Home Newsroom 2004 Speeches (archive) Bloodworth: 2004-09-14

Public policy forum on public security

Speaking notes for
Margaret Bloodworth

Ottawa, Ontario
September 14, 2004

As delivered

Thank you for your kind introduction, and good morning everyone.

I'd like to begin by offering my thanks to the Public Policy Forum and the CGI group for organizing this meeting.

Thank you to all of you for coming. As you will see from my remarks, National Security is not a task that any organization can do alone. It takes governments, the private sector, the not-for-profit sector and individuals.

I am pleased to have such a large and diverse group for a seminar and I hope very much that there will be a dialogue following my opening remarks.

I would also like to offer my congratulations to CGI, which this past summer was named one of Canada's top 50 corporate citizens by corporateknights.ca.

For those of you not familiar with the concept, let me offer this from the Corporate Knights Web site:

"A Corporate Knight is a corporation that makes money for its shareholders, enhances its national and local communities, leaves as small a footprint as possible on the environment, treats employees well, and keeps customers happy."

It is no small accomplishment to make the top 50 in Canada, so please accept my congratulations.

One of the factors in the selection criteria I just mentioned was "enhancing its national and local communities," and today's forum will certainly do that.

I know it is something we hear all the time, but this sort of gathering is a valuable opportunity to share experiences and lessons learned, and to make the important contacts that lead to good partnerships for public safety and security -- within communities and right across the country.

If there is one single, essential ingredient to public safety, it is collaboration.

In today's world, the threats are just too many and too varied, and the stakes too high to do anything else. We have to share information. We have to work together.

We have to work together because we are in this together -- and by that I mean that interdependencies are so numerous and so complex in just about every aspect of our lives. A vulnerability for one can be a threat to all, and assuring public safety and national security is a lot more complicated than simply making sure all the doors are locked.

One might say that the easiest way to secure a border is to close it down, and the easiest way to secure a corporate computer network is to shut off all the access points.

Both would be very effective at meeting one threat, but neither is very practical or realistic -- and both are potentially disastrous -- because of the enormous ramifications for other sources of risks to our lives, and way for life.

We have to be able to move our goods, our data and ourselves efficiently and securely in today's global markets and to support the freedom of movement and way of life we all value.

To find the solutions that will work, solutions that offer both security and openness, we have to work together and understand our common needs.

That is why the Government of Canada created the portfolio and the department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness in December of last year.

This department, which I head as Deputy Minister, is part of a portfolio that brings together CSIS, the RCMP corrections, critical infrastructure protection, emergency preparedness, and a new Canada Border Services Agency -- which itself brings together customs officials, food inspection agents and immigration enforcement officers in one place.

In other words, the core functions of security and intelligence, policing and enforcement, corrections and crime prevention, border services and border integrity, immigration enforcement and emergency management are together, led by a senior cabinet minister.

This means we are now able to exploit and harness, to the benefit of Canadians, the natural synergies among these different agencies, as well as discover new ones. We can be more effective in identifying and closing security gaps, communicating with one another and operating more strategically to protect Canadians.

And, by enabling us to do a better job within the federal government, this also means we can also do a better job working with our partners -- the provinces and territories, municipalities, the private sector and our colleagues in the United States and around the world.

One of our priorities at Public Safety, and one of the steps we are taking to help close security gaps, is the progress the department is making towards effective lawful access legislation. As you might have heard, the Honourable Anne McLellan, speaking at a conference last month, announced that this legislation was one of her key priorities.

I cannot agree more. And I can assure you that PSEPC is working with all its partners to bring forward legislative proposals to ensure public safety in the face of rapidly evolving technologies. I think we can agree that, with terrorists and organized criminals taking advantage of new technologies to commit their crimes, the government must take steps to ensure that law enforcement officials can continue to undertake the necessary investigative work to deal with these threats to society.

This is not about giving police new interception powers. It's about appropriate, careful and reasonable modernization of our laws so that the police and security agencies can continue to do their jobs and keep Canadians safe.

However, we recognize that there are challenges ahead.

Internet providers, telephone companies and others have strong views about their responsibilities as corporate citizens and private sector participants in keeping all Canadians safe. Still, we need their full cooperation.

Furthermore, on this issue, as with many others that the department and the portfolio agencies face on a daily basis, we must respect the privacy rights of individual Canadians. And I can assure you that the civil liberties of Canadians will continue to be upheld in any lawful access reforms.

There is no doubt that lawful access is a challenging issue, but with the Deputy Prime Minister, I can say that this is a personal and pressing priority.

And as a priority for the department, it is consistent with the approach to national security outlined in Canada's first-ever National Security Policy, tabled by the Deputy Prime Minister last April.

As you may know, the National Security Policy is a strategic framework and action plan for how Canada should address a wide range of threats -- intentional and accidental, natural and human-caused. It is designed to ensure that all of our partners are engaged in the effort to keep Canada safe -- because their contribution is absolutely vital.

From the municipal police officers, firefighters and other frontline emergency workers who are our first line of defence and response in an emergency, to the National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister, the NSP recognizes that everyone has a role to play in public safety and security.

The policy not only recognizes the essential nature of collaboration, it includes the mechanisms to ensure collaboration actually happens.

For example, the NSP calls for the creation of a permanent, high-level, federal-provincial-territorial forum on emergencies. This forum will assure regular, strategic discussion of emergency management issues by the key players.

I have already held one meeting with my provincial and territorial counterparts to talk about moving this process forward, and I am pleased to say there is strong support for this approach across the country.

As this forum is being established, the federal government is also taking steps towards fulfilling its commitment to co-locate federal, provincial, territorial and municipal emergency operations centres.

Again, this is all about collaboration. Co-locating our emergency managers in this way will further ensure officials at all levels of government develop effective partnerships that will lead, in turn, to the seamless response we so critically need when an emergency situation arises.

The National Security policy also establishes the National Security Advisory Council. This Council, populated by security experts outside the Government of Canada, will provide advice on the implementation, evaluation and improvement of our national security framework. The Security Advisory Council is recognition that, in today's complex environment, we must gather and take into account as many perspectives as possible.

I would like to stress that the National Security Policy is about more than physical security -- it is about securing Canadian values, our quality of life, and our nation. In our efforts to enhance public safety and national security, we cannot allow ourselves to lose sight of what it is we are trying to protect.

In Canada we enjoy an open and diverse society, and personal freedoms about which large parts of the world only dream. The NSP is about protecting those freedoms, and increasing them, so that Canadians can live every day with the freedom that flows from having confidence in the safety of their homes, their streets and their communities.

If our efforts to enhance national security encroach on those freedoms, we will have missed the point. National security must be effective, and it must be balanced.

Those principles of effectiveness and balance apply to all aspects of security. And they are especially important when addressing the issue of border security. Handling this task is the Canada Border Services Agency, part of the Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness portfolio.

New measures will also be introduced to streamline our refugee determination process to ensure the protection of those in need, and the effective removal of those who would abuse the process.

We will continue to work in close collaboration with business, labour, immigrant and refugee groups, and other stakeholders in expediting trade and travel while enhancing security with respect to high-risk arrivals.

In addition, under the NSP, we are committed to expanding Smart Borders to address areas such as biosecurity, food safety, cybersecurity, marine and transportation security and public health.

With regard to the latter, PSEPC will work closely with the new Canada Public Health Agency in a number of areas. This includes the creation of Health Emergency Response Teams made up of health professionals from across the country to increase Canada's ability to respond to health emergencies.

Of course, the structural changes needed to enhance collaboration and information-sharing represent only part of the equation. Substantial resources will also be invested to address the need for enhanced tools and capacities in order to fulfill national security responsibilities and carry out these activities.

Indeed, since the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the federal government has committed more than $8 billion to measures that are already enhancing security, public safety and emergency preparedness in Canada, in North America, and around the world.

Among the new investments announced in conjunction with the National Security Policy are the creation of the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre within CSIS, and the Government Operations Centre located within PSEPC. These are actions that will further improve the collection and dissemination of threat information, and better coordinate responses in times of need.

As a nation with vast coastlines and numerous ports and other marine installations that are vital to our economic well-being, marine security is another priority.

Again, the NSP addressed this issue by setting out a six-point plan that will engage PSEPC, Transport Canada, National Defence and Fisheries and Oceans in the enhancement of Canadian and North American marine security.

This work will be coordinated through the newly established Canadian Marine Security Operations Centre. It will increase the on-water presence of the Canadian Coast Guard, the RCMP and Canadian Forces Maritime Command, as well as the aerial presence of Fisheries and Oceans.

In all, a total of $690 million has been committed to initiatives announced in the National Security Policy.

You may have noticed that I said these resources have been committed to the initiatives in the National Security Policy, not to the implementation of the Policy itself.

I make that distinction because we understand that assuring public safety and national security will always be a work-in-progress. If we have learned anything from September 11, from the incident of mad cow disease, from SARS, from avian flu, from last summer's blackout, it is that the comprehensive nature and scope of public safety threats change and expand constantly.

Protecting public safety and assuring national security in this environment requires a response that is highly structured, but remains flexible and ready to respond and adapt to changing circumstances.

The creation of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada, together with the principles and initiatives described in the National Security Policy, provide that response -- a framework that gives new structure to the national collaboration we must have to build on the strong foundation for national security we have constructed since September 11 -- allowing Canada to address the threats we face today, and providing the flexibility we need to manage the risks of tomorrow is key.

In the nine months of the Portfolio's existence, we have accomplished a lot:

• The Border Agency is up and running and it didn't miss a beat in operating the border, or in working with the Americans.
• We have significantly enhanced the government's emergency operational capacity and established the Government Operations Centre.
• We have made significant progress on our joint agenda with our American colleagues. We have had two joint meetings on the joint action plan.
• And we have enhanced our provincial and territorial relationships.

This is not an insignificant list for nine months. But we are all aware that more remains to be done. But, we can't do it alone.

One of my reasons for making time to speak to groups such as this is to engage all of you in our collective task of furthering the security of our country, our way of life and the way of life of our children.

It is a challenging task, but one worthy of our time and efforts. But none of us can achieve it on our own -- even our particular piece is difficult if not impossible to handle on our own. But, together we can make enormous progress.

I look forward to working with many of you in the future as we continue to progress this very important work.

I thank you again for inviting me to speak today, and would be pleased to take your questions.