney.
However, a sufficient sample to test was found manually. In 3 per cent of the cases that they investigated over a period of time using your automated process, there was a 3 per cent miss. How do you respond to the Auditor General on these specifics relating to your automated process within the department?
Mr. Fourney: I am in charge of research and development and the national data bank. I can assure you that the automation in the national DNA data bank is working just dandy. In fact, I looked at the numbers — and I can testify to this when I have more details tomorrow — and I believe that in 160,000 plus samples, we have a less than 1.3 per cent rejection. The majority of that is due to the fact that the judicial order to take the sample is not correct. In other words, they made a mistake in obtaining the sample, not on the biology. In a very few instances, we do not get a DNA result. Tomorrow, I will have those numbers to give to the committee.
I believe you asked: If the automation is so great in the data bank, what is the difference on the operational side? Part of the problem is the data bank. As you can see from the sample collection cards, it is a highly controlled process. We do not even quantitate the DNA because we know we will get a certain amount from that punch-out and doing the DNA. It is a very controlled process. When we go to operations, it is like entering the twilight zone because we never know what to expect.
A number of instances have occurred where they expected to get a result and did not get a result. There will always be a time when we do not get a result. Unlike "CSI,'' there are times we do not find DNA at the crime scene, so we have our challenges.
In that particular instance that you mentioned, we were migrating the technology from a highly controlled environment to a highly challenged environment. The case out West was one of our challenges. If different types of soil are mixed with different types of animal blood and we still have to get a human DNA profile from a very small amount, that constitutes a challenging environment. Our technology was built around that and was quite successful.
In those instances where we should have had a result but did not, we looked at it again because, as a research scientist, I was bothered by that. Interestingly, in some cases, we would never get a result, and in others, the manual process might work better. In many instances, the magnetic bead extraction process cleans everything up, and we will always get a result. Currently, more than 90 per cent of our case work is processed with automation, not only because it is faster and we are able to do more, but also it is cleaner and gives a result on very challenging samples, usually involving soil, for example.
We noticed something in some of the samples with the blood when we revisited the case. We found that the blood spots had a little green associated with them and wondered where it had come from. Do you remember I told you about the presumptive test that tells us whether a sample is blood or not? That test uses "haemostix'' to verify whether it is blood. The haemostix is not supposed to touch blood directly. Instead, a sample of blood is touched with a piece of paper, and then the haemostix touches that. If a police officer or even someone in our laboratory touches the blood directly with the haemostix then a bit of the chemical ends up in the blood sample, and that particular chemical does not work well with magnetic beads. In that case, we wrote up the protocol for searching the exhibits and how and when to use the haemostix, thereby essentially eliminating the problem.
Senator Baker: On the RCMP website a few days ago — perhaps on March 12 — an independent report appeared concerning what we are talking about, which is the reporting and the automation.
Mr. Fourney: Are you referring to the report by iforensic of Forensic Science Service?
Senator Baker: Yes. I read the report. Every member of this committee will have read the report by the time we write up the final conclusions. It was an all-encompassing, rather sweeping bunch of generalizations, I would suspect. However, they carried with them many recommendations on how to improve the delivery of your service.
Mr. Fourney: Yes.
Senator Baker: Could you tell the committee who did that study, and why they would have spent such a great period of time — it was just released on March 12, 2009 — suggesting that your entire procedure should really be revamped in a different direction? Could you explain that to us?
Mr. Fourney: Yes. After the report by the Auditor General, we basically went back and looked at all the recommendations in that report. One of the recommendations is to have our process reviewed externally and extensively. Therefore, we invited that group from the Forensic Science Service in the United Kingdom to come in and look at everything, ask as many questions as they wanted and take as long as they wanted to do it. They started in May and, I believe, finished in November.
They visited all our labs and interviewed all our people. We purposely told them we wanted to improve our technology and wanted to hear what they had to say. We have launched a transformation project that will take into account all those recommendations. Over the next two or three years, we will evolve our entire program. Many of those recommendations will be heeded, though we cannot use all of them due to legislative differences between Canada and the United Kingdom. However, we have certainly taken it to heart.
I might add that we also did an extensive review of the science and the technology. That was an all-encompassing review. However, before that, we were concerned enough that, if there was something here we should know about that we do not, let us bring in the experts.
We had a group of expert forensic scientists come in and review all of our science and technical validations, et cetera, throughout the summer of the year before. That report is available. They found that the science and the technology we use are highly validated and very reliable. They suggested some changes in how we train and transform the technology from the research and development side into the practical and the end-user side. Essentially that meant that we had a very sound and stable technology, but there are probably better ways of applying it and certainly better ways to train our individuals.
In the report by iforensic, I believe you will see similar recommendations. We have all the tools and a good process; however, it is not just about having all the tools and the process, it is about taking the most efficient steps in our process in order to be better. The report by iforensic and the transformation project are about learning best practices from elsewhere and how to apply them. We fully intend to do that.
Senator Baker: We presume that the government will cough up the $15 million that is required to implement that. Have you requested that? If not, will the RCMP cough up that money? Do you wish to comment on that?
Mr. Fourney: I am not sure I can comment on that.
Senator Milne: Greetings, once again. I am glad to have you back here, but I am thinking back to the time you were here before. You told us of the process, and you had a few visuals then. Basically, at that time, a DNA profile looked like 94 of those little samples — 94 bar codes that you were looking at — but now you are talking about a graph. Is that right?
Mr. Fourney: We can still look at the bar codes. However, we get more information from a graph because, when we plot it, we not only have a peak that says what the bar is but the height of the graph tells us how much we have there. Therefore, we get more information. We can plot it both ways.
Senator Milne: Earlier, you said that we are born with certain DNA characteristics and we die with that same set, basically. What if someone had a bone marrow transplant?
Mr. Fourney: In fact, that is an interesting situation. We worked with a number of different labs that specialize in bone marrow transplants, and they were using technologies similar to ours, as well as ours, to identify successful bone marrow transplant individuals.
They found that, if you had a successful bone marrow transplant, the donor bone marrow was essentially 100 per cent the donor, and the recipient, who potentially had the cancer that was malignant and was irradiated, for instance, did not have any of his or her own cells back. One of the ways they can check — or have done in the past in certain clinical studies — is to look at the balance of how much is the donor DNA component and whether they still have some of the recipient DNA. Often they can adjust the various regimes for further treatments based on that balance.
When you have a bone marrow transplant, it essentially means that the blood will be that of the donor. In fact, I had some slides the last time I was here showing how a male recipient essentially had female blood and a female recipient had male blood. Interestingly, if you left hair, for instance — or any other part of your body, such as a buccal sample from inside your mouth — it is your DNA. You become a mosaic; you have two patterns of DNA.
Senator Milne: You have a blood pattern and a cellular pattern, is that right?
Mr. Fourney: Yes, you have your DNA, and everything that the bone marrow makes for cells will be the donor's DNA. You are a mosaic; a unique individual.
Senator Milne: I was about to ask you about mitochondrial DNA, but you spoke about it. Why is it so much more complex? Is it because it is in the cell itself whereas the genetic DNA is in the nucleus of the cell?
Mr. Fourney: That is correct. Perhaps I should not use the word "complex'' in the sense that the mitochondrial DNA is essentially a single chromosome of DNA; it is roughly 16,000-plus base pairs, which is a small chunk.
Senator Milne: It is all down the female line.
Mr. Fourney: Absolutely. It is different to work with because they are actually sequencing — counting the LEGO blocks one at a time is called sequencing — whereas most of the techniques we use are for measuring the size of an enlarged fragment. That would be like 100 of these LEGO blocks. With mitochondrial DNA, they are looking at one LEGO block difference; we are looking at hundreds to thousands. It is just easier.
However, because technology has allowed us to look at such small amounts, the issues of contamination and procedure are extremely important. We have to be sensitized to different types of controls and ensure the procedures and collection protocols are extremely good. I am not saying that it is impossible to work with because many labs, including the FBI, do a terrific job.
However, mitochondrial DNA is more expensive to work with, and, as is the case for many situations in DNA analysis, it is a business case, as well. It is less expensive for us to send out a sample for mitochondrial DNA processing to an accredited lab especially equipped, with trained and validated individuals; mitochondrial DNA is all they do. It is extremely expensive for us to set up the same procedure, train multiple individuals and do the accreditation.
It needs to be balanced. If we need to do more mitochondrial processing, we will probably do it ourselves. For instance, with Swissair flight 111, 97 per cent of all the samples we typed with our standard procedure were successful. We did not have to use mitochondrial DNA at all.
Senator Milne: That is interesting. You talked about the 13 to 16 markers, saying that the RCMP is now using 13, and you would think 16 might be a bit better. You call them polymorphic areas or undifferentiated areas. Are you absolutely certain that these will never be identified with any particular genetic trait with which you would trace an individual, for example, the colour of his or her eyes or hair, the length of their nose, and so on? Forget about whether or not someone is bilingual; I do not think that is in your genetic makeup.
Mr. Fourney: We have chosen markers that do not code for anything for the very reason you stated, namely, we want to be absolutely clear that we are looking at pieces of DNA that do not prescribe a physical, mental or other trait to an individual. As far as we know at this time, no identification patterns exist. In fact, one of my worst nightmares is waking up some morning and reading in our newspapers that our most polymorphic, that is the best marker that we have is somehow linked to schizophrenia or something because we will no longer be able to use it.
That does raise the point that when we look at these other markers, such as SNPs, some groups in the United Kingdom and in the United States are purposely looking at traits for physical attributes and colour, for example, because it is a terrific investigative tool from their perspective. That is one of these balancing aspects where we must decide whether the importance of an investigation tool outweighs, for instance, the privacy and security associated with an individual.
I do not want to disappoint anyone in this room either, but you are not 100 per cent pure. You will find that you are an incredible mixture of many different populations. You may think that you are Caucasian, for instance, but you will be surprised just how much you are not.
One of the interesting issues dealing with the future will be some of these companies that offer DNA-typing services. One of them is 23andMe, and there is another group in Florida where you send in a bit of your DNA and they will tell you if you are X percentage Asian, African-American or Caucasian; you are bald; or you have the twitch gene for muscle reflexes, and all sorts of interesting stuff, I am sure. However, when we look at the percentage components, they are measuring a population variation and trying to extrapolate it down to an individual.
Senator Milne: When you came before us the last time, you were looking at 13 markers then. You just spoke of markers.
Mr. Fourney: They are called loci. I called them DNA markers here. In fact, the data bank uses 13, but, for instance, they would use 9 in casework. If they need to do an additional set of markers, they have a multiplex system where they will do up to 13.
Senator Milne: None of those original 13 markers that you have used have turned out to give any identifiable traits.
Mr. Fourney: No they have not; that is correct. None of them code for anything that I have known or that we know of.
Senator Milne: None of them code yet.
Senator Wallace: Mr. Fourney, obviously, you take the reliability of the analysis and work that you do extremely seriously. That comes across loud and clear. For the sake of the accused, that is obviously very important.
However, as you say, the technology is evolving. As scientists, I am sure you continue to push the envelope to have better technologies, more reliable analysis and so on, and that will continue to move.
Is there a formalized approval process that legitimizes changes in technology and changes in methods of analysis that can be used in DNA analysis and be presented as evidence in court? I realize that, as scientists, you will continue to push the envelope, but is there a standard of process that you are measured against and have to conform to before that will be accepted as a legitimate change in technology?
Mr. Fourney: Yes, there is. From the very beginning, since 1989 I seem to recall, we have been members of the Scientific Working Group on DNA Analysis Methods, SWGDAM. It is a formalized group hosted through the United States Department of Justice. We are very lucky to be invited on behalf of North America as participants. I believe Toronto and Quebec are also invited to these meetings. Amongst us, including state laboratories and federal laboratories and the U.S. military, they debate various technologies. We have a formalized process called the SWGDAM standards, which must be applied before any of this technology would be acceptable within a court. Involved with that will not only be the training standard but also the validation standards that you speak of with respect to a new technology. It must be passed through the SWGDAM guidelines, and at the same time, it is internally published or externally published.
Part of the problem with many of technologies that we use is that it is like reinventing the wheel. Many of the scientific journals have already seen it before and are not interested in publishing it. That means we want to present that material internationally or nationally at various meetings, having a standard validation that is available for anyone to review. We are accredited under ISO 17025 standards, which mean that all of our procedures, the training and the quality assurance that is applied, meet an international standard of ISO accreditation from laboratories, specifically forensic laboratories.
Senator Wallace: Is that part of the regulations under the DNA Identification Act?
Mr. Fourney: No, it is not.
Senator Wallace: Is it more of an internal process that you have adapted as a best practice as opposed to the standard imposed from either the act or the regulations?
Mr. Fourney: There is really no standard in the act apart from the fact that the commissioner overseas the National DNA Data Bank. We have our own group of members in our Canadian version of SWGDAM. Only three forensic public laboratories exist in Canada that are involved in forensics: Montreal, Toronto and our lab. We routinely get together to review technologies and best practices. At this point, it is informal. It is because we work so well together and share information and validation that it has never been formalized. There is not much that we do that others do not know within our Canadian forensic arena. In the end, the National DNA Data Bank, which falls under my responsibility, cannot use technology that no one else is using because to what will they compare the results? I feel that part of our obligation in the National DNA Data Bank is to ensure that we are using not only the best technology but also a forensic DNA currency that everyone can understand and exchange.
Senator Wallace: In any criminal court charges, defence counsel will push you to continue to prove that the technology being used continues to be valid and credible and is not superseded by anything else.
Mr. Fourney: It was that way when I started in 1988, and I do not see it changing.
Senator Joyal: Welcome back, Mr. Fourney. My first question is in relation to the report this committee issued in June 2007 in relation to Bill C-18. That report talks about the last recommendation of the Auditor General of Canada in her May 2007 report regarding management of the Forensic Laboratory Services, FLS, in which she states the following:
The RCMP should ensure that parliamentarians receive the information needed to hold the government to account for the performance of all activities related to the Forensic Laboratory Services . . . .
What did you do following that recommendation to allow parliamentarians to better control the evolution of the FLS and its performance?
Mr. Fourney: The directorship of our program has been involved with the Auditor General's group. We report routinely to them. I believe we have been before several committees — not myself, but I understand that we were before several parliamentary committees and provided information to them. Of course, there is our review of the act itself with the statutory review that we are undergoing, which I presume is what we are supposed to do at this point, namely, to provide you with as much information as possible.
Numerous reports are available; I think they are publicly disclosed. Some of them are on our website. Other members of the RCMP Forensic Laboratory Services have appeared before the committee on several occasions. Specifically, I probably cannot tell you that directly.
Senator Joyal: We would have to have other witnesses from the RCMP to give us the information that the Auditor General identified as being lacking for us to perform our duty of holding you to account in terms of the performance of the laboratories.
Mr. Fourney: I would think that is appropriate, if you feel that it should come before your committee.
The Chair: We will be hearing tomorrow from more people, and, of course, we can invite even more people as necessary because it is certainly an avenue that we will want to explore.
Senator Joyal: It is something we identified two years ago. If there is something in the act that is missing, for example, if we should recommend that there be specific information provided yearly from you in terms of analysis, and so on, that is what we want to get to ensure that in the years to come we will be able to perform our duty as parliamentarians.
Mr. Fourney: Absolutely. I should probably make it clear that my expertise is on the research and the DNA side but the data bank also falls under my auspices. I can probably tell you in great detail — more than you want — how the National DNA Data Bank works, but the Auditor General's report actually did not audit the National DNA Data Bank. The questions you are asking pertain more to the operational side. I might suggest they would probably apply equally to other forensic laboratories in Canada.
It is my understanding that you will have an opportunity also, if you are concerned about the operations of the National DNA Data Bank, to read the annual report, which is presented to Parliament. We have an advisory committee because of you folks, who decided it was a good idea to have an arm's-length committee that was ministerially appointed to help the commissioner and the minister review the operations and the ongoings of the National DNA Data Bank. I think two members are appearing from that committee within the next week. Certainly, if you need to have any information about the National DNA Data Bank or our operations, terrific opportunity is there. I can provide you with something that is missing and the committee members can certainly advise you, too. I believe you are centring more on the interest of the operational side of DNA analysis.
The Chair: The advisory committee members are scheduled to appear on April 2.
Senator Joyal: My second question relates to the private sector. You referred to it in an aside. What kind of exchange do you have with the private sector in terms of developing your capacity, and what kind of information or research is made available to the private sector?
Mr. Fourney: We have pretty good working relationships with most forensic labs in Canada, including the private- sector labs. We also work extensively with the university laboratories, for instance Trent University, which has a terrific forensic wildlife program. We help train some of their students and exchange lecturers. In fact, they have won a competitive contract to help us with our own training within the operations of DNA for Forensic Science and Identification Services.
Canada does not have many private laboratories. The two I am most familiar with are Maxum, out of Toronto, and Molecular World Inc., out of Thunder Bay. In both cases, we work with them; they have done cases for us. Maxum, in particular, is under contract to assist on certain cases that we may have to have done. Molecular World is founded through a forensic anthropology group. As a result, their expertise is very good in areas such as mitochondrial DNA, Y-STRs, micro or mini-STRs, and we used them on specific occasions for particularly large cases, for instance, one out of Western Canada.
In addition, from the research point of view, I have had many students. I do not know how many students I have had over the years. I have a cross-appointment, and other members of my group have cross-appointments. They must be security-cleared and checked. We cannot have a whole bunch of students come in, but we have had students in over the years. I have assisted in master's programs, and we have competitive research contracts with several different universities at this time where we share not only in the results but we are often co-publishers of their papers.
Senator Joyal: Since we met 10 years ago, there has been a lot of commercialization of DNA analysis. When we first adopted the legislation, we envisaged that it would come at a certain point in time. You referred to all sorts of commercial initiatives to offer the general public DNA results or the capacity to know better one another on the bases of analysis, but that carries a negative side. You have alluded to this by the fact that you can get the samples, in the widest definition, much easier than before.
You said that someone just has to breathe on a piece of paper and you have the DNA. Therefore, in a job interview, the guy gives the paper to you and you file the form and you can do a DNA analysis. I am not trying to give you a nightmare scenario, but there is no question that, in the last 10 years, the evolution of the research has made it a totally different world than it was at the beginning when we adopted the first legislation. Mind you, like you, we felt that it would offer that aspect, too.
What aspect of your research and knowledge of the field should we consider as being developments that are two- pronged, that we should be concerned about the development of and the way in which it is used?
Mr. Fourney: The business of the paper, that is one particular study that I came across. If any of you want a copy of this, I have made it available through the clerk.
The Chair: You have made it available through the clerk?
Mr. Fourney: Yes. I call it an insomniac's dream because it is fairly long and has 350 references in it. One of the references relates to a study in the United Kingdom where they asked about that kind of transfer.
It is interesting that you raised that type of question because I spent the whole day at the Privacy Commissioner's workshop on Monday on this specific topic of genetic privacy. We had about 10 North American experts. I was privileged to be invited to the group to hear what they had to say. Forensics was one component of the discussion. A number of individuals around that committee were quite sensitized to the fact that a person can pretty well do what they want with their own DNA, and now it is freely commercially available. The real question on everyone's mind in North America or elsewhere is, what do you do about it? There is no control over that. The question is extremely legitimate to ask members of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada who may be coming before you as well because we had a whole day's discussion on this.
In terms of technologies that are sensitive, obviously any DNA technology is sensitive because it has part of you associated with it. However, unlike a university environment, a medical diagnostic environment or even some of these private, recreational genetics facilities, we have legislation and rules that we must follow in the DNA Identification Act. As I pointed out to my colleagues at the meeting on Monday, I do not know of any research laboratory that would go to jail based on the fact that they have disclosed personal information from your DNA, but that is exactly what would happen if anyone from the National DNA Data Bank disclosed the DNA information.
You are right to be asking those questions. It is something that many people in North America are asking. Several major conferences have taken place with respect to this topic. There is even the question of who owns your DNA. If you look at the various states' privacy laws and the commercial venture groups that have looked at this, they are not even sure who owns your DNA.
If you have a clinical sample taken in a diagnostic arena for cancer, you could find yourself in a situation similar to a particular event that happened in California, for instance, where they went on to develop a whole series of drugs for that particular cancer. That DNA was taken from an individual for another purpose through a clinical diagnostic sample in a hospital.
I think you have the right to ask these questions. However, I can also tell you that we have legislation, and we work for a law enforcement agency where I do not think you would do that more than once.
Senator Joyal: If we wanted to get a picture like the one you are trying to describe in terms of the implications that follow from the original science that was identified in 1993 — from where we are now from 10 years ago — which experts should we call upon to explain the implications and risks that follow from the use of the technology, how we should be aware of it and advise accordingly in terms of legislative initiative?
Mr. Fourney: I hope I am helping you out a bit. If there is something I cannot answer, I will certainly make it my mode in life to do so.
A number of experts out there, from a clinical point of view, work with DNA on a regular basis and population genetics. You may wish to consider members of the advisory committee.
The Chair: We will be hearing from some of them.
Mr. Fourney: You have Honourable Peter Cory from the judicial point of view, with a background in law, along with Mr. Bergman, the chair. Also on that committee, you have a population geneticist; you have a board-certified medical geneticist out of Harvard who writes specifically on issues of clinical diagnostics and ethics — familiar searching, in particular — Dr. Fred Bieber. You have one of the best genomic researchers in Canada in my view, Dr. William Davidson out of Simon Fraser University. You have some terrific people. You have a member of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner on that committee.
I personally think it is one of the best committees that one can serve on because one has a wide group of expertise. I suggest that you call in any of those people if you want to get inside information on what is happening. More importantly, they know what is happening in the National DNA Data Bank and work with DNA as well. They are not law enforcement, so it gives you a different perspective.
Senator Nolin: No, they are law enforcement.
The Chair: In a different sense.
Senator Joyal: On the ethical aspect of that technology, which most recent studies, in your opinion, have been published that outline the various philosophical and privacy issues that pertain to the ownership of DNA?
Mr. Fourney: My personal suggestion is that the handouts that were provided on our workshop on Monday by the Privacy Commissioner's office dealing with this were excellent. You may want to contact a member of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. I could probably make those arrangements through the clerk if you like. The reading material there is extensive, but excellent.
Last year, they presented a research paper on this issue of genetic privacy and concerns. It is extremely good reading and very detailed. They did an excellent job on it.
There are other groups out of the John F. Kennedy School of Government; they did a three-year review of population DNA data banks. It was a significant research grant, looking at the ethics involved with DNA, both medical and forensics. The co-grantee on that was Dr. Fred Bieber, a member of the advisory committee. He has a wealth of information and expertise and has written widely on this subject. We have some of the best experts in the world right here in our Privacy Commissioner's office in Ottawa.
Senator Dickson: I am just auditioning. All the senators here have been around for awhile and understand the background, except for Senator Wallace and me. We are both from the Maritimes, so you must take us seriously.
My questions relate to the points that Senator Baker and Senator Joyal raised — both of whom took all the fire out of the questions I wanted to ask. My first question goes to the chair.
I just looked at the act here. Do we get a chance to have, as a witness, the Commissioner of the RCMP, the existing guy?
The Chair: We have such a long list; do we have the commissioner on our list? We can always invite him, and we are grateful for the suggestion.
Senator Dickson: When the Auditor General twigged that there was some problem, whether it was timing or technology, who was the person responsible at that time for the operation? Will we have him or her as a witness?
Mr. Fourney: I do not know, actually. I have been called for the data bank and the DNA Identification Act. However, if you are broadening the review to the operations, you will have to talk to someone from operations.
The Chair: I suggest at this point that if we are talking about suggestions for witnesses, we may not wish to use up the time we have available with interpreters to talk about future witnesses. We can have committee meetings, and we can even quiz Mr. Fourney after the meeting. However, for future witness lists, let us talk about that after the formal meeting, okay?
Senator Dickson: Fine. My final question relates to independence. You may not be the person who can answer this, but the RCMP hired the consultant that did this report.
Mr. Fourney: Yes.
Senator Dickson: You probably do not want to answer this, but in your opinion, is that the best consultant in the world? I just want to know.
Mr. Fourney: I could ask you what kind of car you drive.
Senator Dickson: I will tell you.
Mr. Fourney: I can tell you that these people knew what they were doing. The Forensic Science Service has a very old and professional program dealing with forensics. They were the first people to use DNA. These are the people that did the Pitchfork murder case that I talked to you about at the beginning. They are certainly the largest forensic organization in the world, as far as I know, who specializes in this. They are a commercial entity as well. I do not think they are a Crown agency, but the equivalent of such, so they were actually able to do this commercially. They have the expertise, and I have read the papers by many of those individuals. We are familiar with their background because they are well-known in the field.
If you are asking me if they gave us a hard time, I think they did. I think they did a good job. Could there be other groups that would do it? I would hate to think of myself on a review committee, actually. I would be someone's worst nightmare, probably. I think that review was done very well, and also we have had other ones. We had the one I talked to you about, the science and technical review, which was more along my program; specifically, whether the science was valid and reliable. That was done by practicing forensic scientists in the United States in particular.
I would think that we were reviewed quite extensively, and they have done a good job.
Senator Dickson: The last report you just referred to that was done by independents as far as the area for which you are responsible, they made certain recommendations, did they not?
Mr. Fourney: Yes, they did.
Senator Dickson: Have they been carried out?
Mr. Fourney: As far as I can recall, the majority of them have been carried out. I cannot recall every specific one, but we were quite pleased with the report and the fact that they felt that the science we were involved with and the validation were done well. Many of their comments were similar to the subsequent report, the report by iforensic, if they were not carried out, they are certainly being carried out in association with the iforensic's report.
That was a much smaller, focused review on science. That told us that we had to open it up to a broader, more detailed review; and, hence, triggered the second, more extensive review.
We are taking all of this information — the Auditor General's report and the two subsequent reviews — into consideration. It is quite a large project that is ongoing now.
Senator Dickson: What is the schedule for the completion of the implementation of all the recommendations? Is it two years or three years?
Mr. Fourney: We are actually in the implementation stage for some of them now. The report just came out, and we have been putting the teams together over the last few weeks on specifically identifying particular areas that can be worked on right away. Other particular recommendations will take longer to do. Some of it will involve better approaches to training, for instance. That means we are redeveloping the training program as well. Obviously, the implementation will come, and we will know how it is working once we have trained some additional people through that program.
Short-term, mid-term and long-term implementation is being done professionally as a project. That is extensive and involved a great deal of us.
Senator Dickson: Do you have any concerns — because of the inadequacies that have been found wherever within the system — that there will be cases lost? In other words some lawyers will get out of this, as well as the lawyers around this table here, especially after tonight?
Mr. Fourney: That is a tough one to say. To be honest with you, I do not think we have had an easy go with DNA since I started. If you are concerned about forensic science, many people are looking at this right now to see how we can improve.
Certainly, I can tell you to improve on areas is what scientists do. We look, we take the best and we go forward and change. The day we stop improving or changing, we are probably dead.
I would say that we are always looking for constant improvement. A couple of studies in the U.S. have just come out, including the report by National Academy of Sciences about two weeks ago reviewing all forensic science — not just DNA, but all forensic sciences. That has gone to the United States Congress. Right now the review of the nature of forensics is a very popular topic.
They are finding in that report that a great deal more effort must be put into supporting forensic science and ensuring that the finances, workforce and expertise are available. Many smaller laboratories just cannot afford to do certain aspects.
That is a very broad report, and in fact in that report, they are using DNA. We have done sort of the gold standard to measure other science and technology.
Senator Nolin: Mr. Fourney, welcome, and thank you very much for coming.
In your testimony, you referred to interaction that you have had with your colleagues in other countries. Obviously they have different laws and different principles on which those laws are built. I am proud, listening to your testimony, of what we did 10 years ago. It transpired from your concerns and how you are dealing with those principles, compared to other countries, that we were trying to see enshrined — at least as concerns — which survived 10 years.
In other jurisdictions, other countries, are they using the technology and the envelope that you are pushing to do a better job to protect and create a better social and security environment without compromising the principle that we are defending?
If so, what are the legislative changes that you would like us to promote? You can answer in writing, if you would like.
Mr. Fourney: I will almost sound immodest here, but the practices and steps put in place, largely from honourable senators with respect to the advisory committee, are well recognized. We have become an example to most countries internationally.
In fact, when we participate in different groups, including the G8 Search Request Network, we are one of the first groups consulted on defending the privacy and security of the samples and on the way we separate the personal information from the genetic information so that no one in the data bank for instance knows who they are processing. We have become an incredible example, in my view, for various countries.
We have been prudent, step-wise, in how we have introduced the technology. That is why we are before you now. We have made a test drive now, so we will see where we can take it.
This would be an excellent question to ask the advisory committee, in particular. I would also strongly suggest you talk to our Privacy Commissioner representatives, who may come before you. They testified in the lower house two weeks ago, and I was pleased with what they had to say.
Senator Bryden: Following on from what Senator Nolin has been discussing, it concerns me that the report that has just been done on your colleagues is being done in Britain. As I remember it, the set-up, at least from the point of view of the criminal law in Britain in relation to DNA and the banking of it, is quite different than it is in Canada.
In Canada, it is my understanding that DNA is a tool for identification, whereas in Britain, if you are charged, you are banked, basically. They have tens of thousands of people in their bank.
Also, it appears that the British police and the people testing for DNA are using test results to determine the lineage or ethnicity of people. The concern is that the use of such a system could result in DNA dragnets — if they cast the net in a smaller community, there is a good chance of "catching the fish.''
We are concerned and impressed by what you, Mr. Fourney, and your group have done to develop this tool and to use it. We function under a Constitution and under a Charter of Rights and Freedoms that is not quite the same as it is in some other countries, including Britain. I would be concerned to find the RCMP, who is paying the tab, at an international conference being patted on the back and congratulated because they too could put out a dragnet.
One of our concerns must always remain our concern: Growing technology adds so much to our lives, but it must respect our Charter of Rights, our Constitution, our privacy and our individuality. Clearly, in a number of areas in Britain, they are prepared to sacrifice that for having a list of who might be a potential criminal.
Do you have any concerns that this could bring pressure on our own people to say: If it is good enough for the mother country, for some of us, then it should be good enough for Canada. Would you care to comment on that?
Mr. Fourney: Absolutely. It was a competitive bid that went through the usual procurement process. We had three people make a proposal, and theirs was judged to be the best. It was evaluated by the normal procurement process. We did not have much to say about who won the bid except that it was judged to be the most appropriate and would answer the questions.
Senator Bryden: Could I ask who the other bidders were?
Mr. Fourney: I would rather not say. I think that is something I am not supposed to say. Some of us who took part in designing the request for proposal did not know who was bidding. It is done in a blind fashion, and eventually we are told. From a competitive or procurement point of view, it was done through the normal and proper channels.
In response to your other concern, they did not review our legislation or how we apply our technology. Instead, they reviewed what technology we were using and how it could be improved. Honourable senators and members of the other place write the rules for engagement as to how we apply our technology. You might want to ask that question of those who review the legislation and what the current direction means. That is a good approach. My colleagues, some of whom are behind me, would have much more expertise when they testify. I believe they provided you with a paper for your consideration of potential legislative enablements for the future.
In terms of the recommendations and the follow-through, these people had the expertise and seemed to know what they were doing. They were looking at the science and our procedures to determine whether we could do more with less; perhaps cut down on some of the concerns we had with training for our expertise; and suggest better interactions with the investigator, which I believe has been done and has been followed through. Regardless of the legislation, their recommendations were valid with respect to the way in which we process, look at our procedures, and what we use in forensic DNA analysis. It is up to the committee to decide where we take new technologies and introductions in the future.
The Chair: Senator Bryden raised a concern that we all had the first time around. I certainly took considerable comfort, as did many of us, from the assurance that these markers were just markers, like numbers, and that there was no identification of physical or mental characteristics of the individual, in the same way that you cannot tell anything about a person from their social insurance number.
You have been talking about fascinating issues that go further down the road that we were worried about with SNPs and familial searches. Could you clarify for us whether those parts of your testimony related to information that goes into the DNA data bank, or not, and if not, what happens to that collected information? Is it stored in some way, or does it disappear once a case is disposed of? How are we achieving this balance with the advances in forensic science that you have been telling us about?
Mr. Fourney: My presentation was to inform you about the science, and I hope I was balanced. I am not giving you an opinion on whether I agree or disagree.
The Chair: It was a factual presentation, but I am trying to figure out how the facts apply.
Mr. Fourney: From the National DNA Data Bank, the markers you learned about are the only ones we use. There is no change in technology at this time. One of the discussions that will have to come forward concerns what technologies we could introduce and how we would introduce those in the future. That is a fair exchange and dialogue that must be visited.
At the National DNA Data Bank, which falls under my auspices, I have an officer in charge of the operations, and I am the director of the entire program. We follow the DNA Identification Act. The DNA Identification Act does not prescribe operational casework protocols or the technologies that would be used in operational casework. It is my understanding that our colleagues in both Toronto and Montreal, for instance, have used Y-STRs, have looked at mini-STRs and probably fully intend to look at SNPs in the future. If that should go, or how it could go into the data bank, we do not know. That is something that will have to be addressed. Within the DNA Identification Act, it says that the commissioner shall consider. The question of how we consider that then arises.
The Chair: We have four senators yearning to ask questions, and we are about out of time. However, you will be back here tomorrow morning, Mr. Fourney.
Mr. Fourney: I am wearing my other hat tomorrow morning.
The Chair: I appreciate that, but I was wondering if, for the first 15 minutes tomorrow, you would keep this hat. Would that be agreeable to senators?
Mr. Fourney: The other people who will be joining me might be a little concerned because there is an awful lot of other good information that you probably want to hear.
The Chair: I am sure there is.
Senator Joyal: My question follows up on what Senator Fraser mentioned. The problem we have is essentially the following: The capacity to get more information is evolving. In other words, the net is getting bigger to catch more information. What you have said to us tonight is very helpful. You have identified the scope of the net getting bigger and possibly even bigger and easier in the future, and so on. Our essential reasoning is to know, each time the net is getting bigger, the implications for the principles that we want to apply according to what our friend Senator Bryden has mentioned. Familial searching is helping, but you include the people of the family who have nothing to do with the crime and ask them to give samples to be stored after the fact. Those are the questions we want to get from the other experts. As much as the science evolves and is more efficient and conclusive in its information, we must ask ourselves what the implications are for the privacy and the principles of the Charter and the protection of the individuality that we want to maintain in this country.
Essentially, that is where we are at this point in time. You might not be able to answer that tonight, but that is essentially where we are heading with this.
The Chair: It is indeed.
Mr. Fourney: My suggestion is that we are not using some of those technologies that we have talked about, but we are very familiar with them. One of the things that we do is research and develop new advances.
You may wish to consider calling experts from groups who actually apply this technology. A number of those people will be able to tell you that.
The Chair: We will consult with you on who they might be.
Senator Milne: It seems to me that we are heading down a road where we have to start thinking beyond just the DNA bank that you run, and that you are running according to the act at which we are looking at. We may be looking at recommending that this government or future governments look into the ethics of the entire thing. We now have these private, recreational companies, as you call them, doing DNA investigations. Who knows what happens to the information that they have, which they hand back to the person who has asked for this genetic family tree? Who knows if they still have that material and knowledge and what they do with it?
The Chair: These are questions a bit beyond this evening's technical briefing, unless you want to comment. They are core questions, indeed.
Honourable senators, I promised the interpreters we would liberate them, so this meeting stands adjourned. We meet again at 10:45 tomorrow morning with everyone's favourite witness on DNA, Mr. Fourney.
(The committee adjourned.)