SHUR Committee Meeting

SUB-COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE

SOUS-COMITÉ DES DROITS DE LA PERSONNE ET DU DÉVELOPPEMENT INTERNATIONAL DU COMITÉ PERMANENT DES AFFAIRES ÉTRANGÈRES ET DU COMMERCE INTERNATIONAL

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, November 26, 1997

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[English]

The Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier (Brampton West—Mississauga, Lib.)): I call to order the Sub-Committee on Human Rights and International Development of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

We've received a call that Mr. Bonwick is on his way, so we'll proceed as though we have a quorum in the room at the moment.

Janice is going to draft a motion for the next meeting to perhaps reduce our quorum so we won't end up having these delays, as we frequently do.

Today I'm pleased to introduce Sergeant John Oliver. He is from the Missing Children's Registry with the RCMP. I think that Sergeant Oliver has quite a bit of interesting information for us.

Do you have a presentation?

Sergeant John W. Oliver (Missing Children's Registry, Royal Canadian Mounted Police): Yes.

The Chair: Thank you very much. Go ahead.

Sgt John Oliver: The Missing Children's Registry became a permanent unit of the RCMP on January 1, 1988. The original mandate of the unit was expanded in 1992 when the Brighter Futures: Investing in Canada's Children program was approved by the Treasury Board of Canada.

The registry's mandate is to research, collect and analyse information and statistical data on missing children; to provide law enforcement agencies with a source to quickly obtain accurate information on the status of any missing child; to monitor the CPIC missing persons file to request or provide follow-up information and action on missing children investigations; to assist law enforcement agencies and other interested groups and organizations in obtaining information on missing children; to facilitate the correlation of information by publishing documents such as national bulletins on missing children; to co-ordinate and exchange information on prevention programs within the Canadian police community and groups searching for missing children; to co-ordinate the travel/reunification program, which provides for the return of children abducted in Canada by a parent and using routes established by our sponsoring companies; to develop unique expertise in the area of missing children, such as developing psychological profiling of pedophiles and other socially deviant individuals who may be involved in the abduction and kidnapping of children; to promote its networking and collaborative efforts with all countries, but especially those belonging to the INTERPOL network and those that are signatories to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction; to contribute to international efforts to obtain support for a co-operative global response to the issues of missing, abused and exploited children; and to develop specialized training and provide educational resources for police.

In addition, the registry provides computer-age progression service and media exposure opportunities, such as the Internet, where Child CyberSEARCH Canada is the Missing Children's Registry's website; with Wal-Mart Canada, which places photos of missing children on a poster board in their stores; Blue Line Magazine, which profiles a case of missing children in each issue; and the Our Missing Children Quarterly Report, which is circulated worldwide.

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The Missing Children's Registry is currently staffed with four regular RCMP members, two civilian members, two public service employees and two Canada Customs officers.

When the registry was established, we communicated with all police agencies to inform them of our existence and mandate. The registry has mainly received requests for assistance with international cases involving parental abduction. As a result, the staff of the missing children's registry has developed an expertise in handling cases of this nature.

In 1989, the registry received an average of nine requests a month. In 1997, the registry is receiving approximately 65 requests a month. This figure shouldn't be construed to mean that the problem is increasing, but only that the agencies are increasingly using the services of the registry.

A computer link has been devised so that all missing persons entered on the Canadian Police Information Centre computer system, CPIC, are automatically downloaded into the Missing Children's Registry database. This allows a constant monitoring of reported missing children cases in Canada for statistical purposes.

At the request of a Canadian police agency, the registry will co-ordinate the investigation for them in other jurisdictions, in or out of Canada. The registry has a negotiated agreement with INTERPOL Ottawa that all cases of missing children will be processed through the registry. If INTERPOL Ottawa receives a request from a Canadian police agency, it will be forwarded to the registry for action. The Canadian police agency will be advised that the Missing Children's Registry will act on their enquiry. The registry will review the information and contact the investigator.

If the request involves a child taken to a country other than the United States, the registry will send a message through the INTERPOL network to the country involved. If the case involves the United States, the registry will make direct contact with the state or federal agencies that can obtain the information we require.

When INTERPOL Ottawa receives a request for assistance from another country, it will forward the request to the registry for action. The registry will act on behalf of the foreign police department to determine if the child is in Canada.

The registry acts in the same manner for the provincial central authorities of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. If a central authority does not know the location of the child, the registry will assist them in determining the location so that the proper legal remedies can be used under the convention.

When the child is located, the registry will play an active role in the return of the child. All avenues and options are discussed with a requesting police agency and the parent of the child. A service designed for this purpose is the travel/reunification program. With it we can help parents or guardians who cannot afford to return the abducted child to or within Canada once located.

The travel/reunification program is sponsored by Air Canada, Canadian Airlines International, VIA Rail and Choices Hotels Canada. The sponsors have generously agreed to provide transportation at no cost to the registry or the guardian or parent. Choices Hotels will provide accommodation worldwide at no cost when a connecting flight cannot be arranged. The registry will advise the requesting police agency of all details and arrangements that are made available to assist the legal guardian or parent.

In order to be eligible for travel assistance, the following criteria must be met: it must be to return a child who was wrongfully removed from Canada to a legal guardian in Canada; the parent must be in financial need; the child can be legally removed from the jurisdiction in which he/she is located; and to avoid any complication, the registry must be assured that the parent will obtain immediate physical custody of the child upon arrival. To facilitate this, we ask that the child be placed in state care until the parent arrives.

The registry has developed specialized training in the form of a two-day workshop. In 1997, we held 10 workshops in Canada; eight have already been scheduled for the first two months of 1998. Internationally, we have provided workshops and other training. In 1996, the Canadian embassy in Warsaw, Poland, sponsored a workshop which was attended by representatives of a number of eastern European countries. As well, we have done presentations to INTERPOL meetings and other international conferences.

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I am a member of the INTERPOL Working Party on Offences Against Minors, which meets twice a year to exchange information on cases involving children. The registry is also a member of the International Association of Family Courts and Conciliators.

The registry has developed a worldwide base of contacts who work in the field of child protection, totalling over 2,400 police, lawyers, and other interested agencies. We use this wide range of contacts constantly to assist us in our role of locating and recovering a missing child.

Our missing children program is made up of four government departments: the RCMP, the Missing Children's Registry, Revenue Canada, International Project Return, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Although each department has its own function, the four departments operate as one unit. Our objective is to locate and return the child to its proper guardian.

Some of the functions of the our missing children program are, first, intercepts and recoveries of missing and abducted children crossing international borders. It provides the issuance of border lookouts. If it's suspected that a child or a child abductor is crossing international borders, lookouts will be issued for that country. We display posters of missing children at all border points in Canada. We train law enforcement agencies and other agencies such as airline personnel in developing techniques for the detection of child abductors or abducted children.

The Chair: Thank you.

Madame Debien.

[Translation]

Ms. Maud Debien (Laval-East, BQ): Good afternoon, Mr. Oliver, and welcome to our committee.

I have three questions to start with. You said near the end of your presentation that between 1989 and 1997, there was somewhat of an increase in the number of requests. You said that in 1989, the registry received and average of nine requests a month, and that in 1997, the registry is receiving approximately 65 requests a month. You also added that the figure shouldn't be construed to mean that the problem is increasing, but only that the agencies are increasingly aware of the issue.

I would like you to expand a bit on that. Last week, when we heard from other witnesses on the topic, we were given the document from the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction as well as Canadian statistics that show that between 1994 and 1997, there was a real increase in the number of requests for access or return, and return and non-return. So I would like you to explain why you say that the problems are not more serious despite the fact that there is a marked increase in the number of cases. You yourself gave an example.

An international abduction is undoubtedly easier to deal with when a country is part of the Hague Convention than when a country is not part of it. As part of your missing children's program, what steps can you take in the case of a Canadian child who is abducted by a parent and taken to a country that is not a party to the Convention?

You talked about assistance that the program can provide to parents who do not have the resources to meet their needs during the different stages of the request for return. You said that there were different companies that would help them by paying their plane tickets or their expenses abroad. Everyone knows that what is very costly are the lawyers' fees. As part of this program, are you in a position to pay part of the lawyers' fees for the parent making the request who does not have the means to pay them? I have been told legal representation is very costly.

I will stop there for now.

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[English]

Sgt John Oliver: In our reporting of the statistics we have, which are cases reported to Canadian police, the numbers of abducted children reported to Canadian police are staying fairly constant, at between approximately 400 and 500 a year.

We are attempting, but have not been able, to find out how many cases there are in Canada that are not reported to the police. When something like this happens, the parent, of course, has a choice either to go through the civil route or to go to the criminal side, or both. Our statistics only show the ones that are reported to Canadian police, and they're staying fairly constant at 400 to 500 a year. I have been in the unit for 10 years, and the figures are staying fairly constant at that number.

As for the children who are going to non-Hague countries, you're right, it's very much more difficult when children are abducted and taken to a non-Hague country. When we locate children in non-Hague countries we get very heavily involved in the negotiation and determining the best method to get the children back to Canada. If there is an extradiction treaty in place, then we recommend to the Canadian police department that they use extradiction for the arrest and return of the parent.

Normally what will happen if that is proceeded with is that the parent is arrested under our request for the return, the child is put in state care, and we can then get the child back. If we find the other parent and they can prove that they are the parent and have custody, the countries we deal with normally will respect that and will turn the child over to them.

The problems we get into that are very much more difficult is when we are dealing with a country that is not a Hague country and does not have an extradiction treaty with us, or there is an extradition treaty but they do not respect or feel that this is an actual crime that's being committed. In that way, we have to use other methods, and we usually will request Foreign Affairs to use consulate operations to intercede on behalf of the police department. In those cases, they usually have already been in contact with the parent to use the diplomatic route to attempt negotiation.

We have other avenues we can use through the social service network of the country where the child is, to determine whether the parent has taken the child and what they're actually going to do and if they're going to allow contact into a negotiation situation. Those are the methods, and it all depends on what country we're dealing with and how difficult it's going to be.

I've forgotten your third question. I'm sorry.

[Translation]

Ms. Maud Debien: Families are assisted in different ways. I was talking about lawyers' fees, which are the most expensive, it seems. Does the program provide for this type of requirement?

[English]

Sgt John Oliver: The program is designed solely for travel. The sponsoring companies provide us free tickets on their airlines, and the other sponsoring company will provide the hotel.

I realize legal fees are very expensive. In Hague countries, it depends on the system of the country whether the parent will be given legal aid or not, but there is no program in place that I know of under which we could provide financial assistance to the parent for legal fees.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Bonwick.

Mr. Paul Bonwick (Simcoe—Grey, Lib.): Thank you very much, Sergeant Oliver, for coming.

I have three or four points I'd like to address with you and get some comments back. First, with regard to countries that are not involved in the Hague agreement and that we do not have deportation treaties or extradiction treaties with, what tactics or strategies that we're not presently using would you suggest we use in trying to secure these children back?

I have a couple of supplementary questions as well. I can either give them to you all at once or, if you want, one at a time.

Sgt John Oliver: No problem.

Mr. Paul Bonwick: Do you have any ideas or suggestions on how we might further tighten up our borders to eliminate or reduce this terrible crime where people are taking the children outside the country? Are there are suggestions regarding how we might better tighten up the borders?

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Third, do you have any suggestions on how we could better assist you and your colleagues in investigating the locations of these children?

Fourth, would you suggest that this is a crime where perhaps stricter sentencing or cost-recovery, getting into the legal side of it, would play a role as a deterrent?

Sgt John Oliver: On your first question, regarding the non-Hague countries, when we get involved and locate the child, we're always involved in a negotiation situation. We work with our partners—Foreign Affairs in most cases—to determine the best method and best strategies we can use to return that child to Canada. If the police network won't work for us regarding extradition, the best method after that is through Foreign Affairs, through their negotiations with the foreign government.

In the number of years I've been involved in this situation, in every case we get into, we try to use all the resources we have at our disposal to locate and return that child, depending on the country they're located in. We're using everything we can possibly use now. I don't think there's any....

Mr. Paul Bonwick: So once we locate the child, you're satisfied that we use everything within our means presently?

Sgt John Oliver: Yes.

The Chair: Does that include kidnapping?

Sgt John Oliver: No.

The Chair: We can't re-kidnap the child back?

Sgt John Oliver: I, as a police officer in Canada, cannot counsel the commission of a crime in a foreign government, and I would not do that.

Mr. Paul Bonwick: The next one was on tightening up our borders, our exits, to prevent this crime from taking place. Do you have any suggestions on how we might do that, above and beyond what we do now?

Sgt John Oliver: There are no exit controls currently in Canada. The only way I could see is, if they're leaving through a Canadian airport, we have to try to better train the security staff at the airports and the staff at the airlines to better equip them to identify a possible abduction that is taking place. We've attempted to do that over the years, but we've been told by Transport Canada that the major concern of the security staff, when you're going through and they're checking your luggage, is safety of the passengers rather than stopping a parentally abducted child from leaving the country. The best thing after that is to attempt to train the cabin staff of the airlines.

Mr. Paul Bonwick: My next question was, do you have any suggestions on how we could better assist you or your colleagues in investigating the location of these abductees? Are there any resources we could be providing?

Sgt John Oliver: We always need more resources.

Mr. Paul Bonwick: I didn't mean just necessarily financial.

Sgt John Oliver: That's difficult to say.

Mr. Paul Bonwick: If you'd like, you could offer comments now, or if something comes to you over the next few days....

Sgt John Oliver: We're in the process of working and negotiating with the U.S. authorities to attempt to have more co-operation right at the borders. We have excellent co-operation inland, but we're trying to tighten up the borders so that when Canadians are entering the U.S., they are better scrutinized, especially when it's one parent with children.

The other requirement really is to work with other countries so they are ready to admit that these are offences worthy of a serious commitment by their border services and police. A number of countries are not doing that at the moment. That's the best thing we can do: undertake negotiations with other countries to convince them that a parent-abducted child is at danger and work with us.

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Mr. Paul Bonwick: In your opinion, would stricter sentencing or cost recovery play any type of role as a deterrent in these crimes, or are these simply in most cases crimes of passion, where they're planned out and that wouldn't be a part of it?

Sgt John Oliver: These offences are kind of strange. Parental abduction is either extremely well planned or it's a spur-of-the-moment crime. There doesn't seem to be anywhere in between, and across the country the sentencing is, depending on the jurisdiction...some provinces have a tougher stand on these offences than others. Certainly stronger sentencing would be a deterrent.

You have to realize when you're getting into a situation like this that it's very volatile. You're dealing with one parent fighting with another over their divorce. The child is being used as a weapon between the two. It's very emotional, and while the parent who takes the child will maintain they're taking the child for the child's welfare, really if they sat down and coolly looked at it, they would realize they're not.

So it is a crime of passion, as you mentioned, and most times it's spur of the moment, although we do get some that are extremely well planned. So I don't know if cost recovery or more severe sentencing would be a deterrent in that or not.

Mr. Paul Bonwick: Thank you. By the way, if you do have further response to any of those questions or if you think of any after chatting with your colleagues, please feel free to submit in writing some further response.

Sgt John Oliver: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you. Ms. Augustine.

Ms. Jean Augustine (Etobicoke—Lakeshore, Lib.): Thank you, Sergeant Oliver. I have about four questions and maybe I'll ask them all and you can answer all at once.

Approximately how many countries participate in the international project return program? In talking about that program, how does the program deal with the cultural aspects of either parents or countries who may not share some of what is considered to be the Canadian view on this matter?

Oftentimes, as we travel back and forth, we see an individual parent with a child and the thought often crosses the mind in terms of the alert. If one somehow thinks or suspects that something may not be looking right between that so-called parent and child when one is sitting on an aircraft, for example, what is the procedure? Is there a procedure? Are there some things one can do, must do, should do if one suspects that maybe the relationship between the child and the adult who the child is with on the plane seems to be suspect?

My last question has to do with, again, going back to the issue of incidents and incident rates. Apart from the United States, is there one specific country or two or three specific countries that are high on the incidents of abduction of Canadian children?

Sgt John Oliver: In your last question, did you mean countries of destination?

Ms. Jean Augustine: Yes. The United States is supposed to be the highest. What other countries are the next in line?

Sgt John Oliver: Countries in the Mediterranean region. There's no specific country, but I would suggest from our experience countries in that region.

Getting back to your first question on the international project return, that's a Canada Customs program. They work with us as part of the our missing children program, and they work through what's called the World Customs Organization, an organization similar to INTERPOL. I'm not sure exactly how many countries belong to that grouping, but they will work through the World Customs Organization to place alerts with different border services in other member countries.

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As far as the cultural side is concerned, if we're dealing with a parental abduction and we have a Canadian court order that says the child should be placed with a parent in Canada, we don't have any concerns with the culture of the other country. We're attempting to get the child back to where the Canadian courts say he or she is supposed to be. That may be a little hard, but we're dealing with an issue in which a Canadian court has said the child is supposed to be in Canada with the parent. Our concern is to deal with that issue. Because of the culture of the country that the child has been taken to, it may be more difficult to get the child out and back to where a Canadian court says he or she is supposed to be, but that's the tack we take on that issue.

As far as sightings are concerned, we get a lot of calls from parents or members of the public who have seen children who they believe may have been abducted by the adult they're with. If they suspect something like that is going on, they can contact my office or the local police—who will probably end up contacting us—to get as much information as they possibly can on the people they're dealing with. We will then check it out and get back to them to tell them whether or not the child is or is not, as far as we can find out, abducted.

Ms. Jean Augustine: I was thinking of something more urgent. For example, if I'm sitting on a plane and I notice the relationship between an adult and a child because of the alert—you notice the time of day, see the whole series of signals—if I observe any of those signals, who is the person responsible? Do I talk to the airline? What does one do in that situation? I'm looking for a practical—

Sgt John Oliver: At that point, the person to deal with would be the airline hostess. Ask them to have the captain radio to the nearest point so that the police agency can check the information and can meet the plane when it arrives at whatever it's destination is. If they don't do that, then immediately contact the law enforcement agency when you arrive at the location you're going to—either Immigration or Customs. If it's Canada or United States, they're all aware of the program and they will check it out for you.

So you either contact the in-flight attendant on the plane or, immediately on landing, whatever law enforcement is there. It would be checked out for you. I'm sure it would. We have had no problems with that at all.

The Chair: Ms. Bradshaw.

Mrs. Claudette Bradshaw (Moncton, Lib.): I understand that with a court order there's not a problem. You can go in and do your work. I'm thinking more of a situation in which there's not a court order. If it's a couple and both have legal custody of their children, but the husband or the wife decides to bring the child to another country, if the other one phones and says the child is missing, the former spouse took the child away, can you take action at that time?

The other question stems from my poverty background. I'm quite concerned with the legal aid aspects, and I've gone through some of those. Have we ever not worked on a missing child case because either the parent could not afford the legal action for that or the parent could not afford whatever expenses they needed to incur? Has that ever happened here in our country?

The other thing I'd like to leave with you, too, is that we sit on these committees because we want to listen and we want to hear your recommendations. I'll again emphasize what Paul said: if you want to go back to your office and write down for us anything that we can do for you and can recommend to our minister, we would certainly do that, because we hold this dear to our hearts. As parents, I think we've all feared losing our children one way or the other.

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So for me it's the legal aid issue. Have we ever refused to help a parent get a child back because they were poor? Has that ever happened?

Sgt John Oliver: Most of the work I deal with is done through the police network. In those cases, fees like that don't come up. We will request, through extradition or whatever legal method we can, the return of the abducting parent and the child.

So in that case, no, there are no legal fees involved. We're not into court. They'll have to come back to Canada and then go to court if it's necessary. The legal things come into play when we can't use that avenue, or it's not a Hague country. Some Hague countries will provide legal aid, some won't.

In the United States, they don't have a legal aid system for these types of cases. I know the central authorities in the States try very hard to find lawyers who will provide pro bono work when the parent from the country going in cannot afford it. We deal with these authorities in the U.S. daily, with other cases, and I know they try very hard. They do have some lawyers who will provide pro bono work in the United States.

As far as other countries are concerned, I'm not sure about their legal systems. In Canada, if the person is able to obtain legal aid in their home country, most provinces will provide them legal aid here. So it's usually not a problem in Canada. In other countries, I'm not sure what their systems are.

When there's no court order, there's a section in the Criminal Code, section 283, that says parental abduction...whether or not there's a court order in effect. A number of charging guidelines have been agreed to by the attorneys general of the provinces.

So it depends on the circumstances that took place. There could be a criminal charge against the parent taking them.

But we would act, yes. Most police departments would take the missing child complaint.

The Chair: Perhaps I could go back to a couple of things—for instance, kidnapping. Let's say my husband were to take my child to, say, Romania, and it's not a signator. I have the money to be able to find out where this child is. Would I have assistance from Foreign Affairs, perhaps, in getting this child out of the country in spite of the fact that the father in that country may be claiming that I am in fact kidnapping the child back?

I suppose that's what I meant when I said “kidnapping”. It's more than the government doing the clandestine activity. If I can afford to have this activity, do I get co-operation from my government in facilitating that?

Sgt John Oliver: I would suggest that if you can get the child to a Canadian embassy, Foreign Affairs would assist you in getting them out.

The Chairman: Okay.

Now, we were talking earlier about land travel. Kidnapping children and taking them out of the country in North America is much easier because you can do that by land. You were saying that if I fly to Mexico, for example, with a minor child, I must have an endorsement from the other parent saying that they have the knowledge that I'm taking this child into Mexico.

In requiring entrance permission, what are the implications of Canada requiring entrance permission for minors coming in from other countries? How many other countries require this?

We were also talking about an exit visa. Could you...?

Sgt John Oliver: As far as I know, Mexico is the only country that requires a parent to prove that they have legal permission to take the child if they're not travelling with their other spouse.

The Chairman: Why would that be?

Sgt John Oliver: I don't know.

In terms of land travel, while it's not law, our customs officers are trained to ask the parent if they have permission to have the child when they're entering Canada. They are trained to look to a number of indicators to determine whether they have an offence in progress and will, if necessary, contact the other parent to ensure the child is actually with that person legally.

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One of the things you mentioned would help: if we did have a requirement that you couldn't enter Canada unless you could prove you had permission to travel with the children. It would be similar to what the Mexicans have. As I say, they are the only country I know of with that regulation.

The Chair: We were talking too about how if someone comes to Canada on false papers, say a visitor's visa under another name, and they claim refugee status when they get here, the airlines are subjected to a fine for not having checked the documentation of their passengers when they bring them into Canada. Is that official legislation? Is that parliamentary legislation? Could something similar be enacted for minors who are coming in without the proper clearance?

Sgt John Oliver: You are getting into immigration areas, and I'm not familiar with the Immigration Act. But I know that does occur, yes. The airlines are fined if they bring people who are not bona fide visitors into Canada.

I'm sure legislation could be passed to make it such that people who have committed an offence in their home country would not be deemed legal visitors to Canada when they arrive. Whether the airlines would be able to determine that when they are coming in I don't know, unless before they could enter Canada we require them to be able to provide documentary evidence that they have permission to have the children when they are leaving their country.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Bonwick.

Mr. Paul Bonwick: I would like a follow-up on Ms. Augustine's question.

I got the feeling there was not a clear or specific set of guidelines for various situations that may occur. Ms. Augustine outlined one about seeing something on an airplane and not necessarily feeling comfortable about it, or having second thoughts or questioning it in your mind. You report it to the flight attendant. If the flight attendant doesn't act, you can report it to the authorities when you land. But if you are going into a country where you do not have the agreement, reporting it to their authorities may be of no use.

For example, in certain municipalities, and certainly one of the municipalities within my riding, in all public facilities there is a set of written guidelines all municipal employees must follow if certain situations are reported to them. If there is a situation that occurs where a child is being harassed and one of the public employees sees that happening or it's reported, they have a set of steps they must follow. It's not a question of if that person doesn't know what is next.... They must follow that set of guidelines.

Would you or your colleagues in concert be interested in recommending to this committee a set of guidelines we might implement for airlines, for airports, for train stations, for border crossings, whatever they might be, such that if something happens, here is what you must do, A, B, C, and D, and it's not negotiable, it has to take place?

Secondly, any of these controls can potentially be circumvented, but the more controls we have in place, the more difficult and thereby the more of a deterrent it becomes for any of these actions to take place.

I have one other suggestion for you. I think the chairperson touched on it. Would it help if we had significantly tighter controls if a parent is flying out of the country with the child? If I'll be taking my son down to Florida, for example, should there be some sort of strict control there, such that I have to provide documentation from his mother or...? I'm not in the profession, so I can't cite what I should have to provide, but something that verifies to the authorities that in fact I'm not abducting the child but actually have the permission or the consent of the other spouse.

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The first one was to assist in a set of guidelines.

Sgt John Oliver: The guidelines for the airlines—yes, to instruct them or to instruct the traveller in what to do when they see something, and then to ensure that the airlines are going to take action. It would be a matter of instructing the airlines to do that, yes, and then we'd have to educate the public in what to look for and to know that they can make that complaint or talk to the hostess.

Certainly, if instructions can be given to airlines flying in and out of Canada that they should act if a passenger makes those complaints to them, it would be very beneficial for us, yes.

Mr. Paul Bonwick: Must—it's not an option.

Sgt John Oliver: When you talked about leaving.... When lawyers call us, we always recommend that they place articles within the custody order that restrict the travel of child without permission of the court or the parent. In that way, if we know that's there when they're attempting to cross the border, they are in effect committing a crime.

When you're crossing a land border, the problem is that you're not going to a Canadian official, you're going to a U.S. official. We have to have agreements with the United States immigration service and U.S. customs that they're going to do the same checks when we're entering their country as our custom services and immigration services are doing when somebody is entering Canada. We're in the process of doing that.

If legislation was enacted requiring somebody to carry documentation to prove that they have permission to have the child when they're travelling without their other spouse, it would help, as long as the United States authorities would ask for it. At present they're not asking. They're relying on documentary evidence, which is passport, citizenship....

Mr. Paul Bonwick: When I purchase the ticket, I don't have to provide any documentation for my son.

Sgt John Oliver: That's right.

Mr. Paul Bonwick: I simply send my credit card over, and if they say—-

Sgt John Oliver: If you're travelling by air. That's what the Mexicans do, but that's somebody coming into Canada. When you're travelling by air, travel agents know that you can't come into Canada unless you can prove that you have legal permission to travel with the child. The problem is that most of the cases that we have with Canadian children going into the United States are not by air; they're by land, crossing at land borders.

We're currently trying to work with the U.S. authorities. We've offered cross-training, to train them in a way similar to how we train Canada customs and immigration. This is a course that's been developed by our immigration and custom services to train their people, so we can train them to look for the same thing.

If we make legislation stating that the person has to carry the documentation, it would help us immensely, but we also have to get agreement from the other countries to request it when our children are leaving.

We have consistently told the U.S. authorities that we are stopping their children from coming into Canada and we would like them to reciprocate. We're in the process of trying to do that now.

[Translation]

The Chair: Ms. Debien.

Ms. Maud Debien: Mr. Oliver, I am going to invent two purely hypothetical situations, and I would like you to give me your opinion.

I'm a parent who has custody of a child and the child is removed by the other parent. I call the RCMP, all of the relevant services and the program to help me find the child. After months and even years of searching, attempts at finding the child are unsuccessful. In the meantime, I find out where my child is.

If the child is in a country that has signed the Convention, suppose I go there, and that using every trick in the book, I get my child, what do I do then? I know where the child is and I succeed in taking the child with me to a hotel. What do I do then?

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If I'm in a country that has not signed the Convention, which is probably more problematic, what do I do as a parent? What would you advise me as parent?

Of course, earlier on, you indicated that no law should be broken due to the risk of facing criminal charges here.

If I were a parent and I found my child in a country that was a signatory to the Convention or in a country that was not a signatory to the Convention, what should I do? I have my child with me. What do I do then?

[English]

Sgt John Oliver: If you're in a country that's a signatory to the Hague convention you could go directly to the central authority of that country and it should act for you to get the courts of that country to order the return of a child.

The travel program could come into play to provide transportation for you and the child back to Canada at no cost to you. We could arrange that through the Canadian embassy. It would be the same if you were in a non-Hague country and you had your child. You could bring the child to a Canadian embassy and we would assist in getting you and the child back at the request of foreign affairs.

[Translation]

Ms. Maud Debien: So in both cases, it is preferable to go to the embassy.

[English]

Sgt John Oliver: Yes.

[Translation]

Ms. Maud Debien: That is what you are telling us.

In reading the folder that was handed out, I saw that three government organizations were involved with the Missing Children's Registry and the International Project Return: the RCMP, Revenue Canada and Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

I would like to know, if you are in a position to answer me, Mr. Oliver, what the budget is for the Missing Children's Registry and the International Project Return.

[English]

Sgt John Oliver: The RCMP's budget for the Missing Children's Registry is slightly over $700,000 per year. I don't know the budget for customs.

[Translation]

Ms. Maud Debien: That is for the Missing Children's Registry which manages the program to return children, is it not?

[English]

Sgt John Oliver: Yes.

[Translation]

Ms. Maud Debien: Thank you. I won't ask you if you think it's enough.

[English]

The Chair: I have just a couple of questions.

There must be certain known risk factors for family abductions. Could you tell us what these are and what preventative measures we should be looking at?

Sgt John Oliver: A friendly-abducted child is at the same risk factor as a child who has been taken by a stranger, so the child is at risk. The danger is psychological. There are the dangers of neglect and possibly abuse. The child is in physical danger. The longer the child has been away, once we locate the child and bring him or her home, the longer he or she will require psychological care.

In the ten years I've been involved in this field it has been difficult to convince different people that this offence is in fact serious and dangerous to the child. Studies that have been done, in the United States in particular, show that the child is in as much danger as one taken by a stranger.

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As for the preventive element in parental abductions, it is dependent on the actions of the custodial parent and how strictly written the custody order is. If there is some indication that the other parent may abduct, then the custody order should be written as tightly as possible. I've seen orders that simply say one parent has custody and the other doesn't, and I've seen ones written as tightly as to explain exactly where the child should be on a certain day of the week, who has the child for holidays, and so on. Also, the school should be notified of who has permission to pick the child up, and doctors should be informed, as far as medical records are concerned. Anything that can stop the other person from picking up the child from a day care or anything....

Those are the basic preventive measures. If the child is older, we always suggest that they are.... It's amazing how many do not know how to make a long-distance phone call, collect, from a phone booth.

The Chair: Would there be a typical profile of a family at high risk to have this happen to them? What would the general profile of a family like that be?

Sgt John Oliver: The profile is usually middle-class, thirties. Really there isn't a general profile other than that. And it's not a sex-specific crime any more. As many mothers abduct as fathers abduct. It depends on whether the custody order has been determined or not. Usually the mother will abduct prior to the issuance of the order because she's afraid it's going to go against her. The father will abduct after, because he doesn't think the judge made the right decision.

As I say, they're usually middle-class and that's about it.

The Chair: For example, if I had in my family both Canadian citizens, would the risk of my child being abducted to another country be less than if my husband were of a different nationality? Also, is dual citizenship involved here?

Sgt John Oliver: Dual citizenship, as we mentioned earlier, does play a part, yes. Usually if Canadian citizens are involved and there is an abduction, they'll go to another part of Canada or the United States, where the language and culture are similar.

We get involved increasingly when one parent has dual citizenship, so he or she is a citizen of another country and Canada, and the child is taken to that country. The requests of that nature that we receive to act on are increasing significantly.

Again, the preventive nature is the deposit of the passport of the parents with the court, that sort of issue.

The Chair: The other thing is, in countries that have not ratified the Hague convention, do the customs officials there co-operate with the international project return program, or are they even aware of it?

Sgt John Oliver: The World Customs Organization, as far as I know, is aware of that program. It's a Canadian customs program. It depends on the country. It gets very specific to the country on whether or not they will co-operate.

The Chair: I suppose in terms of personalities too, it would depend on the customs officer.

Sgt John Oliver: That too, yes, but in that area, you're getting into the culture of the country and whether they're going to co-operate, whether they see this as a crime or not.

The Chair: Mr. Bonwick.

Mr. Paul Bonwick: This is more directed to the committee, and it's just my interpretation of how some of the questions have gone and maybe something we should be considering, Madam Chair. Everything seems to be very vague. There doesn't seem to be any clarity on position or guidelines. I haven't had a chance to review this yet, but I would have suspected that there was a policy manual of several hundred pages, saying “This identifies these situations” or “this is specific to this area and something that helps identify”. You've asked questions on where it most often occurs and things in that regard, and we're hearing some vague answers such as, “Well, maybe dual citizenship”—

The Chair: It's in there.

Mr. Paul Bonwick: It's in here?

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The Chair: I think you'll find a lot of it in a lot of the documentation we've received so far. We're all perhaps a little vague in—

Mr. Paul Bonwick: As I say, this is not directed towards the sergeant. It just seems there isn't really a clear-cut...something we should maybe consider. As I say, I haven't had a chance to read that at all.

The Chair: One of the purposes of these hearings is that we're all pretty vague on it and we hope at the end we'll be able to take all these things and make some sense out of them and know what direction we can take. Decreasing this problem is what we're looking at doing. If the answers were so simple we wouldn't have to be meeting.

Does anyone have any more questions for Sergeant Oliver?

Sgt John Oliver: Within the package is an investigator's guidebook, which is written and issued to all Canadian police in Canada. It is the policy of the RCMP. I can't dictate policy to other police departments, but it is the policy of the RCMP. It is in your package, and it has been circulated throughout Canada.

The problem with this issue is there are still a number of countries that do not recognize criminal abduction as a crime. There's still a problem with convincing people. A child is with a parent, therefore the child is safe. That's where the vagueness comes in. We're always trying to convince especially agencies in other countries that these children are in danger and they should treat it as a serious offence and work with us to return them.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Sergeant Oliver. You were most informative, and this is quite an enormous problem. It's not easy to find the solutions. We thank you for attending.

About the witnesses for next week, we're going to have Child Find Canada here, the Missing Children's Society of Canada, Réseau enfants retour Canada, and International Social Service of Canada.

The proposed witnesses are Coming Home International, a Washington-based company, for December 10; Heather Ritchie, a lawyer in private practice in Toronto; and perhaps, if this woman would like to come, Angelina Mejed-Cosovic, a mother whose child has been abducted. If any members here have other suggestions for witnesses, please forward them to Ms. Hilchie.

The meeting is adjourned.