PACP Committee Report
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Mr.
David Christopherson, M.P. Dear Mr. Christopherson: On behalf of the Government of Canada, I am pleased to respond to the Report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts entitled “Chapter 2, Support for Combatting Transnational Crime, of the Fall 2014 Report of the Auditor General of Canada”. I would like to thank the Committee for its diligent work on the review of this Chapter and the resulting recommendations. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the Department of Justice Canada (Justice Canada), and the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada (DFATD) have considered the Committee recommendations and welcome the opportunity to inform the Committee of their progress in addressing them. The Committee’s report contained four recommendations, which are addressed in the following paragraphs: Recommendation 1: That, by 31 March 2016, the RCMP provide the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts with an update on the progress made by the RCMP in implementing its performance management framework for the Liaison Officer Program. The RCMP is developing a comprehensive Performance Management Framework (PMF) to better guide senior management on program requirements, operational priorities, risks, and financial constraints. The PMF will include performance measures designed to ensure that limited Liaison Officer Program resources are used in the most effective and efficient manner possible. The RCMP will begin collecting data based on the PMF’s performance indicators on April 1, 2016. Following a 2-year performance data collection period, the RCMP will conduct a formal assessment of the on-going relevancy, success and cost-effectiveness of the Liaison Officer Program, with support from DFATD, by March 31, 2018. The RCMP has committed to provide an update to the Committee on the progress made in implementing the PMF for the Liaison Officer Program by March 31, 2016. Recommendation 2: That, by 31 May 2015, the RCMP provide the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts with the results of its assessment of the costs, potential opportunities and challenges associated with Canada’s greater participation in Europol. The RCMP has conducted an assessment, which outlines the costs, potential opportunities, and challenges associated with Canada’s greater participation in the European Police Office (commonly known as Europol). The results of the assessment are presented below. In its Fall 2014 Report, the Auditor General recognized the important role Europol plays in bringing together European and other police agencies to work collaboratively to address crimes that cross international borders. While Canada’s engagement with Europol is relatively new, requests for information on criminal activity between Canada and Europe are significant. In 2013, these requests represented approximately one quarter of all requests received by RCMP liaison officers involved in European countries. The RCMP currently has nine liaison officers located in Europe, representing approximately 20 percent of the RCMP’s liaison officers abroad. This includes one liaison officer working at Europol. Canada also participates in four of the 22 Europol “Focal Points” (synthetic drugs, payment card fraud, outlaw motorcycle gangs and child pornography networks) and exchanges information with Europol and European law enforcement agencies on investigations and other criminal matters via Europol’s on-line Secure Information Exchange Network Application (SIENA). Such exchanges must relate to known or suspected criminal activity involving a link to the European Union (EU). These exchanges are supported by a coordinator at RCMP headquarters in Ottawa. Over the last year, the RCMP has taken some initial measures to augment its participation levels at Europol, including more information sharing via SIENA and increased involvement in Focal Points. These efforts have informed this assessment, which indicates there is potential for the RCMP to achieve benefits and efficiencies through more substantial engagement in Europol. The RCMP will be conducting internal studies over the next few months, including a planned gap analysis regarding RCMP Liaison Officer deployment in Europe, which will inform subsequent recommendations and decision-making, with implementation planned for 2016. Following its formal establishment in 1999, the EU has been gradually increasing Europol’s authorities and powers so that it is now a key European law enforcement organization for information sharing and collaboration in investigations. To facilitate similar joint work with countries outside Europe, Europol has also entered into operational agreements (which provide the authority for the controlled exchange of personal data) with several countries including Canada, the United States and Australia. The RCMP is the designated Canadian “Point of Contact” through which all Canadian engagement and information exchange, including by other law enforcement agencies, with Europol is conducted. The Canada-Europol operational agreement includes provisions to ensure data exchange is limited to information supporting the detection, prevention, suppression and investigation of crime and terrorism and that sensitive data, including personal data, is protected from unauthorized access. Europol places a strong emphasis on data protection and confidentiality and compliance with legal protection requirements of member states and partner countries, and Canada has found that the SIENA system is a secure communication tool, supported by rigorous data management protocols and procedures. To date there have been no unauthorized disclosures of Canadian data. In recent years, the level of information exchange between Canada and Europol via SIENA has been limited, in large part because of limited Canadian law enforcement awareness of Europol and the mutual benefits of two-way flow of information for Canadian law enforcement agencies. To test the potential benefits with a view of increasing engagement with Europol, the RCMP has completed a pilot project, which resulted in information from Europol shared via SIENA advancing several Canadian police investigations. Moving forward, to optimize the use of Europol information, it would be necessary to raise awareness of Europol as an information source, and to amend RCMP operational policies and investigative processes to ensure that the RCMP considers Europol checks as a standard part of investigations. These measures should increase the extent to which bilateral information exchange is not only reactive to Europol requests, but also proactive to enable tapping of available, relevant European information. Europol periodically shares with Canada criminal intelligence assessments, and reports regarding criminal trends, best practices and other materials of value to Canadian law enforcement. The RCMP provides Europol with very few similar documents in return. Understanding that law enforcement organizations expect exchanges to be reciprocal, efforts to increase RCMP sharing would likely result in increased volumes of Europol information, which could prove advantageous. This could be achieved by ensuring that Europol be considered, as appropriate, when the RCMP distributes its own assessments and reports. The Europol Focal Points are intended to facilitate information and intelligence sharing among experts in specific crime or terrorism areas. Participants are expected to dedicate sufficient resources to enable attendance at annual Expert Meetings and in on-going exchange of information and intelligence with other Focal Point members. The RCMP recently increased the number of Focal Points in which it participates from three to four. In addition, the RCMP’s active and engaged participation in the Focal Point regarding child pornography networks has been very favourably viewed by Europol and has demonstrated the significant contributions to on-going investigations that can occur. Given the commitment required, the RCMP will have to give careful on-going consideration of the Focal Points in which the RCMP should be involved and ensure the selection is aligned to RCMP priorities. Another step to increase RCMP engagement in Europol, as well as leverage Europol’s resources, would be deployment of additional RCMP liaison officers to Europol. This would enable the RCMP to more readily access liaison officers of law enforcement organizations of European countries for bilateral information exchange, particularly since these organizations are themselves increasing their liaison officer presence in Europol (in some cases shifting officers from individual countries to Europol). Increased RCMP liaison officers at Europol would also facilitate increased overall Canadian engagement at Europol. One possible means to increase the number of RCMP liaison officers at Europol would be through deploying liaison officers from other European countries. Such a deployment would be largely cost neutral or funded through internal reallocations. The projected benefits of increased liaison officer deployment to Europol will need to be balanced with other considerations and risks during the upcoming gap analysis. For example, if an increase in RCMP liaison officers at Europol is realized through decreased numbers of liaison officers elsewhere in Europe, the potential impact of this decrease should be reviewed, particularly where this might involve deployment from countries where there is currently only one liaison officer. A physical presence in a country can be valuable, for example, where maintaining bilateral relationships is particularly important or facilitating action on urgent requests. Deployment of additional liaison officers to Europol would create an expectation of increased Canadian engagement with Europol, which Canada would need to support and sustain. As a result, any additional deployment of liaison officers would need to be part of an integrated Europol engagement strategy, including amended operational policies and investigative processes to ensure that the potential of Europol checks becomes a standard part of investigations. Recommendation 3: That, by 31 March 2016, Justice Canada provide the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts with the results of its comprehensive review of outstanding files, the reasons for the delays and the measures identified to reduce them. Justice Canada reviewed its outstanding mutual legal assistance and extradition file inventory for the 2014–15 Fiscal Year to identify files involving significant delay and will engage with relevant partners throughout the 2015–16 Fiscal Year to discuss methods to mitigate these delays. By March 31, 2016, Justice Canada will provide the Committee with the results of its comprehensive review of outstanding files, the reasons for the delays and, where possible, the strategies developed to reduce them. Recommendation 4: That, by 31 October 2015, the RCMP and DFATD provide the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts with a report that presents the results of their collaborative work to identify information held by DFATD related to Canadians arrested, charged, convicted or released from prison abroad that can be shared legally with the RCMP and the process they intend to put in place to share this information. The RCMP and DFATD have agreed to work together to identify information held by DFATD related to Canadians arrested, charged, convicted, or released from prison abroad that can be shared legally and will put in place processes to share this information. The RCMP and DFATD will provide the Committee, by October 31, 2015, with a report that presents the results of their collaborative work to identify information held by DFATD related to Canadians arrested, charged, convicted or released from prison abroad that can be shared legally with the RCMP and the processes they intend to put in place to share this information. I would like to express my appreciation to you and Members of the Committee for your ongoing support and continuing efforts to ensure that Canada has the measures and resources in place to combat transnational crime. Sincerely, The
Honourable Steven Blaney, P.C., M.P. |