Bill C-42 (Historical)

Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act

An Act to amend the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment enhances the accountability of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police by reforming the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act in two vital areas. First, it strengthens the Royal Canadian Mounted Police review and complaints body and implements a framework to handle investigations of serious incidents involving members. Second, it modernizes discipline, grievance and human resource management processes for members, with a view to preventing, addressing and correcting performance and conduct issues in a timely and fair manner.
It establishes a new complaints commission, the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (CRCC). Most notably, it sets out the authority for the CRCC to have broad access to information in the control or possession of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, it sets out the CRCC’s investigative powers, it permits the CRCC to conduct joint complaint investigations with other police complaints bodies and it authorizes the CRCC to undertake policy reviews of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
It establishes a mechanism to improve the transparency and accountability of investigations of serious incidents (death or serious injury) involving members, including referring the investigations to provincial investigative bodies when possible and appointing independent civilian observers to assess the impartiality of the investigations when they are carried out by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or another police service.
It modernizes the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s human resources management regime. In particular, it authorizes the Commissioner to act with respect to staffing, performance management, disputes relating to harassment and general human resource management.
It grants the Commissioner the authority to establish a consolidated dispute resolution framework with the flexibility to build redress processes through policies or regulations. It provides for a disciplinary process that will empower managers or other persons acting as conduct authorities to impose a wide range of conduct measures in response to misconduct and that requires conduct hearings only in cases when dismissal is being sought.
It also contains a mechanism to deem certain members as being persons appointed under the Public Service Employment Act at a time to be determined by the Treasury Board.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-42, An Act to amend the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts, as reported (with amendment) from the committee.

Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

There are two motions in amendment standing on the notice paper for the report stage of Bill C-42. Motions Nos. 1 and 2 will be grouped for debate and voted upon according to the voting pattern available at the table.

I shall now propose Motions Nos. 1 and 2 to the House.

Motions in amendment

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-42 be amended by deleting Clause 1.

Motion No. 2

That Bill C-42 be amended by deleting Clause 22.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to bill C-42 at report stage and to speak to the two amendments that we have just moved.

First, I will begin by paying tribute to the women and men of the RCMP who work everyday to help keep our communities safe. I acknowledge the essential service they provide, often in the face of great danger and ignoring many of the individual challenges which surround their work in order to do their duties.

In particular, I acknowledge the loss of two constables this year, Constables David Brolin and Derek Pineo, who lost their lives in accidents while on the job serving all Canadians. I also take this opportunity, while I am on my feet, to wish all the public safety officials, detective services and emergency services, who will be working when many of us are celebrating, a very happy but also a very safe holiday season.

Bill C-42 is before the House this session and we on this side supported it at second reading because we all must acknowledge that despite its proud history and its ongoing exemplary service, the RCMP faces some very serious challenges. What we are all hearing in our constituencies, and have all heard in testimony before the public safety committee, is that there are at least three major challenges.

Among these challenges facing the RCMP is, first, the loss of public confidence. For many years, the RCMP has been an icon in our society and the trust levels still remain very high, as they should. However, anytime our national police force begins to lose public confidence, we must all be concerned and we must address the causes of that loss of confidence. The causes centre around a number of unfortunate and high-profile incidents involving the RCMP, which have resulted in deaths or serious injuries to the public.

Some of this loss of confidence is to be expected whenever there are these serious incidents and, because the RCMP is charged with the use of force, many times these will inevitably be challenging situations. Some of that loss of confidence is a direct result of public concern about the structures to which we hold the RCMP accountable. In particular, members of the public are concerned about the police investigating themselves in these serious incidents. That loss of confidence in the accountability measures is not only a loss of confidence by the public, it is also a loss of confidence by serving RCMP members who have every bit if not more of an interest in independent investigations which will establish either their responsibility or non-responsibility in these incidents.

We also have serious evidence before us of a second challenge. That is a flaw in the culture of the RCMP. That flaw is that the RCMP has become a workplace with a culture that all too often has tolerated harassment in the workplace and specifically sexual harassment. When we have more than 200 women, who have served or who are serving in the RCMP, who sought to join a class action lawsuit alleging that they had faced sexual harassment on the job, then this is an important issue for the House of Commons to address. The magnitude of the problem cannot be denied.

Finally, it has become clear that there is a problem in the management of human resources and labour relations in the RCMP. This is a flaw that many have acknowledged is responsible for failures to deal with these other challenges in an effective manner. It cannot be denied that procedures are long, complicated, time consuming and fail to bring about changes needed to address problems both with individual behaviour and with more systemic problems. Therefore, again, it is a challenge which we must address in the bill before us.

The Conservatives presented Bill C-42 to the House just before the summer recess and suggested that it was the solution for addressing these challenges. On this side of the House, we responded that we felt the bill did attempt to address the challenges faced by the RCMP, but that it left lots of room for improvement at committee. Therefore, we supported Bill C-42 at the second reading stage in the hope that we could comprehensively address these major challenges. Now that the bill has been returned to the committee, after the Conservatives opposed and rejected every amendment to strengthen the bill, we have little choice but to oppose its moving forward at this time.

We have proposed two amendments at report stage that will allow us to discuss some of the amendments already rejected at the committee stage. The first of those deletes the short title which we believe, as is becoming a tradition here in the House, is one of those overly political titles applied to bills. In this case, it is overly political in our view because it is called the “enhancing the RCMP accountability act” when in fact Bill C-42, in its unamended form, would fail to address that accountability challenge. Therefore, we do not believe the bill would accomplish this goal. I will say a bit more on that in just moment, but that is why we have proposed deleting the title, which would lead the public to believe that this challenge had been met.

Second, we have proposed deleting clause 22 so the RCMP act would retain its original wording in what is section 33 of the actual act. What it does is state clearly that the power to deal with grievances remains exclusively with the commissioner. In fact, what has happened in Bill C-42 is that the government has chosen to enhance the powers of the commissioner at the expense of everyone else working in the RCMP, even in respect to the new review body that is being created. Therefore, further concentration of power in the hands of the commissioner and the Minister of Public Safety is the answer proposed in Bill C-42 when almost every independent witness we heard before the committee said that the problem was exactly the concentration of power in the hands of the commissioner and the minister.

When we asked what consultation had been done on the bill, the answer we received led me to believe that the minister, the RCMP commissioner and a senior RCMP leadership simply put their heads together and came up with a solution that gave them responsibility for resolving the problems. We could not find any of the witnesses who appeared before us who had been consulted about the changes included in the bill. We believe those witnesses provided some very good solutions and good ideas about how to address these challenges.

The approach adopted in the bill, as unamended, relies very much on the model of the Royal Irish Constabulary. It is a 19th century model, dating from 1822, which was designed as a paramilitary model to help police and the Irish population that saw the British as an occupying force. Is this really the model we need for a modern RCMP? It ignores the lesson of the other British model of municipal policing, which was also established in the 19th century for the metropolitan police of London, based at Scotland Yard.

The municipalities throughout our country have taken that model and developed it very effectively into a local community policing model, which has an independent board that keeps policing at arm's-length from a political minister and has very good accountability measures built into that model. Bill C-42, as unamended, sticks with the old paramilitary model instead of learning the many lessons we have learned at the municipal level in Canada about how to improve accountability and responsiveness to communities and how to create a more healthy workplace.

Witnesses at the public safety committee spoke out against these additional powers for the RCMP commissioner and the lack of independent oversight. Mr. Tom Stamatakis, president of the Canadian Police Association, said:

--extraordinary powers in this regard...go beyond what one might find in other police services across Canada.

For example, in Ontario, a police officer who is subject to a disciplinary process retains the right to appeal the decision to the independent Ontario Civilian Police Commission.

As well, we heard from Mr. Robert Creasser, from the Mounted Police Professional Association, who had similar kinds of remarks.

It became obvious to us in the NDP, after hearing the witnesses and experts, that the bill retained its deep flaws and would not meet those challenges referred to. It even fails to look at previous advice offered by Justice O'Connor in the Maher Arar inquiry. It fails to take into account the recommendations from the task force on governance and cultural change in the RCMP from 2007. It fails to take into account the recommendations from the former chairs of the RCMP Public Complaints Commission.

It is clear the bill could have been fixed, that solutions were out there. In order to play a constructive role, the NDP put forward amendments in four areas.

The first of those was in the area of harassment. We proposed a simple amendment to add harassment to the training responsibilities of the commissioner. That was rejected by the Conservatives. Therefore, Bill C-42, which purportedly addresses the problem of sexual harassment, does not even have the word “harassment” in the bill.

Second, we proposed measures to strengthen the independence of the new proposed civilian review and complaints commission. The commission would report to the minister and would make only non-binding recommendations. We need a truly independent commission that can make binding recommendations.

Our third recommendation was to create a national civilian investigative body to ensure that the RCMP would no longer placed in a conflict of interest of investigating itself. The bill addresses this partially by allowing provinces, which have independent commissions, to investigate the RCMP. However, only four provinces have those measures in place.

Finally, we introduced amendments that would have created balanced labour relations within the RCMP, including creating power for the independent review committee to deal with grievances. The concentration of power in the hands of the commissioner is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Given the long time between major revisions of legislation like the RCMP Act, 25 years in this case, there is a great responsibility on us to get it right this time. As Bill C-42 stands unamended, we will be opposing its moving forward in the House.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, I first want to extend season's greetings and merry Christmas to my colleagues whom I have been working with at the public safety committee. We have worked very well together. Although we do not agree on a lot, we found a way to work together very cordially. I just want to extend my appreciation for that and my wishes for the season.

I am disappointed to hear my hon. colleague's comments. He identified some of the main challenges that we as a government identified in working together with our colleagues who have been active police officers. We have 13 of them in our caucus. We have worked together with the commissioner and stakeholders to best address some of the challenges within the RCMP.

The bill is not perfect because, to really address this, we need to see a cultural change within the RCMP. Nonetheless, what we are proposing are fundamental changes supported by others. We heard testimony supporting our changes in the public complaints area and support for our addressing serious incident investigations. Here I would point out that no witnesses came forward to support the NDP proposal to create one body to investigate police. Hence, I am surprised that my colleague would even mention it. I am wondering why he is even bringing it up at this time.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I too would like to thank the hon. parliamentary secretary because I believe in the public safety committee. Despite our differences, we have found a way to work co-operatively to make sure things move through in a timely fashion. I do appreciate the hon. member's season's greetings and wish her the same.

The idea of a national civilian investigation body was first put forward by our hon. House leader in a private member's bill and received lots of positive comments and support. The reason it was not addressed directly in committee was that it was ruled out of the scope of the bill because the government did not seem to think it was necessary.

However, only four provinces have independent commissions that can investigate the RCMP, leaving six provinces where, when serious incidents happen, the RCMP will be forced into the conflict of interest of having to investigate itself. This creates a crisis of confidence with the public.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the RCMP as a whole has phenomenal public support. We recognize the value of moving forward on the issue the member referred to, namely public confidence and so forth. Anything we can do to reinforce confidence is a step in the right direction. Therefore, the Liberal Party supports the bill in principle and its ultimate passing.

If the NDP amendments do not pass, does that mean that the NDP members do not see the merit of the bill moving forward to deal with the RCMP at this stage?

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my remarks, we had hoped to work co-operatively with the government to put sufficient teeth in the bill to address those challenges facing the RCMP. It is not just an issue of our amendments. They were based on the testimony of independent witnesses who came before committee, and also on the recommendations of Mr. Justice Major in the Maher Arar inquiry, and the government's own commission appointed in 2007, often referred to as the Brown commission, on how to reform the RCMP. It is not like there are no suggestions or support out there for tougher action on these problems.

Given that we only get to do this about once every 25 years, it is our conclusion that we should get this right and help restore the public's confidence and that of the rank and file RCMP members, and have a healthy workplace.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in the many incidents that my friend referred to, such as the Robert Dziekanski case and that of Ian Bush, nothing good happened in those moments when something went wrong. I suppose the silver lining might be that we could reform the way the RCMP is investigated, that it not be put in that conflict of interest, which the officers themselves do not want to be in.

We have had all of these reports. The government has this one opportunity to get this right. Hearing from those expert witnesses standing up for the people who serve us so proudly across this country and for the communities they serve, I am absolutely confounded that the government has decided to miss this opportunity that only comes along every so often to help those families who are victims and those communities that need the RCMP to do its job, and the RCMP who need those communities to do their jobs.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the essential things we are talking about are public confidence and the members who serve every day in the RCMP trying to keep us safe. If they do not have a healthy workplace and the assurance that there is a balance in the human relations policy allowing them to do their jobs without being held to some impossible standard, or one not allowing them to respond effectively to accusations made against them, then it is very difficult for them to serve the public.

Once again, I know that those in the protective services will be working through the holidays when the rest of us are celebrating, and what we are trying to do in this bill is to create the best workplace we can for the RCMP rank and file.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to Bill C-42, the enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability bill. I will be speaking to the amendments adopted by the committee and reported back to the House of Commons and how they will strengthen the legislation.

Many of our members have already spoken extensively about the other issues raised in my colleague's speech. Needless to say, I do not agree with him. There was quite a bit of liberty taken with the facts in his presentation. I do not intend to rehash those. I think we can go back to Hansard to see what the true statements are in respect to the legislation, and how the legislation actually responds to the concerns of individual provinces. The types of amendments the member is suggesting are in fact exactly the kind the provinces rejected as too centralizing and outside the accountability they want to see brought back into the RCMP at the local level.

Here, I would reflect on why this bill is so important. It is no secret that the RCMP has endured its share of troubles over the last few years, including charges of harassment. To its credit, the RCMP has recognized the need to transform the institution by enhancing governance and modernizing its operations, including its organizational culture.

The next phase of the transformation process must come through legislation. It has been nearly a quarter of a century since Parliament amended the RCMP Act in any significant manner. In the interim much has changed, not just in terms of the globalization of crime but also in public expectations of greater transparency.

All in all, this bill would go a long way toward improving the accountability of the RCMP to Canadians and its own members.

The committee has approved several housekeeping changes, but there were also three substantive additions that I would like to recap briefly. These concerns were raised by witnesses before our committee, and I am proud that the committee worked together to further strengthen Bill C-42 based on the feedback we received.

The first concerns the rules in clause 11 around hiring retired RCMP officers as reservists. As members may recall, the reserve program provides the commanding officer with important staffing options. Reservists, for example, can help fill temporary vacancies, transfer corporate memory and mentor new recruits. Apart from all of that, senior officials have noted that reservists also reduce overtime work by regular members. In addition to making the workplace more efficient, the use of reservists can also improve safety and health. The amendment adopted by the committee permits the hiring of retired RCMP officers as reservists for six months or more without compromising their pension entitlements.

The second major amendment adopted by the committee addresses the issue of immunity for the commission chairperson under clause 35, and was specifically raised by the chairperson during testimony.

As members may recall, the proposed legislation would provide immunity to all those performing the duties, powers and functions of the commission. That policy was meant to include all members, including the chairperson. However, as the committee rightly pointed out, the bill did not explicitly note that the chairperson would also have immunity. The amendment adopted by the committee amounts to a few words, but they are important.

The final change concerns the powers of the RCMP commissioner around complaints initiated by the chairperson of the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission, also in clause 35. This was raised during testimony as a potential improvement. The committee adopted an amendment to clarify that the RCMP commissioner cannot refuse to investigate such complaints, thereby further enhancing the independence of the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission, CRCC.

Taken together, these three substantive amendments have strengthened an already robust new framework to enhance accountability for the RCMP. The committee did enjoy the support of the New Democrats during second reading and for certain amendments during the committee stage, and that is why I was surprised to hear one of the NDP members mentioning that the NDP would not support this important bill.

I am even more disappointed to see two report stage amendments brought forward by the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca. I will speak briefly to the two report stage motions.

The first motion would delete the short title of the bill. Our government believes that the short title clearly captures the intent of the legislation and, therefore, we do not support the removal of clause 1, as we view this motion to be more about politics than about substance.

The member also moved that we delete clause 22, which addresses the RCMP Commissioner's authority to make final and binding decisions regarding serious grievances and appeals. Also under this clause, the commissioner is authorized to delegate this power in the event that he or she is not able to make the decision directly. This is consistent with existing authorities under the current RCMP Act. It also makes it clear to RCMP members that the grievance process is the primary source for resolution of labour issues within the RCMP. That is why these clauses are worded in that particular way.

It is important to note that judicial review continues to remain an option for members who are not satisfied with the outcome of their case. There needs to be some finality to a decision and that is what the legislation would do. If there are any concerns about the decision that the commissioner has made, that can always go to a judicial review. That type of judicial review process is familiar to anyone who has done administrative law. This is not anything unusual. In fact, it is a very clear, well-established way of ensuring that the body charged with making the decisions has the final authority, and the judicial review process ensures that the decision-maker stays within the bounds of his or her authority. As such, we do not support its removal from the bill.

It has been almost 25 years since the RCMP Act was substantially revised and it is now time to act. The government has consulted extensively with Canadians to develop legislation that meets the expectations of all Canadians for greater accountability of the RCMP. With the amendments adopted by the committee, I do believe we have achieved our goal. We now have before us an opportunity to inject new flexibility and efficiency into rigid management systems, to rebuild a culture of trust and to reinforce the faith of Canadians in the RCMP.

This party will be voting in favour of this legislation. I call upon the NDP to join with us in supporting the legislation.

[Rosane Doré Lefebvre, NDP, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his speech. In committee, the official opposition proposed a number of amendments to the bill. Unfortunately, they were all rejected. This bill is a response to numerous cases of sexual harassment, which is sad. That is how the government presented the bill, saying it would target sexual harassment, among other issues.

However, something is bothering me and many of my colleagues: why is there no mention at all of the term “sexual harassment” in the bill? Why is it not mentioned, since this is the issue that the bill seeks to address?

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I think all of us have heard the allegations of harassment and sexual harassment within the ranks of the RCMP. The purpose is to ensure there is a system in place that effectively and efficiently deals with those types of grievances. Rather than focusing on the form of a statute, we need to look at the substance of the statute. I would say that a careful, thoughtful analysis of the statute ensures that matters of harassment, including sexual harassment, fall within the confines of the jurisdiction that the bill would provide to the relevant decision-maker.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to this particular bill, I will take advantage of this opportunity to ask the minister a question that is important to the province of Manitoba.

We in Manitoba believe that we need an RCMP presence to deal with a wide variety of issues. We have an RCMP office in the city of Winnipeg. Could the minister provide some comment on what he believes is the future of that office? I realize there might be an issue of relevancy here but I know that many residents of Winnipeg are somewhat concerned about the future of that office.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Mr. Speaker, knowing the member as I do, I believe that any matter that he would bring forward would never be irrelevant. It would always be with the best of intentions to ensure that the questions are timely and focused, not only on the specific statute but the needs of his constituents.

I am not aware of any plans to deal with a particular building in the province of Manitoba. The Government of Manitoba, for years, has been a very strong partner in ensuring there is appropriate policing in the province of Manitoba. Many Canadians may not realize, of course, that the RCMP is not only a national police force but functions as a provincial police force in provinces like Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. As well, it performs the municipal policing function. Therefore, there are actually three levels of policing in the RCMP.

We certainly see a strong relationship with the Manitoba government and we want that relationship to continue. It has evidenced it by signing the agreement it has.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, does the minister feel the same sense of frustration that I and many of us do on this side of the House when day after day we hear opposition members ask about sexual harassment and harassment within the RCMP? We have before us a good bill and, with the amendments, a better bill that would respond not only to harassment but civilian complaints and serious investigations, but the NDP will not support it. My concern is that, when we come back in the winter, they will keep asking questions about ways to fix these problems that they refuse to support.