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

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

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to thank my colleague from Hamilton East—Stoney Creek for his excellent and very heartfelt speech to the House about the official opposition's position on Bill C-42. It was a fine tribute to our national policy, but especially to the men and women who serve on our national police force. It was a good way to recognize the incredible and hard work this police force does every day.

My colleague spoke about the training and the tools the RCMP needs to combat various problems, including sexual harassment. I found that interesting because one of the amendments we proposed in committee, after having various discussions with witnesses who appeared before the committee, would have required mandatory harassment training for all RCMP members. Unfortunately, this amendment was not adopted in committee, which is very sad.

What are my colleague's thoughts on the fact that this amendment was not adopted and the official opposition tried to make harassment training mandatory?

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for that question, because in my opinion, that is the most significant failure with respect to the bill going forward. We have to educate people. With knowledge comes responsibility.

Often people in the workplace, not just in the RCMP, but in general, do things with a sense of humour that they believe justifies what they do. They do not give a lot of consideration to the feelings and the fears of the people on the receiving end.

I recall a time, around 1966, when I worked for the railway, in a machine shop. There was a man there who was highly nervous. When people went by, they would give him a little tap, and he would jump. They had him so shell-shocked, he could not talk. If someone said boo, he would literally jump and take two steps away from him or her. The people in that workshop thought it was wonderfully humorous. That man was fragile and close to having a breakdown.

If we view that in the context of sexual harassment, we put it in a place where we have to talk about it. We have to understand that this so-called sense of humour is a testing vehicle for people. If they can do that to her, what else is available? It could be an exercise in power if it is done by a superior. In some instances in the RCMP, it was a superior who did these things. It humiliates the woman. It embarrasses and troubles her. It devalues her in front of her co-workers in a fashion that is totally unacceptable.

The only answer is to go back to those individuals who are doing it to determine whether they are truly bad people. They have established that they are people of trust by becoming RCMP officers and completing the training. In my opinion, the only answer to that is what you raised, which is to educate those people and provide corrective action that would bring them back where they belong.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Order. I would point out to the member that he should address all of his comments to the Chair, not to individual members of the House.

Before I give the floor to the hon. member for Chambly—Borduas, I would like to inform the House that we will now go to 10-minute speeches and five-minute periods for questions and comments.

The hon. member for Chambly—Borduas.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is very difficult to follow a speech like the one given by the hon. member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek.

He spoke about his own personal experiences, and I think that, in so doing, he attacked the very heart of this bill. We are talking about the impact that this can have on individuals and what can happen to people who have problems in the workplace, particularly those involving sexual harassment.

When a debate is held on this type of issue, it is very important to point out that criticizing those who put their heart and soul into serving their community, for example police or RCMP officers, will not advance the debate.

When we talk about matters pertaining to National Defence, Veterans Affairs or the RCMP, our opinions are often criticized and simplistic arguments are often made. Some would say that it is only natural for us to say such things since we do not support our police officers or our armed forces. It is very important to point out that nothing could be further from the truth.

Contrary to what the Conservatives believe, when we engage in a debate and have the courage to take a stand and say that the bill does not go far enough, it is because we have a great deal of respect for the work that is done and we think that it is important to implement measures that will allow RCMP officers to operate in a healthy work environment and that will improve the working relationship between the police and the people they have the duty to serve and protect.

Of course, we will oppose the bill at third reading. As always, we optimistically tried to make amendments to the bill based on the testimony given in committee, but as always, our attempts were in vain.

I would particularly like to acknowledge the work done by the hon. member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, our public safety critic, and the hon. member for Alfred-Pellan, the deputy critic. They certainly worked very hard to put forward these amendments.

I want to point out that these amendments were not based on some radical ideology, as the government claims. They were based on testimony from experts in committee. These experts have been involved with this issue for a very long time. It is not a new thing.

The first version of this bill, Bill C-38, was introduced during the 40th Parliament. It is not to be confused with the omnibus Bill C-38, which was introduced last spring.

The amendments came out of the testimony, but they were unfortunately all rejected, as usual. I think that is very disappointing. When we hear the points raised by witnesses and propose changes that do not necessarily change the spirit of the bill, but instead help make the measures in it more precise, effective and transparent, I think that the government should be more receptive to the proposed amendments. However, true to form, the government rejected all of the amendments outright.

The member who spoke before me talked about his experience with unions. With respect to the harassment within the RCMP, it is the only police force in Canada that does not have a collective agreement.

People will say that other measures will be put in place to ensure that workers' rights are respected. They are workers, because they work for us. However, when there are no appropriate measures in place, it becomes hard to defend their rights in cases of harassment. This is not the only workplace where harassment is a problem, but as my colleague pointed out, harassment is quite prevalent.

RCMP members have to deal with certain cases and, as one may well imagine, with a very heavy psychological burden in some situations. Sometimes that means that relations between the various individuals involved may be tense and negative behaviour may result. When you take all that into consideration, you realize how important it is to establish ways to manage those problems more effectively.

Continuing on the subject of harassment, when we say sexual harassment, we are talking about an issue that mainly affects women. That may seem to be a prejudicial view, but it is unfortunately true. From the standpoint of gender equality, it is even more important to address the problem of harassment when you want to encourage women to consider taking on any role in our society.

Government members will no doubt tell us that this bill would put in place a system that will solve that problem. We do not believe that is the case, particularly given the structure that would be introduced to do so. That is really our biggest concern in relation to this bill.

To put the matter simply, the government wants the police to investigate the police and the commission to be accountable to the minister, not to Parliament. The lack of political will that this minister has shown for some time now is becoming a problem. After all, when discretionary or decision-making authority lies solely in the hands of one minister, we have to rely on his political will, and he seems to have no such will at the present time.

On the contrary, if we asked the commission to report directly to Parliament, there would be more transparency, more answers and a structure more accountable to the public, which the RCMP is supposed to serve. That would also be good for people on the force, RCMP members, particularly those who are victims of harassment.

To put it simply once again, when we talk about the police investigating the police, this is really the problem that emerged from Justice O'Connor's report in the Maher Arar case. I am very interested in that case. At the risk of making myself seem very young, I was just a student when that report was issued in 2006, but I was very much involved and very interested in politics and current affairs, and I supported various causes.

I remember seeing the report at the time. One of the issues of great interest to me was the way in which our police forces and our armed forces acted, even though we were still in the post-September 11 phase five years after the fact. People in Canada, the United States and Europe were trying to adjust to this new reality as a society and give our police forces powers while protecting citizens' rights.

That report was an attempt to balance those two realities. However, this bill does not take its recommendations into account. Justice O'Connor recommended establishing an independent commission that would actually have been able to go further in changing the RCMP's culture and solving the harassment problem in particular.

We in the NDP want to see more concrete measures. That is why we oppose this bill, which is far too flawed. We want something much more concrete, and these are precisely the kinds of measures we will put in place in 2015 if we have the opportunity to form the government, in order to change this culture, protect RCMP members and ensure there is a better relationship between them and our communities.

I await your questions and comments.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, over the last number of years we have seen a huge increase in the need to deal with this issue. One of the reasons for that was several allegations of sexual harassment. However, it was in May of 2012 that the RCMP commissioner, in a public letter, talked about the need for legislation. The idea behind it is that the commissioner has to have some sort of capacity to take disciplinary action. Although this legislation falls short in being able to deal with a number of different issues, it at least addresses in part what the commissioner was calling for and has been calling for.

My question to the member is this: does he not believe we should be respecting, at least in part, RCMP Commissioner Paulson saying in his letter dated May 2012 that we need to have something? Does he not agree that this bill does at least something with regard to providing some form of disciplinary action, that something is better than nothing and, in that sense, that it is better for us to pass the bill in the hope that we will be able to bring in additional legislation in the future?

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his question.

The commissioner expressed his opinion, but despite the respect he deserves for the important work he does, he is just one piece of the puzzle. During my speech, I pointed out that, according to testimony heard in committee, this bill has significant flaws.

In response to the member's question I would say that we often support a bill if it is a step in the right direction. The NDP has often supported bills even though our amendments were rejected and the government could have gone much further or even taken an entirely different tack. The difference here is that there are very significant systemic problems. The bill has far too many flaws for us to be able to support it in its present form.

If there were fewer flaws, we would be more willing to support it, but the issues are far too serious. They were clearly identified in committee. When we are dealing with police forces and sensitive issues, as in the recommendations in the O'Connor report, it is very important that we implement far more tangible and fair measures.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the member on his wonderful speech. Once again, he is an inspiration when it comes to speaking from the heart and representing his constituents' opinions.

I could not help but think of some of my constituents who are part of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and who are very disappointed with this bill. They are wondering when we will evolve.

The women who were victims of harassment must be bitterly disappointed in the government's lack of intervention and its inaction with this bill. What does my colleague think?

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question, since it gives me an opportunity to talk about something I neglected to mention in my speech.

There are RCMP members living in my riding and the surrounding ridings, and that is exactly what they are feeling. I pointed that out because this is not an attack against individuals, who do an excellent job within the RCMP. This is about combatting the attitudes that are institutionalized within this police force.

I believe that they want a change. When structures like the complaints system are inadequate and dated people want to see changes. That is where our role as legislators becomes very important. That is why we are so disappointed that there are so many flaws in this bill. That is also why we are opposed to it.

Furthermore, we would be happy to propose something concrete and much better to bring about real results. We will certainly have the opportunity to do so soon.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in this place on behalf of the residents of Davenport, in the great city of Toronto, for whom this issue is of great concern and of great interest. The idea of, in particular, a civilian oversight of the RCMP and a more rigorous accounting of its operations is something that certainly the people in my riding and the people in Toronto are very much concerned about, particularly in light of events that occurred in Toronto in June 2010. I am referring to the G20 conference and the events that led to essentially the biggest mass arrest in Canadian history, for which the RCMP was the lead law enforcement agency.

We note that Bill C-42 does seek to reform the RCMP public complaints commission by establishing a new complaints commission for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and implementing a new framework to handle serious incidents involving the members.

The problem, though, is that while the name may change, the powers would not really change. It looks remarkably like the current RCMP public complaints commission, especially in that it would not be a fully independent commission reporting to the House of Commons. Instead, it would continue to report to the Minister of Public Safety.

We on this side of the House have great concerns about that because we have concerns about the minister himself. We cannot forget that this is the same minister who extolled and hectored and lectured Canadians, saying that if Canadians did not stand with him and his flawed online piracy bill then they were standing with pedophiles—an outrageous and offensive comment that earned the scorn, the rightful scorn, of Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

The changes in the bill would essentially mean that any major investigation would be overseen by the minister himself, who ultimately would be the final arbiter of these investigations.

As well, the new commission would have serious restrictions on its ability to undertake independent investigations, and its findings would be presented only in the form of non-binding recommendations to the commissioner and the Minister of Public Safety. These restrictions on the independence of the new commission would be a major issue for us.

As we have done on many bills that have passed through this House, we put forth many measured amendments to the bill, ones that would actually have beefed up the idea of civilian oversight and made it independent. Once again, the government ignored every single one of our recommendations and amendments.

This is particularly concerning in light of the 2006 report of Justice O'Connor of the O'Connor inquiry into the actions of Canadian officials in relation to Maher Arar, which called for the RCMP watchdog to be structured along the lines of the Security Intelligence Review Committee, which monitors CSIS. It would have the right to audit all RCMP files and activities and the power to subpoena related documents and compel testimony from any federal, provincial, municipal or private sector person or entity.

The present RCMP public complaints commission does not have review powers to ensure, systematically, that the RCMP's national security activities are conducted in accordance with the law and with respect for rights and freedoms.

This issue of civilian oversight and the independence of an agency that would oversee complaints is an important one. It is an important one for civil society. It is an important one for democracy.

I think it is important to note, as many of my NDP colleagues have during this debate, that we have enormous respect for officers in the RCMP. We understand that they are oftentimes working in extremely difficult conditions and situations, often chaotic, often situations where they have to make split-second decisions, quick decisions.

We understand that sometimes this is an incredibly difficult and pressure-filled job that we as Canadians ask them to do on our behalf, which is all the more reason why it is so important that we create and then maintain an independent oversight body for the RCMP. This is exactly what we had recommended.

We have seen some of the reactions from various stakeholders in Canada around this bill. We would also note that the former chair of the commission for public complaints, Paul Kennedy, commenting on the last iteration of this bill, Bill C-38—and not a lot in terms of this part of the bill has changed—said that the legislation is riddled with loopholes and does not meet Mr. O'Connor's standards.

The law would allow the Minister of Public Safety to make regulations concerning the watchdog's access to privileged information, such as classified intelligence or material about clandestine operations. It also permits the RCMP commissioner to deny the watchdog access to such information. The new law also lacks time limits for RCMP to respond to the commission's interim reports.

Many people may view this debate as a bit inside the bubble, as “inside baseball”. However, in fact, when we get down to the street level and go back to June 2010 and we think about what happened on the streets of my city, the biggest city in the country, the economic engine of this country, the cultural centre of Canada, we see what actually happened, especially right at the corner of Queen and Spadina.

Hundreds and hundreds of regular folks, most of whom lived in the neighbourhood, were kettled, or boxed in, in the rain, for several hours as the police pursued a tactic known as kettling. One of the many problems with what happened that night is that kettling is something the RCMP is not supposed to do. It is not part of their regulations. It is not part of their code, and they did participate.

A report into the RCMP's activities at the G20 was delivered in May 2012. It itemized, in rather minute detail, some of the issues that occurred that night. It also very clearly states that kettling was not part of the RCMP's mandate, and yet officers pursued it.

This is an example of why we need an independent civilian oversight body to build the public trust. I have to say that the events of the G20 severely damaged the public trust in our law enforcement agencies to both keep the peace and protect people who are peacefully coming together and expressing their democratic right of free speech.

I would like to end my comments there. I welcome any questions.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, one thing that is really important, and we have stressed it, is for Canadians to know that we support the RCMP. The NDP tried to move some amendments so that we could actually support the bill. That is why, at second reading, we supported the bill going to committee. At committee, we proposed a lot of amendments and tried to work with the government to bring them forward.

Could my colleague comment on the reaction to the amendments we brought forward and how difficult it is, if we want to make a bill better, to work with the government? We know that none of the amendments were accepted. Could my colleague speak to that?

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is becoming a broken record in this place. It is a broken record that is dramatically out of tune. It is out of tune with Canadians. It is out of tune with the idea that Canadians elect parliamentarians to come and work together, to the best of their abilities, to craft the kind of legislation that is the best legislation we can come up with. Instead, what happens too often here is that partisan games and politics are played that supersede sound public policy. It has happened constantly. It is at play right now as we debate the bill. None of the amendments, not a single one the NDP presented on the bill, was accepted or considered by the government.

Occasionally the government will accept amendments from the Senate. Instead of listening to elected representatives and the wise counsel they can bring to a debate, it will go to the other place, get together with its various campaign buddies and hash out some amendments there. That is not the way Canadians expect this place to work, and that certainly is not the way the NDP, the official opposition, works.

[Rob Clarke, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I served in the RCMP for over 18 years. The opposition talked about kettling and public peace. What is it about public safety that is not in order, especially in Toronto? What police officers do is make sure that no one gets hurt. Individuals attending these protests or rallies or demonstrations then put other innocent people at risk. Having had to serve on the front lines with the RCMP and also having participated in issues like this and having actually been with the tactical troops, listening to an individual who has no clue, a downtown suburban person, does not make sense.

There are poor performers in the RCMP. Having been a sergeant in the RCMP and having had to administer the RCMP Act and do the investigations on those individuals, I know that the RCMP is looking for a tangible, meaningful way to get rid of the RCMP troublemakers who are tarnishing the image of the RCMP.

What I am asking my colleague, yes or no, is whether he is going to support the bill to get rid of the poor performers in the RCMP. This is what I had to investigate as a member of the RCMP.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, why do we not first start by getting rid of the poor performers in the Senate? Why do we not start there?

The member opposite starts talking about the fact that if someone lives in an urban or suburban part of Canada, one has no idea what one is talking about as it pertains to public safety. This is an outrageous comment from the member opposite. It really shows how this party--

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is the member for Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River rising on a point of order?

[Rob Clarke, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Yes, Mr. Speaker. I asked a question, and I want that question answered.