Public Accounts Committee on April 30th, 2024

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Good morning, everyone.

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 116 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders. Members are attending in person in the room—and remotely, potentially, but I think everyone is here.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(g), the committee commences consideration of report 3 from reports 2 to 4 of the 2024 reports of the Auditor General of Canada, entitled “First Nations and Inuit Policing Program”, referred to the committee on Tuesday, March 19, 2024.

Before we begin, I would like to remind all members and other participants in the room of the following important preventive measures.

You'll notice we have a different set-up today. To prevent disruptive and potentially harmful audio feedback incidents that can cause injuries, all in-person participants are reminded to keep their earpieces away from all microphones at all times.

As indicated in the communiqué the chair sent to all members on Monday, April 29, 2024, the following measures have been taken to help prevent acoustic incidents.

All the earpieces have been replaced by a model that significantly reduces the likelihood of an acoustic incident. The new earpieces are black, while the old earpieces were grey.

Please use only the approved black earpieces. By default, all earpieces unused at the start of a meeting will be disconnected.

When you are not using your earpiece, please place it face down on the middle of the sticker for this purpose, which you will find on the table, as indicated.

Please consult the cards on the table for guidelines to prevent audio feedback incidents.

The room layout has been adjusted to increase the distance between microphones and reduce the chance of feedback from an ambient earpiece.

The witnesses are all spread out, as are members. I'm going to speak to the Liaison Committee about adding some room for witnesses and members, going forward. For now, we're going to have to work through this process. These measures are in place so we can conduct our business without harming the interpreters and to ensure their safety and health are safeguarded at all times.

I thank you all for your consideration.

A reminder that all comments by members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair.

I would like to welcome our witnesses.

From the Office of the Auditor General, we have Karen Hogan, Auditor General of Canada; Jo Ann Schwartz, principal; and Mélanie Joanisse, director.

From the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, we have Shawn Tupper, deputy minister; and Chris Moran, assistant deputy minister, indigenous affairs branch.

From the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, we have Bryan Larkin, deputy commissioner, specialized policing services; and Warren Brown, assistant commissioner, indigenous and support services.

It's nice to see you all here today.

Each organization will be given a maximum of five minutes for their remarks. After that, we'll proceed to rounds of questions. There will be votes and possibly bells early. I will look for consent on whether we want to proceed in our allotted time, but I will do that when the bells begin.

Without further ado, Ms. Hogan, you have the floor for up to five minutes.

Thank you.

[Karen Hogan, Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the committee for this opportunity to discuss our report on the first nations and Inuit policing program, which was tabled in Parliament on March 19, 2024.

I would like to acknowledge that this hearing is taking place on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people. This area is also known as Ottawa. I express my gratitude and respect to all indigenous peoples who have contributed to shaping and safeguarding the beautiful lands they call home throughout Canada.

Joining me today are Jo Ann Schwartz, the principal who was responsible for the audit, and Mélanie Joanisse, the director who led the audit team.

The first nations and Inuit policing program was created in 1991. We last audited this program in 2014, 10 years ago, and again this time, we found critical shortcomings in how it is being managed. Public Safety Canada is the lead in managing and overseeing the program. We found that the department did not work in partnership with indigenous communities to provide equitable access to policing services that were tailored to their needs.

Through the program’s community tripartite agreements, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or RCMP, delivers dedicated policing services that supplement the ones from the province or territory. We found that the RCMP did not work in partnership with indigenous communities to provide proactive policing services.

While funding has significantly increased over the last 10 years, we found that $13 million of funds earmarked for the 2022-23 fiscal year went unspent. As of October 2023, Public Safety Canada anticipated that over $45 million of program funds would be left undisbursed at the end of the 2023-24 fiscal year. This is concerning in the context of a program intended to support the safety of indigenous communities.

Public Safety Canada did not have an approach to allocate funds equitably to communities. The department told us that it relied on the provinces' or territories' readiness to fund their share of the program and on past funding received by communities to determine the amounts allocated.

Over the past five years, the RCMP has been unable to fully staff the positions funded under the community tripartite agreements, CTAs. This leaves first nations and Inuit communities without the level of proactive and community-focused policing services that they should receive.

Lastly, neither Public Safety Canada nor the RCMP could identify whether requirements set out in policing agreements were being met and whether the program was achieving its intended results. It is important to monitor and analyze data not only to meet the communities' security and safety needs, but also to support the self-determination of communities.

Given that this program has not been updated since 1996 and long-standing issues persist, Public Safety Canada must work with first nations and Inuit communities, provinces and territories, as well as the RCMP, to find a way to more effectively provide proactive and culturally appropriate policing services.

Mr. Chair, this concludes my opening remarks. We'll be pleased to answer any questions the committee members may have.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you, Auditor General.

We move now to Mr. Tupper from the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.

It's over to you for five minutes, please.

Thank you.

[Shawn Tupper, Deputy Minister, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Chair and committee members, thank you for inviting me and my assistant deputy minister, Chris Moran, to appear before you today here on the traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak about the Auditor General of Canada's performance audit report on the first nations and Inuit policing program.

Since 1991, the program has provided cost-matched funding to support access to dedicated, culturally responsive policing services in first nations and Inuit communities.

This program supports 36 self-administered police services, which provide community policing in over 155 first nation and Inuit communities.

Through the community tripartite stream, the program also provides funding to support an enhanced level of policing in communities that are served by the RCMP. This cross-matching approach supports investments in an area of provincial/territorial jurisdiction, and Public Safety Canada is committed to improving the program in collaboration with provinces and territories of jurisdiction and with first nations and Inuit communities.

In response to the Auditor General's performance audit report, Public Safety has developed a preliminary action plan to address the report's recommendations. We are calling it “preliminary” because of the importance of engaging with first nations and Inuit partners and the provinces and territories to do this work.

That said, the department has already started taking action to address the Auditor General's recommendations. The department has recently aligned the delivery of programs, indigenous policing and community safety policy and engagement considerations into a single branch to create more efficient coherent program delivery and to improve the integration of policy on indigenous issues within the Public Safety mandate.

While there is much to do, having a clear line of accountability will help to ensure that it gets done.

This branch is working with provinces and territories and first nations and Inuit communities to identify improvements to program governance with a view to delivering its cost-matched funding faster.

In parallel, indigenous-led regional and national engagement sessions have been held over the winter on proposed legislative options to advance the minister's mandate to co-develop federal legislation to recognize first nations police services as essential services. The government also reiterated its commitment to this initiative in budget 2024. The engagement sessions build on ongoing collaboration that Public Safety Canada has fostered with first nations and subject matter experts, such as the First Nations Chiefs of Police Association and the First Nations Police Governance Council, as well as provincial and territorial representatives.

Public Safety is also revisiting the program management relationship with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to more readily consider and integrate official availability in program management decisions, and the RCMP are continuing to work with communities to improve cultural awareness practices as they reaffirm their commitment to keeping indigenous communities safe, including through the first nations and Inuit policing program.

Through all these initiatives, collaboration is key.

Public Safety Canada will continue to work closely with first nations and Inuit partners, law enforcement agencies and provinces and territories.

The provinces and territories are responsible for making decisions on the level of policing needs in their jurisdictions. Consistent with this, they drive decisions on investment priorities for this program by providing 48% of the funding, which the federal government then meets with the remaining 52% within its funding allocation.

This approach presents challenges. Public Safety is aware of the opportunity and is undertaking the necessary work to improve program governance and in turn, delivery and outcome.

The audit report will inform this shared work, help strengthen our ability to overcome challenges and ensure the continued success of the FNIPP

I know that commitment to reconciliation is top of mind in every step we take on this shared path with our indigenous partners.

This work directly affects the safety and security of the indigenous communities who rely on these services.

By implementing the auditor's report's recommended improvements and fostering collaboration, we aim to create a safer environment, build stronger relationships with indigenous communities and ensure that their unique needs are met.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Finally, from the RCMP, we have Mr. Larkin.

You have the floor for about five minutes, please.

[Deputy Commissioner Bryan Larkin, Deputy Commissioner, Specialized Policing Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair.

On behalf of Commissioner Mike Duheme, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today about the Auditor General's 2024 report on the first nations and Inuit policing program.

Mr. Chairman, I am joined here today by Assistant Commissioner Warren Brown, who oversees our indigenous policing in our community engagement program as a part of our contract for indigenous policing here at national headquarters in Ottawa.

All Canadians have the right to receive culturally responsive and respectful police services. Indigenous communities and reconciliation are one of the RCMP's key strategic priorities, the primary goal of which is to contribute to the health and safety of a prosperous indigenous community.

Under the FNIPP, the RCMP works with external partners, including Public Safety Canada, to coordinate efforts to contribute to the safety of these communities by providing professional, dedicated and responsive services to first nations and Inuit peoples. The RCMP is committed to addressing systemic racism and discrimination while remaining dedicated to strengthening trust with our first nations communities, our Inuit communities and the Métis peoples, as well as within communities and with employees.

The RCMP is focused on making decisions and on developing policies, programs, practices and training that are informed by evidence, that are responsive to community needs and that are culturally appropriate. Changes have been informed and guided through increased engagement with indigenous leaders, consultative groups, elders and youth, as well as in collaboration with government department partners, such as Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, Women and Gender Equality Canada, the Department of Justice and Public Safety Canada.

The FNIPP, for example, enhances community policing services, supports culturally responsive policing within the first nations and Inuit communities that we serve, and recognizes input from indigenous communities on the policing services received. The RCMP are service providers under the FNIPP through the community tripartite agreements contracted to provide policing services to a first nation or Inuit community.

In March of this year, the RCMP welcomed the Office of the Auditor General's report on the FNIPP. We believe that by implementing the Auditor General's recommendations, the RCMP can help improve the delivery of police services under this program. We want to be clear that the RCMP agrees with and supports the recommendations of the OAG report and will commit to working with all stakeholders and all partners to address the issues raised and to contribute to a significantly strong action plan. The action plan will respect the jurisdiction of provinces and territories over operational policing, reconfirming the role of the federal government as the financial contributor, and will respond to audit recommendations to improve the strategic focus and the measurable impact of the program.

Beyond the program, though, the RCMP continues to work with communities to make cultural awareness part of the process for all new RCMP regular members who are joining this program and joining our organization. We are also prioritizing their participation and inclusion in localized cultural events. Building strong relations with indigenous communities is extremely important to the RCMP. In the spirit of reconciliation, we look to continue to establish and enhance trust within the communities we serve.

In addition to the FNIPP, the RCMP has implemented the first nations, Inuit and Métis recruitment strategy, which was launched in 2023. We've advanced efforts to share with regular members information related to various indigenous communities. We are supporting regular members and reporting on their participation in various activities and communities and on reconciliation efforts for information and awareness sharing.

We continue to work with all communities to make cultural awareness a part of the community onboarding process for our police officers. The RCMP will continue to work with communities to enhance their safety and to build and strengthen relationships that are based on mutual respect and trust and that have the interest of the communities at their heart.

Once again, I want to reaffirm that we accept the OAG recommendations and we look forward to working with all of our partners to advance and strengthen the communities we serve. Again, thank you, on behalf of Commissioner Duheme, for inviting us to appear before you today. We look forward to the questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you all very much.

We will begin our first round of questions. The first four members will have six minutes each.

Mr. Melillo, you are beginning for us. Go ahead, please.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. It's a pleasure to join your committee as a guest today.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here.

Auditor General, it is good to see you again. I know you were at the indigenous affairs committee yesterday. We're keeping you busy this week. We appreciate all of your time and efforts on these important issues. I will start with you. Thank you for answering questions yesterday and for being present.

In the report, you found that Public Safety was not monitoring the policing program's effectiveness and was not analyzing the information that was being provided by first nations and Inuit police services. I believe there was a similar finding for the RCMP.

I wonder if you could speak to that, how that has played out and how that has been impacting the services being provided.

[Karen Hogan]

I'll take a first crack at it, and see if Jo Ann or Mélanie might want to add something.

What we were looking for was whether they knew they were, first, meeting the requirements of the agreements. What we found was that, in most cases, the RCMP was unable to tell us whether a police officer had spent 100% of their time dedicated to the community, as they were supposed to. In the detachments that we looked at, only 38% could tell us they were really dedicating their time to a culturally appropriate approach to policing services.

When it came to Public Safety, I would outline a few things. The first is that it wasn't monitoring how the RCMP was spending those funds, and it wasn't really gathering data on the effectiveness. It was gathering response rates and so on, which is really the traditional way to look at policing—how many calls you answered and so on—versus whether they were actually in the community, building trust and different relationships.

Do either of you want to add anything to that?

[Jo Ann Schwartz, Principal, Office of the Auditor General]

One other element that we could mention for both entities is we found a lack of monitoring related to gender-diverse people or women in terms of looking to see if the information they were collecting showed any trends or changes they need to make to the services they were providing.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

I won't repeat what we talked about yesterday, but I want to build on it because you highlighted a number of issues, Auditor General.

The overarching thing we come back to is moving toward self-administered agreements and moving to a place where first nations and Inuit policing services are recognized as essential, which is where we want to be and need to be. Public Safety officials mentioned that it is something they have been working on. I will come to you in a minute here, but the former minister for public safety mentioned in September 2022, I believe, that the legislation would be just around the corner. That's a pretty wide corner, because we are a couple of years out and we still don't have that legislation being brought forward.

Can you speak to that gap that exists, and how it can be fixed by declaring or recognizing these services as essential and moving toward self-administered agreements?

[Karen Hogan]

I'm sorry. I'm not going to comment on the speed at which bills or legislation moves through Parliament. I'll leave that to all parliamentarians to adjust as they see fit.

However, when it comes to deciding that services should be essential, it comes with recognizing that you need to understand the full demand for those services. Right now, one of the findings in our audit report was that Public Safety doesn't know that full demand, whether it be that there isn't an application process to know how many other communities might want it or what the full need is....

Right now, it's about using the funds available to beef up services under existing agreements. We didn't see much expansion. We saw a small expansion into the north, but not much, and no community moving from a tripartite agreement to a self-administered agreement. While one did move right after the end of our audit period, that's very little progress for the additional funding that was put into the program with the purpose of expanding it.

Defining it as “essential” needs to come with knowing what that means. What will that mean for the federal government to fund this appropriately?

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Absolutely.

Very quickly, with my remaining time, I'll go to Public Safety now.

Of course, as we just spoke about, it's been many years, and this legislation recognizing the essential nature of this work isn't there. That's a concern for a number of people, especially in my region. I'm in a Treaty 3 area, where police services are operating without any agreement whatsoever.

There's also the case that $45 million of program funds is estimated to have been left on the table, just because of the clause of these tripartite agreements. Of course, that's not an acceptable excuse for people who need these essential services.

If I can, I'll ask Public Safety what is being done to rectify that to ensure that the dollars allocated are able to be spent. What's being done to expedite the process of moving that essential legislation?

[Shawn Tupper]

With respect to the legislation, it is taking longer than we might have anticipated, but doing it in a co-developed way—making sure we have a process that is acceptable to our indigenous partners and agreeing on the mandate in terms of how we develop that legislation—has not been an easy task. We find ourselves in a position now, with the provinces and territories, where there's a general understanding of the intent of the essential services legislation, but we have varied voices within the indigenous community. We have been engaged with the AFN since the beginning of our efforts and have been travelling the country to engage with communities and leadership within the policing community.

It is simply the struggle of co-developing legislation in a way we are not typically asked to do, so it's taking longer.

With respect to money left on the table, we are a program that flows funds against expenses. We find ourselves, at the end of fiscal years, in situations where not all the money identified for spending has been spent. Therefore, the money doesn't flow. That's to ensure it is not going out the door and being used in other ways and in other programs.

We are stuck in a situation where a province may choose not to match the funds, so we can't flow the funds. It may be, as we have seen in recent years, simply a labour market choice—the RCMP are unable to fully staff their vacant positions as a result of labour market challenges. Consequently, the money doesn't get spent.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much. That is the time.

Mr. Chen, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the Auditor General and the witnesses who are here before this committee today.

I understand that, through this program, not all provinces have a provincial police force. What sorts of challenges are presented when we are trying to ensure there is a community tripartite agreement under this specific program in provinces where there is no provincial police force?

[Shawn Tupper]

The CTAs result from the fact that we have the RCMP in all provinces and territories, save for Ontario and Quebec. In Ontario and Quebec, because we can make different arrangements directly with the communities under their legislation, you see the predominance of the self-administered agreements there. It's simply the design of how the law works in those jurisdictions and the advantage, at times, of having the RCMP in place in other jurisdictions.

Technically, all provinces have provincial police services available to them through the contract that we enter into with the provinces and territories that don't have their own provincial police service. Indeed, there are police on the ground who would be considered “provincial police” and that is done through the contract we have.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Fantastic.

I understand that the number of RCMP officer positions has increased under this community tripartite agreement, in terms of positions available, but the number of positions filled has been rather consistent over the past few years.

Can you share with this committee what some of the challenges are—besides the remoteness of the locations of these positions—in attracting and recruiting talented people to fill these jobs?

[D/Commr Bryan Larkin]

As Deputy Minister Tupper alluded to, one of the challenges in the last couple of years has been the labour market, although we're seeing significant change, so we do anticipate a much more positive outlook as we look at 2024 and beyond.

It's no secret that, across the country, the RCMP has been dealing with recruitment and vacancy issues in all areas: provincial policing, municipal policing, federal policing and specialized policing. We currently sit at a national rate of about 15% vacancy. However, I can tell you that this has been one of Commissioner Duheme's national priorities. Hence, to assist with this, we've actually recently created a senior leadership role that is solely focused on national recruiting, on onboarding and on making our process much more seamless, a much more proactive base, attracting...from coast to coast to coast and with a significant lens around reflecting the communities we serve. We're seeing significant change in our recruiting numbers. Although we are losing more through attrition than we are actually recruiting right now—largely based on the fact that we did lose...that depot was closed for a period of time throughout the pandemic—and are playing catch-up, I'm pleased to announce that this year we anticipate 40 full troops of 32 regular members. We anticipate, in the next fiscal year, to increase that to 50 troops, and of course, we're exploring other, different ways of bringing direct-entry members into our organization, experienced police officers.

From an indigenous perspective, though, one of the challenges that we're dealing with, obviously, is the fact that we do have some remote areas, so we're looking at different opportunities, different servicing models, to support those communities. We're also proud to announce that this is the 30th year of our indigenous pre-cadet process, where we welcome indigenous young persons in our organization to get an understanding of what depot looks like, what training looks like. We've also added this year, the first-ever in a long time, indigenous troops, so 32 indigenous members of the RCMP participating in a complete troop, and we hope to continue to advance that. We've launched a recruiting strategy that is focused around indigenous....

Assistant Commissioner Brown, I'll turn to you for some of the other challenges around things other than just remoteness.

[Warren Brown, Assistant Commissioner, Indigenous and Support Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just for a little perspective, the RCMP polices in 146 community tripartite agreements; that's 443 regular members. We have 30 positions vacant right now. Those are our latest statistics. That's an approximately 11% vacancy pattern compared to the deputy commissioner's 15% reference to our contract policing overall. I'm not saying that's fantastic, but that's positive in that we're not going the other way.

We also police 22% of Canada's population, which is 75% of our land mass. There are 647 detachments, and 556 of those detachments police in indigenous communities: 489 first nations, 36 Inuit communities and 31 Métis settlements. No two indigenous communities are the same. Some are more remote. There are different cultures and different practices, and there are different levels of engagement.

I would say that this is a really good opportunity, thanks to the Auditor General's report, to give us a foundation of what gaps we have and how to move forward more positively with Public Safety Canada.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Thank you.

I note that the Auditor General identified 61 funded positions that remain vacant, so it does sound like things are going in the right direction.

I have a final question for the Auditor General. The first nations and Inuit policing program was create in 1991 and was last updated in 1996. Through your work in auditing other comparable programs in the federal government.... Is it common that we have a program based on a policy from 1996?

[Karen Hogan]

I have to tell you that I think it depends. The right answer is, really, that it depends. We highlighted this as something that needs to be looked at because when we audited this program the first time in 2014, that was one of the concerns raised then: that there were constraints because of the 1991 policy that had been updated in 1996, and that it was still constraining.

We made a recommendation in 2014 to fix your policy. That's something that you can easily do, and we find that this is still a position given to us from Public Safety. It really is time, if it's restrictive, to fix it.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Lemire, welcome. You have the floor for six minutes.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank all committee members for having me.

In Quebec, all agreements with first nations and Inuit are self-administered policing service agreements, whereby first nations or Inuit communities manage their own police service in accordance with provincial laws and regulations.

Ms. Hogan, welcome back. Thank you for being with us.

You mentioned in your report that the department was unable to determine how much additional program funding it had allocated to the agreements or the amount of funding that remained to be allocated.

How is that possible in 2024?

[Karen Hogan]

I am concerned about this, because additional funds were allocated for whatever reason, and the department isn't able to demonstrate to us that they were used for the intended purpose.

The focus was on improving existing services rather than expanding the program. In addition, their information technology systems did not contain the necessary details to show us how the funds were used. The problem really stems from gaps in their own data and their information technology systems.

As needed, Ms. Joanisse can give you more details on that.