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.

Enhancing Royal Canadian Mounted Police Accountability Act

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member asked a straight question, and I will give a straight answer. The problem is that the bill creates a false sense of security. It gives the illusion of answering the question it was supposed to answer.

Harassment and sexual harassment are very serious issues and should be taken seriously. We believe that this bill provides only the illusion of an answer. If we pass this bill, Canadians, including people who have been victims of harassment and those who monitor the RCMP and its internal challenges, may have the impression that the problem has been solved, when in fact it has not.

We need an approach that really deals with the current RCMP culture. The bill does not do that. If we pass this bill, we create the illusion that the problem has been solved and that we can now move on to something else.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

The NDP argued that we need to do more to address harassment issues. Not only is harassment a serious problem within the RCMP, but the men and women involved absolutely need help and support to deal with these situations.

Would our colleague comment on that?

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague, the member for Saint-Lambert, is entirely right.

The issues that have been brought to light at the RCMP, such as harassment and sexual harassment, are systemic. They are symptomatic of a culture that needs changing at the RCMP. They reflect not on the quality of the men and women who serve on the force, but on the culture in which they must work.

This culture may not be tangible but it exists all the same. Any sociologist or expert in the field would say that an organization's culture or atmosphere is certain to impact on its members' behaviour. In this case, the impact is negative. Given the systemic nature of the problem, we need the proper legislative provisions to change the prevailing culture.

These provisions are not found in Bill C-42.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my honourable colleague for his excellent speech.

He clearly laid out the effects of this bill, a bill whose initial promise quickly turned to disappointment. We brought forward many amendments in committee; unfortunately, all were rejected.

I would like my colleague's take on the Conservatives' unwillingness to consider the amendments brought forward to improve the bill.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my thoughts are easily summed up: same old, same old.

We try to work on bills that would benefit Canadians as a whole, and more specifically members of the RCMP and those who deal with the organization. The Conservative government categorically refuses to even consider the amendments that we bring forward to fill the gaps in its legislation. One can only decry this government's lack of openness with regards to these very important questions.

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-42. In my last speech on this bill, at second reading, I mentioned that we welcomed the introduction of this bill, despite certain problems we had noted regarding harassment, an urgent public concern for Canadians. We also pressed the Department of Public Safety to make sexual harassment within the RCMP one of its priorities.

However, the initial version of Bill C-42 did not directly address the systemic problems rooted in RCMP culture. The bill, as introduced at first reading, would not have changed the climate currently prevailing within the RCMP. When the bill was drafted, the Minister of Public Safety does not appear to have considered the various recommendations made by the Task Force on Governance and Cultural Change in the RCMP.

We nevertheless supported the bill at second reading so that we could study it adequately in committee and improve it so that it could solve the problems that seem firmly rooted within the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Unfortunately, that is not how matters unfolded, and we were not satisfied with the committee's study of the bill. I am genuinely disappointed by the government's lack of co-operation on this matter, and, unfortunately, on others as well.

The Conservatives did not want to co-operate with us to ensure balanced representation of the various options and positions available. In committee, they were able to invite 12 witnesses, whereas the opposition could only invite seven. We also observed that the Conservatives' witnesses were unfortunately not entirely independent. All but one were representatives of the government or the RCMP. Consequently, they came and asserted the government's position without qualifying it in any real way. The witnesses selected by the Conservatives were thus not there to offer an independent opinion. That is what we observed.

The Conservatives were also not that eager to hear from our witnesses. Our first witness was unable to appear before the committee until the fourth meeting, and most of our witnesses were not invited until the last day of hearings. The Conservatives also forced us to submit all our amendments on the day of the last meeting in which we heard from witnesses. They asked us to provide our amendments three and half hours later that same day. That did not leave us much time to evaluate or consider the recommendations made by the witnesses before the committee.

We wanted to introduce amendments that would have made the legislation more effective so that it could achieve its objective, based on the recommendations of those same witnesses. This kind of behaviour on the government's part is unacceptable and impedes the proper conduct of parliamentary proceedings. This lack of co-operation by the government is what we have observed since the start of this Parliament. As far as I know, virtually none of the amendments introduced has unfortunately been accepted.

We proposed a number of amendments that were rejected by the Conservatives without any discussion. We proposed to include mandatory training on harassment for RCMP members in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act, but they said no. The Conservatives simply do not want to hear a dissenting opinion, or even recognize its validity.

The director of the Groupe d'aide et d'information sur le harcèlement sexuel au travail de la province de Québec appeared before the committee and said:

With the 32 years of experience we have, we have found out that when companies do have a clear policy, when employees do know what is acceptable and not acceptable, it makes it much easier for management to deal with the problems.

But the Conservatives preferred to ignore that testimony and the others heard in committee. It is also disappointing that the minister did not ask for a clear policy on sexual harassment in the RCMP, with specific standards of conduct and criteria for assessing the performance of all employees.

Such a policy is necessary to provide a basis for a fair and effective disciplinary process. The director of the Groupe d'aide et d'information sur le harcèlement sexuel au travail de la province de Québec spoke eloquently on the importance of such a policy. The Conservatives chose to ignore her testimony and stubbornly insisted on a magic solution that will not resolve all the RCMP's problems.

We also put forward an amendment that would guarantee the independence of the body set up to investigate complaints in the RCMP. Once again, the government said no. We also proposed adding a provision to establish a civilian investigative body, to stop the police from investigating themselves. Again, the government said no. Yet all Canadians are asking for such a provision. Trust in police investigations has to be rebuilt. When a police force investigates another police force, there may well be a conflict of interest or a perceived conflict of interest.

If the Conservatives do not want to listen to Canadians or the opposition, perhaps they should listen to the former chair of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, who stated that the bill did not meet the standards of review set out by Justice O'Connor and that it did not meet the needs of the Canadian public or even the RCMP itself. I would like to point out that Justice O'Connor, in the Arar inquiry, said that Parliament should create an oversight body for the RCMP. It would appear that these remarks, like all those that are not in line with Conservative ideology, have fallen on deaf ears.

The bill will give the RCMP commissioner new power to decide on appropriate disciplinary measures. This includes the power to appoint and dismiss members at his discretion. During my first speech on this bill, I said that the approach taken by the Minister of Public Safety was perhaps a little too simplistic, considering the size of the problem. It is not enough simply to grant final authority for laying off employees to the commissioner.

This is why we put forward an amendment to solve the problem and to create police forces that are better balanced in terms of human resources by eliminating some of the more draconian powers given to the RCMP commissioner and strengthening those of the external review committee in the case of potential layoffs from the RCMP.

As I mentioned earlier, although Bill C-42 gives the commissioner the power to establish a more efficient process to resolve harassment complaints while at the same time giving more disciplinary authority, he will not be able to bring about a real cultural change in the RCMP, a change that is necessary not only to get rid of sexual harassment issues, but also to deal with discipline and behavioural issues more generally among RCMP officers.

As evidence, Commissioner Paulson himself stated that legislation alone would not be enough to preserve public trust and that extensive reform would be necessary to address the serious underlying problems within the RCMP, in order to create a workplace that is more open, more co-operative and more respectful of everyone. We can see that the minister failed to provide the necessary leadership to deal with the broader issues faced by the RCMP.

Commissioner Paulson told the Standing Committee on the Status of Women that he thought the problem was bigger than simply sexual harassment. This situation must change, and the minister should have taken the commissioner’s extensive experience in the RCMP into consideration.

All the witnesses told us that this bill would not be enough to establish an open, co-operative and respectful working environment, and that giving so many powers to the commissioner would lead to more problems than it would solve. The Mounted Police Professional Association of Canada shares our view. In committee, an association representative said that Bill C-42, rather than mitigating the issues mentioned, would only make them exponentially worse.

If Bill C-42 is adopted as it is—including the charter violations and the measures enabling managers to continue abusing their powers—rather than correcting the problems that undermine the RCMP, our Parliament will be promoting misconduct and the culture of cronyism by legitimizing these kinds of behaviours.

For all these reasons, we will vote against this bill at third reading.

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

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to NDP members speak one after the other on Bill C-42, and it is clear that the majority of them have not read the testimony with regard to this bill. They have not even read the blues or the transcripts from the meetings. For example, most of the amendments were ruled out of order, including the amendment they introduced regarding an independent investigative body. It was poorly written, introduced late and ruled out of order by the Chair.

I am wondering about a couple of things. Did the NDP members who are speaking one after the other bother to actually read the documents and know what happened at committee with some of these very poor amendments that were ruled out of order and defeated—for example, silly ones like changing the short title? Has he bothered to actually read the legislation, and does he know that not only the RCMP but the commissioner and the chair of the commission said they need this to provide the framework to change the culture? The legislation will not do it alone, but the legislation is needed. Has he even read the bill?

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for her question.

I may actually not have taken the time to read all the committee “blues”, but the parliamentary secretary is reporting only what suits her, in this case, because there were admissible amendments. They were all completely shrugged off by the government, as is the case every time in every committee, not just this one. It happens every time a bill is introduced and reasonable amendments are proposed, as in this case. A number of amendments were proposed. Some of them may have been ruled out of order, but that is not the case for all or a majority of the ones we proposed.

That is completely despicable. The parliamentary secretary says they were out of order, but most of them were not.

The government is not listening to Canadians. Canadians want a civilian police force that investigates the police and they are tired of having police investigate the police. There is an appearance of a conflict of interest there, and once again, the government is disregarding the opinion of Canadians.

[Tarik Brahmi, NDP, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is indeed quite despicable to hear the parliamentary secretary asking us whether we have read every line of the committee transcripts, when in fact we need only look at the witnesses that are called. They are often in a conflict of interest and are not free to speak, and that discredits most of the things they say.

The few witnesses who are genuinely free to speak all agree with us. That is true at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security and at the Standing Committee on National Defence. So this is indeed despicable.

I would like my colleague to say more on this point, because it is absolutely unbelievable to hear the parliamentary secretary say this.

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Saint-Jean for his comments and his entirely accurate observations.

We see in the committees that nothing suits the government, and often the witnesses they invite are not completely free to state their opinions or real, scientific facts. Nothing we propose suits it. That is more than despicable, because this government is anti-democratic in a number of ways. The way it behaves is quite frustrating, and not just in the House of Commons where it constantly muzzles us and imposes gag orders. It also uses its majority in committees to present bogus studies, and so on.

The government’s behaviour is simply despicable. That is the word that comes to mind, and that is what it is. It cannot be repeated often enough. With this government, doing anything in the House of Commons or in committee is an exercise in frustration.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would actually like to begin where I was going to conclude with my speech, after hearing the, frankly, rather arrogant question coming from the parliamentary secretary.

We all know what the government does in committee time after time after time. Any amendment, however well framed, is voted down by the majority. There is almost a zero per cent passage rate of NDP, Liberal or independent members' amendments in committee in this Parliament, so to pretend that the fact of the writing of a few amendments by the opposition in this process would have made an iota of difference is the height of arrogance.

I would also like the House to know that in this context, most of the opposition witnesses were in the last two days, the majority on the last day. The majority on the committee voted to make sure that the amendments from the opposition came in three and a half hours after the session. Can we imagine, in the context of a complex bill like this, putting together well-crafted amendments when put up against an artificial deadline like that? This is the behaviour of the government in that committee. Committees do not function in any kind of straightforward or good-faith legislative manner.

I would like to address how far Bill C-42 diverges from and does not respect the recommendations from Justice O'Connor and the Arar commission for a proper review mechanism for the RCMP. Most of the other interventions have talked about other areas of the bill and other issues, but I would like to talk about how the bill does take a small step in the direction of the Arar commission recommendations, but ultimately stops far short. This is consistent with how the government has truly resisted appropriate oversight mechanisms for any body that deals with policing or security matters.

For example, in another bill that is before the House now, Bill S-7, Combating Terrorism Act, Conservatives have stoutly resisted any form of serious oversight or monitoring. In my speech on that bill, I will go into some detail on that. In each case, the NDP has proposed more than a dozen carefully considered amendments that would help make good on the Arar commission's exhaustive second report on a review mechanism, yet every one was voted down or ruled out of order.

This is consistent with the general approach of the government to the Arar commission. I had the fortune to be in the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security when the Minister of Public Safety appeared to defend the report called “Building Resilience against Terrorism”, and I asked him what the government's intention is with respect to the recommendations on a review mechanism coming out of the Arar commission report. It was absolutely clear from his response that the government has no interest in that report or using it as any kind of a reference point, baseline or road map. Bill C-42 has made that completely clear.

I will proceed as follows. I will provide a short overview of what the Arar commission did recommend by way of review mechanisms, and then I will look at how Bill C-42 on at least four points does not take those recommendations at all seriously.

The report I am referring to from the Arar commission is called “A New Review Mechanism for the RCMP's National Security Activities”. Before proposing the exact mechanisms, Justice O'Connor, who is of the Ontario court of appeal, outlined reasons for the inadequacy of existing accountability and review mechanisms for the RCMP's national security activity. In general, he pointed out that there has been an evolution and a deepening of the RCMP national security role, despite the fact that CSIS itself was peeled off from the RCMP at some point. Obviously in the post-2001 climate, we know that to be true and why that is true. He emphasized three elements.

First of all, there has been enhanced and deepened information-sharing with other countries and among federal, provincial and municipal agencies, and increased integration and national security policing. We know that information-sharing was at the heart of what happened to Mr. Arar.

Second, he talked about comparative and other Canadian experience with both policing and security intelligence review that led him to conclude that there was the “inability of a complaint-based approach to provide a firm foundation for ensuring that the often secret national security activities respect the law and rights and freedoms”.

Third, he said that the existing Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP has encountered “difficulties in obtaining access to information from the RCMP”. We will see that this is the understatement of the century when we look at some of the testimony.

For the information of the parliamentary secretary, I did read the blues and I did consider the testimony of various witnesses, including Mr. Kennedy, the former head of the CPC, whose testimony is irrefutable. The government did everything it could in committee to try to underplay and deflect the impact of that testimony.

Justice O'Connor recommended a number of features that the new review mechanism would have.

First, it must be authorized to conduct self-initiated reviews in the same way and to the same extent as SIRC, the Security Intelligence Review Committee that oversees CSIS. He talked about the need for these reviews not just at the time when activities were deepening, but in the context in which national security activities by definition were conducted in secret and received little by way of judicial scrutiny or other independent scrutiny. He emphasized how a self-initiated review had to be linked to the criterion of independence from the RCMP and the government in the right of access to information and to initiate those reviews.

The second feature that he felt would be important was that the body had to have investigative powers similar to those that public bodies had under the Inquiries Act. He emphasized a few things. Some of them are in the bill, such as the right to subpoena documents and compel testimony. Also, the review body has to have the right to decide what information is necessary and not have barriers put in front of it in making that decision or accessing the information.

Third, he stated:

—the review mechanism must not be hampered by jurisdictional boundaries. It must be able to follow the trail wherever it leads, to ensure full and effective investigation or review of the RCMP's national security activities.

With those principles in mind he went on to recommend a new independent complaints and national security review agency for the RCMP that would replace the CPC and would also take on the role he recommended for overseeing the Canadian Border Services Agency, the CBSA.

He went on to talk about the need for coordination across the various bodies, this new body he recommended, the existing SIRC, Security Intelligence Review Committee, and the commissioner for the CSE, the Commissioner for the Canadian Security Establishment, who also has broader and wider powers than what is found recommended in Bill C-42.

What is in Bill C-42 that falls far short of these recommendations?

The first major problem is that Bill C-42 does not give the new review body uninhibited access to information that the body deems necessary and relevant. In committee the Conservatives tried to avoid acknowledging that the bill would give the power to the RCMP commissioner to prevent examination and review of a broad range of privileged information. From lots of experience, we know how various bodies, including the RCMP, have abused the claim of privilege.

Mr. Kennedy, the former head of the CPC, noted in testimony before the committee, the findings of former Supreme Court Judge John Major in the Air India inquiry, who experienced first-hand the abuse of privilege by the RCMP.

Mr. Kennedy stated:

—with reference to the privilege. Justice Major, whom I talked to, was scathing in terms of his comments that the RCMP over-claimed privilege, concealed information from him, and in some case a witness who wanted to testify, they claimed they needed the information for investigative purposes which wasn't true.

The second major problem is that the RCMP commissioner can force the chair of the new recommended body, the CRCC, to suspend an investigation by means of a simple request in a letter on the grounds that it would compromise an ongoing investigation. Mr. Kennedy commented how this completely gutted the credibility of this body in the eyes of the public. It completely undermines any sense of independence of the body.

The third major problem is that the bill is largely void of timeframes within which the RCMP must respond to requests and findings of this new review body. As Mr. Kennedy said:

Inordinate and unjustifiable delay was the hallmark of the RCMP during the four-plus years that I was chair of the Commission for Public Complaints...

There was one fourth major problem, but perhaps a question will elicit that.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I want to make a comment on the hon. member's speech. I find it very interesting that when the other side of the House disagrees with this side of the House, this side of the House is automatically wrong. There is a possibility that side of the House is wrong. Just because this side of the House does not accept an amendment as proposed by that side of the House, then, again, we are wrong.

However, the truth of the matter is that many of the amendments do not meet the constraints of the bill. They are outside of the bill and do not add anything to it. In fact, they may well detract.

Therefore, prior to the hon. member's speech, his view of what happens on this side of the House, I respectfully submit, is very clouded, one-sided and without precedence in terms of any direct evidence that says what he is saying makes any more sense.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I completely accept the member's observation that just because we take different views, it does not mean that one side is automatically right or wrong. I was simply responding to the rather strongly worded criticism coming from the parliamentary secretary.

I also pointed out the context in which amendments had to be drafted in this context: three and a half hours after the end of the majority of opposition witnesses were there.

I also noted that it was the practice of the Conservative government, working through government members on committees, to accept virtually no amendments across all committees. If the member has evidence to refute that claim, I would absolutely love to see it.

[Jean-François Larose, NDP, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his presentation.

As someone who used to wear the uniform, I found his excellent remarks very interesting, critical and detailed. I would like to hear the rest of his presentation.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are the party of co-operation.

I was simply add one further point, which is there is indeed something on which I would compliment the government. It did include the chair-initiated investigation procedure. However, it comes with a couple of conditions, one of which is that the commission, this new review body, cannot proceed on its own motion to investigate, quote, “if there is another review or inquiry that has been undertaken on substantially the same issue by a federal or provincial entity”. This may seem like a reasonable provision, but it opens the door for delay and challenges by the RCMP, including in court.

The judgment about whether it is germane to the commission to initiate its own investigations, frankly, should be with the commission. There should not be a mechanism whereby the RCMP can push back, including by using and drawing on government lawyers. There is a further provision that indicates that possibly the minister himself or herself could challenge. Therefore, the granting of a commission-initiated review or investigation is partly undercut by these conditions, and that was my only other point.