Mr. Speaker, I first thank my hon. colleagues from Lac-Saint-Louis and Winnipeg North for their comments. Before I get into the bulk of my speech, I will read a section from “Sharing Common Grounds”, a document written in the Yukon Territory on the review of the RCMP and its police force. It states:
We have heard many accounts of policing excellence, including stories of RCMP members going above and beyond their normal duties. The purpose of the Review is to improve the quality of policing services for all citizens in the territory.
So I am pleased to rise today to support Bill C-42, the enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police accountability act, because I believe this bill would achieve just what that review was highlighting.
This is a critical piece of legislation that would ultimately have an impact on every Canadian right across this country. The RCMP is a national presence, serving eight provinces, three territories, more than 190 municipalities, 184 aboriginal communities and three international airports from coast to coast to coast. However, it is more than that. It is woven into the very fabric of our nation.
Almost 140 years ago, Canada's first prime minister, Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald, established the North-West Mounted Police to help bring law and order to the newly acquired western territories. The idea then was to make the force something uniquely Canadian by opting for a red uniform in order to differentiate it from the blue ones worn by the Americans. Since then, the red serge has become recognized around the world as a symbol of what it means to be Canadian. Indeed, it has come to symbolize what we as a nation value the most: peace, honesty, integrity and compassion. The RCMP's reputation follows it around the world, with our officers deployed every day in far-flung corners as part of international peacekeeping operations. This global presence is just one more reason why we must ensure that the RCMP continues its ongoing transformation and modernization efforts.
Unfortunately, these ideals and Canadians' confidence in the RCMP have been tested over the past few years due to high-profile events, public inquiries and most recently by the allegations of sexual harassment brought forward by RCMP members. That is why our government has always placed RCMP modernization at the top of its priorities. Once again, the “Sharing Common Ground” document from the territory notes in its executive summary:
The public expects that police officers will act with integrity and that their conduct will be above reproach at all times. From time to time, police services fall short of this expectation. This can be due to the result of a single act by a police officer that offends public sensibility or through a more general decline in the quality of service over time. When either or both occurs, it erodes the public’s trust in its policing service. In these situations, there must be independent, transparent and accessible processes that hold individual members and the organization accountable.
Since first coming into power in 2006, our government has made great progress helping the RCMP modernize and transform itself in key areas. We have already heard the calls for better civilian oversight, more accountability and a stronger framework to handle investigations of serious incidents involving the RCMP. We have heard the calls for more modern discipline, grievance in human resource management frameworks and one that will bring about the cultural shift within the RCMP. We have responded.
The RCMP has also made changes. For example, it has adopted an external investigation and review policy for serious incidents involving RCMP officers. Whenever possible, it refers these investigations to other agencies. It has also revised its conducted energy weapon policy, and it has introduced new operational responses and readiness policies to ensure front-line officers have the resources they require to do their jobs safely and efficiently.
Overall, the vast majority of Canadians remain confident in and proud of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. This was made clear earlier this year when all provinces and territories that rely on the RCMP to keep their communities secure and their citizens safe re-signed new 20-year RCMP police service agreements.
Notably, among the key issues addressed within the new agreements was accountability, a theme that underpins Bill C-42 and one that I will be returning to often. Although progress has been made on many fronts, we must take further steps to enhance the RCMP's accountability and transparency to all Canadians. Bill C-42 is that body of legislation. It is a comprehensive bill that would allow us to move forward with certainty in our transformation exercise. It addresses calls for increased oversight and accountability of the RCMP and builds on the progress already being made in the management of its workforce.
Underpinning this legislation is the idea of strengthening the accountability of the RCMP: accountability to the Canadian public, and the accountability of senior management to RCMP members themselves and of RCMP members to each other.
Focusing on the first thought, that of accountability of the RCMP to the Canadian public, this legislation would put in place a new civilian review and complaints commission for the RCMP. This new review commission would replace the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, or CPC, which was created in 1980 to review public complaints made against RCMP members. The CPC has fulfilled its role with great fortitude and dedication and we are grateful for the tremendous efforts of its members over the years. The reality is, however, that the CPC's powers have limited its ability to fully and effectively review RCMP activities. As such, its efforts to hold the RCMP to account on behalf of the Canadian public have been hampered. The new commission would maintain many elements of the CPC but would operate under an enhanced framework that would allow it to be a more effective oversight body.
The most important changes are new powers, including the power to conduct policy reviews, subject to certain identified limitations; the authority to summon and compel witnesses to give oral or written evidence under oath, or to provide documents and other materials relevant to the complaint; and the authority to access all RCMP information, except cabinet confidences, that the commission needs to undertake its reviews. For example, the commission would be able to request privileged information if it could demonstrate that it is both relevant and necessary to fully review the conduct of an RCMP member.
I am pleased to note that the framework for this commission was developed in close consultation with the provinces and the territories that contract RCMP services. During the negotiations for new police service agreements, provinces and territories spoke of the need for a more efficient review system that removes overlaps and redundancies as well as meets or exceeds other police review bodies. The new commission would be better integrated and harmonized with provincial police review bodies including the sharing of information, conducting joint investigations as needed, and issuing annual case specific reports to provinces and territories regarding complaints and reviews in their region.
A further step toward better accountability to the Canadian public can be found in the framework proposed for investigations of serious incidents. When an RCMP member is involved in an incident that results in death or serious injury, or some other matter of great public interest, the Canadian public wants to know that there is a system in place to allow an independent and comprehensive criminal investigation. In other words, it addresses concerns regarding the police investigating the police.
I refer back to an earlier remark about this being done in consultation with the provinces. When I reviewed the “Sharing Common Ground” document, an underlying theme that I found within it was that the concerns of the community revolved around the police investigating the police when it involved serious incidents or death. Drawing directly from “Sharing Common Ground”, we see how Bill C-42 is addressing, at least, the specific needs outlined in that territory's review of its police force.
Every time RCMP members put on their badges and leave their homes there is potential that they might have to put their lives on the line to protect Canadians. Because the police hold special powers in our society, Canadians rightfully hold them to higher standards. Canadians have every right to feel confident that there is a very strong system in place to review serious incidents and that the system is fair, impartial, highly transparent and accountable.
Under the proposed framework and building on the RCMP's policy on external investigations announced in 2010, the RCMP would be required by law to refer serious incident investigations involving the RCMP to an independent provincial body that has, as its core mandate, the investigation of police related incidents, for example, Alberta's serious incident response team. Where no such body exists, the RCMP would then be required to refer the investigation to another police service and only in those very rare instances where these two options are not available would the RCMP undertake the investigation itself.
The framework also provides for an independent observer to be appointed to monitor the impartiality of these investigations when they are conducted by the RCMP or another police service. This would go a long way toward maintaining public trust in the RCMP. Public trust and confidence is the cornerstone of policing and without accountability that trust is lost.
The bill also focuses on improving the RCMP's accountability to its employees. It does so with greatly improved and streamlined frameworks to address discipline, grievance and human resource management issues. These changes cannot come soon enough.
All hon. members are aware of the recent headlines about allegations of misconduct and harassment within the RCMP ranks. The proposed legislation would reorient and streamline a system that is currently bogged down in red tape, overburdened with administrative processes and plagued with lengthy proceedings that can last for years in some cases.
All RCMP members deserve to have access to a discipline and grievous system that is timely, fair and transparent. Just as Canadians need to feel confident in their police organization, so, too, do RCMP members need to trust in their senior management. They need to know that there is a strong system in place to hold their managers and themselves to account for their actions.
Our goal is to ensure that the RCMP as an organization has the tools available to address workplace conflict, performance and conduct matters at the first instance and, where possible, at the front line. This means moving decision-making down to the lowest appropriate level, thereby empowering managers and giving them more responsibility for discipline. This means ensuring there is a proper grievous system in place that allows for early intervention into workplace issues that is flexible in how grievances and appeals are managed and that is based on engagement and fairness. The timely resolution of workplace issues means that officers would no longer be crippled by long and drawn out administrative processes.
Bill C-42 also proposes a new human resources management framework that would give the RCMP commissioner enhanced authority closer in line with those of a deputy minister of a federal department and other police chiefs across Canada. In other words, the commissioner would be more fully able to manage the complex and dynamic environment in which the RCMP operates. The bill would give the commissioner the authority to make decisions regarding hiring, demoting or discharging most members, including officers other than deputy commissioners and commanding officers in charge of divisions, as well as the flexibility to delegate these authorities to another person. He or she would also have the authority to establish processes for investigations into disputes relating to harassment in the workplace.
Of course, with these new powers must come strengthened accountability and transparency. For example, while the RCMP commissioner would be able to demote or discharge a member, he or she would be required to show cause for decisions and serious discipline decisions would be reviewed by an independent external review committee.
The final element of the bill is the proposal to streamline the employee categories within the RCMP. To do this, the bill contains a mechanism that would move the RCMP from three categories of employees to two and provides for the conversion of civilian members to public service employees.
Taken together, the amendments proposed in Bill C-42 would truly set the RCMP on a course for a strong future. They would strengthen and modernize the RCMP to make it more accountable and create a more efficient grievance and discipline system.
The bill would help ensure that the RCMP continues to evolve into a more transparent, effective and accountable force of which all Canadians can continue to be proud.
I call on all hon. members to support this important bill and to ensure its passage. Now is the time that we must work together so that the RCMP remains a source of great national pride whose members represent the values we all cherish of honesty, integrity, compassion, respect, accountability, professionalism and the willingness to go the extra mile to help someone in need.
I move:
That this question be now put.
