Bill C-20

Public Complaints and Review Commission Act

An Act establishing the Public Complaints and Review Commission and amending certain Acts and statutory instruments

This enactment, among other things,
(a) establishes, as a replacement of the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, an independent body, called the Public Complaints and Review Commission, to
(i) review and investigate complaints concerning the conduct and level of service of Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Canada Border Services Agency personnel, and
(ii) conduct reviews of specified activities of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canada Border Services Agency;
(b) authorizes the Chairperson of the Public Complaints and Review Commission to recommend the initiation of disciplinary processes or the imposition of disciplinary measures in relation to individuals who have been the subject of complaints;
(c) amends the Canada Border Services Agency Act to provide for the investigation of serious incidents involving officers and employees of the Canada Border Services Agency;
(d) amends the English version of federal statutes and orders, regulations and other instruments to replace references to the “Force” with references to “RCMP”; and
(e) makes consequential amendments to other Acts.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Therefore, congratulations, everyone. We are finished Bill C-20.

To our witnesses, thank you for the enormous help and for bearing with us through all this time. We deeply appreciate it.

Thank you to our legislative clerks as well, and to our analysts and clerk and to the interpreters who put up with us as well.

Mr. Shipley, do you have a comment?

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

We move:

That Bill C-20, in Clause 137, be amended by replacing line 5 on page 72 with the following:

and Review Commission Act or under regulations made under subparagraph 87(o.1)(ii) of that Act,”

Basically, this is just a coordinating amendment associated with G-8, which was passed earlier and provides for new regulatory powers. Since there are areas where we've empowered the government to create regulations surrounding information sharing, referral of complaints, joint proceedings and co-operation between federal review bodies, we're just updating the provisions in the NSIRA Act to ensure that it's bound by these future regulations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 81 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Friday, November 25, 2022, the committee continues consideration of Bill C-20, an act establishing the public complaints and review commission and amending certain acts and statutory instruments. Today the committee resumes clause-by-clause consideration.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the officials and members. Although this room is equipped with a powerful audio system, feedback events can occur. These can be extremely harmful to interpreters and cause serious injuries. The most common cause of sound feedback is an earpiece worn too close to a microphone.

In order to prevent incidents and safeguard the hearing health of the interpreters, I invite participants to ensure that they speak into the microphone into which their headset is plugged and avoid manipulating the earbuds by placing them on the table away from the microphone when they are not in use.

All comments should be addressed through the chair.

I will now welcome the officials who are with us once again. Welcome back.

They are available for questions regarding the bill but will not deliver any opening statements.

With the Canada Border Services Agency, we have Philippe Tremblay, acting director, public complaints and external review division/recourse.

From the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, we have Joanne Gibb, senior director, strategic operations and policy directorate. We also have Lesley McCoy, general counsel.

From the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, we have Randall Koops, director general, international border policy; Martin Leuchs, manager, border policy division; and Deidre Pollard-Bussey, director, policing policy.

From the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, we have Stéphane Drouin, director general, workplace responsibility branch, professional responsibility sector.

Thank you for joining us today. We are at new clause 96, but I believe Mr. Gaheer has a request for unanimous consent.

Go ahead, sir

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I suspect that we are not going to get back to Bill C-20 tonight.

In that regard, I wonder if it's the will of the committee to invite our witnesses to withdraw.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Once again, as we just discussed this item, I do not intend to move amendments NDP‑49 and NDP‑50.

It's only natural, after having discussed and voted on an amendment, to find that there are other similar amendments on the same topic. I therefore believe that the discussions we held and the questions that were asked were sufficient to enable the committee to reach a decision.

Furthermore, if our goal is to complete the study of Bill C‑20 after having significantly improved it, and as several amendments have already been adopted, I think it's more important to spend our time on important amendments that have not yet been examined and voted on by the committee.

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Thank you, Chair. We will be moving amendment CPC-25. It is that Bill C-20 be amended by adding after line 17 on page 43 the following new clause:

66.1 If the final report finds that the complaint is unfounded and the RCMP employee or CBSA employee, as the case may be, whose conduct is the subject matter of the complaint was suspended as a result of the complaint, the Commissioner or the President, as the case may be, must ensure that the employee is permitted to return to the duties of their employment and that they are paid compensation in an amount equal to the remuneration that they would have been paid if they had not been suspended.

I'll speak to that just a little. We brought up a similar amendment at the last meeting, or a couple of meetings ago. This is similar, but it is a bit different from our previous amendment on remuneration and back pay. This amendment would automate the back pay process for complaints that are deemed unfounded. As employees who are the subject of a complaint are not paid, we would like to make sure the process to access back pay is automatic, rather than the responsibility of the employee. This would help to protect our frontline workers, who are disproportionately placed on leave without pay as compared to managers.

Hopefully, we'll see support on that around the table. Perhaps someone else has some other comments on this. We'll see where it goes.

Thank you.

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

We will be moving CPC-24, which is that Bill C-20, in clause 59, be amended by replacing line 32 on page 40 with the following:

(7) The parties and the union representatives for the RCMP employee or CBSA employee, as the case may be, whose conduct is the subject matter of the complaint, and any other person who satisfies the

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 80 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Friday, November 25, 2022, the committee continues consideration of Bill C-20, an act establishing the public complaints and review commission and amending certain acts and statutory instruments.

Today, the committee resumes clause-by-clause consideration.

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 using the Zoom application.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of officials and members.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking, with some flexibility when being questioned by members, of course.

Although this room is equipped with a powerful audio system, feedback events can occur. These can be extremely harmful to interpreters and cause serious injuries. The most common cause of sound feedback is an earpiece worn too close to a microphone. In order to prevent incidents and safeguard the hearing health of the interpreters, I invite participants to ensure that they speak into the microphone into which their headset is plugged and avoid manipulating the earbuds by placing them on the table away from the microphone when they're not in use.

Finally, this is a reminder that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

I draw to the attention of the committee—and the witnesses, of course—that we have resources until midnight. This does not mean that we need to sit until midnight.

My hope—and I'm sure it's a hope shared by all—is that we can get through this bill in short order. I think we're yea close to being done.

At the end of a couple of hours, if we want to take a look at where we are and decide whether we want to continue or to resume again the following day, I think that will be up for discussion.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

I keep being about to pose questions to the witnesses, but trying to briefly deal with other matters first and then getting interrupted in my attempt to briefly deal with those other matters.

On this legislation, Bill C-20, we have four regular members of the committee who, I think, made clear to the chair that they were not available for the additional time proposed outside of the time slot. Hence, we are here asking questions.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

I actually agree with you, Mr. Chair. The issues of relevance and repetition are the two key elements here. Mr. Genuis is not being relevant to NDP-34 and Bill C-20.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

—as you know, you enforce rules around relevance and repetition, and there is no relevance right now to what Mr. Genuis is actually saying. We're discussing NDP-34 as part of Bill C-20. I would ask you to enforce that rule of relevance with Mr. Genuis.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I think it's quite clear that if we want narrow scope in terms of the commission's refusing, we should adopt NDP-34. If we want a slightly larger scope, as Madame Michaud indicated, we can look to adopt BQ-13, but we actually need to get to a vote.

I am a little perplexed by the filibuster around NDP-34, Mr. Chair, because we had a one-month filibuster, you'll recall, where finally the NDP motion was essentially adopted around the Bernardo transfer and the transfer of offenders.

Now, one party around this table is filibustering Bill C-20. Now they're filibustering NDP-34 and, in doing so, they're stalling the study that they filibustered on for a month. It doesn't make sense. They're filibustering themselves. The Conservatives are now filibustering what they finally agreed to: the NDP motion a few weeks ago. Now they're filibustering the bill and filibustering the study that they said was important to get to.

I'm very perplexed about the filibuster around NDP-34. It doesn't make sense at all.

I've said this many times, Mr. Chair: There are two block parties in the House of Commons. There's the Bloc Québécois and there's the block everything, and the Conservative Party seems to be blocking everything, including Bill C-20, NDP-34 and good legislation that will make a difference in putting in place a public complaints commission, which is something so many people in this country are calling for.

The delay around this, the filibuster around it and filibustering the study around the transfer of offenders within the correctional services make no sense at all, from any standpoint, and I'm just very perplexed about the member for Carleton and his approach to the House of Commons in trying to block everything at all times.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thanks very much, Chair.

It is good to be back at the public safety committee. In the second session of the 43rd Parliament, I had the honour of sitting on this committee.

I think that they are all new faces here, other than Ms. Michaud's. It's good to be back.

Certainly, Bill C-20 is an interesting bill.

I'll note, like Mr. Genuis did, that I believe that at the conclusion of the previous meeting, consent was sought to extend the meeting. It was not granted, yet here we are anyway. It's unfortunate, because for those of us who care a lot about this issue and this bill, we have to dig into some of these things. I think it's very important.

Specifically related to NDP-34, the idea around giving discretion is something that seems to me, from what Ms. Michaud said and in light of the next four amendments as well, that we have a great deal of agreement on.

I always find that one of the challenges when amending legislation is that, when there are similar amendments that are brought forward that deal with substantively the same concern, to deal with one simply because it was submitted first versus taking the time to ensure that we are, in fact, passing the best legislation and the best...what in this case would be changes, to ensure the commission is given the necessary discretion to ensure, as our officials....

I would just thank the officials for coming here as well.

I know that it is important work that we do before these committees.

Ms. Gibb, you mentioned that changing it from a “must” to a “may” would give that necessary discretion. I would, however, like to ask for your opinion.

In BQ-13, the language is a bit different. The reason I ask is to make sure we are doing justice to each amendment, although we can deal with them only sequentially. It allows us to deal with them to make sure we get the right thing passed.

BQ-13, which would be dealt with next, has slightly different language.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

BQ‑13, which comes right after amendment NDP‑34, is very similar. Its purpose is to give the commission a little more discretion to refuse to examine a complaint. So, instead of the wording “The Commission must refuse”, as set out in Bill C‑20, NDP‑34 proposes, “The Commission may refuse…”.

However, it's my opinion that NDP‑34 goes a little further than BQ‑13, which changes the wording a little. In addition, I think it is more beneficial to stick more closely to what is provided for in the bill. I would not go so far as to add, “… if dealing with the complaint would seriously compromise an ongoing investigation”. I think the current wording of the bill is fine the way it is.

I would therefore suggest that my colleagues vote against NDP‑34 and vote in favour of BQ‑13. It's a small change, but it can have an impact.

I would also like to take this opportunity to say that what we're seeing and what we'll be seeing for the next hour is very unfortunate. It's quite clear that we experienced a filibuster by the Conservatives when they wanted to pass their motion on the Paul Bernardo study.

For whatever reason, they want to delay or slow down the study of Bill C‑20, and the permanent members of this committee don't even have the courage to do it themselves. They get subbed in to do that. That's too bad.

I too had something else scheduled for this next hour, but I feel that the study of Bill C‑20 is a priority. It's normal for us to work overtime to study this bill, since the Conservatives filibustered for so many hours before we could begin this study.

I'll just take this opportunity to say that I find this very unfortunate. I invite my colleagues to vote on amendment NDP‑34 if they have no further questions.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Mr. Chair, before we get into it—because I don't want to interrupt during clause-by-clause, or at the end if we're rushing over to question period—I have a request. We're making good progress, but at the rate at which we're going, and with all of the other committee work we still have to do before the holiday break, I'm going to humbly request, even though this is never my first suggestion, that the clerk look into additional resources to continue clause-by-clause of Bill C-20, in particular for this Wednesday, if we can't conclude by today. Then, with Wednesday's meeting, we can look at additional resources.

Again, I didn't want to interrupt while we're in the middle of a clause, but I really think, given the timelines and how much we still have left to do, we need to request some additional resources and enable committee members to rearrange their schedules if need be, or find subs.