Bill C-3 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act and the Canada Border Services Agency Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act to, among other things, rename the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police as the Public Complaints and Review Commission. It also amends the Canada Border Services Agency Act to, among other things, grant to that Commission powers, duties and functions in relation to the Canada Border Services Agency, including the power to conduct a review of the activities of that Agency and to investigate complaints concerning the conduct of any of that Agency’s officers or employees. It also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Madam Speaker, under this bill, are there provisions for the cost of defence when a complaint has been brought against a member?

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Madam Speaker, I read the summary of this bill last night. That is a very important question and I thank the member opposite for bringing it forward. These are the kinds of questions that could be examined at the committee level.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I want to highlight, as I did a little earlier, that Canada border control agents are more than just the individuals that we see at border crossings between Canada and the U.S. They are also in other areas, such our international airports. Having a presence is really important in terms of visibility, but they do provide an essential service to ensure there is an efficient flow of travel, trade and so forth.

I am wondering if my colleague could provide her thoughts in terms of a lot of the fine work they do, but having said that, how there is still a need for a public oversight committee because it assists in having public confidence in the system.

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Madam Speaker, I believe that the essence of this bill, and I think the essence of my colleagues' view in this House, is to ensure that accountability and transparency is sought out with the creation of this bill. I think Canadians expect that, however small the number of cases. I understand that there are approximately 1,200 cases reported per year. Every case is different, and every case is important.

Every Canadian deserves to be treated with respect, and we should ensure that accountability and transparency is sought in every process of every complaint.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Madam Speaker, I have been hearing a lot of great-sounding words from the government House leader and the member about public confidence, transparency and accountability, but it makes me want to return to this question about SNC-Lavalin. This was a case where the Prime Minister and people in his office had no problem at all trying to interfere in the judicial process. In fact, the result was the attorney general at the time being removed from caucus. That was a very serious affair, and Canadians were rightly upset by it.

If Canadians do not have trust in the government to not interfere in the judicial process, how are they going to trust the Liberal government to not interfere with the affairs and business of the new public complaints review commission?

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to remind the member that, on October 21, the public, Canadians across the country, instilled confidence in this government to govern and form government. I think that Canadians across the land have confidence in this party and in this government. Second, the committee itself is made up of an impartial body of individuals, and therefore we expect that the report or its findings will be transparent and impartial.

[Richard Martel, Conservative, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Madam Speaker, what concerns me somewhat are the asylum claimants.

I would like to know if they will have the opportunity to file a complaint. Given that these complaints often create delays and can be used by these people to delay their deportation, I would like to know what my colleague opposite thinks about that.

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his very relevant question.

What I understand about this bill is that it pertains not just to Canadians but also to those crossing our borders. That is a very good question and I expect it will be discussed in committee.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to join the debate on Bill C-3 today. I imagine all the masses sitting at home huddled in front of their TVs watching this on CPAC are quite surprised to see every party stand up and support the bill. I am pleased to support it in general as well. The 18 people at home watching on CPAC probably outnumber those at home watching CBC right now.

Before I get into my general speech, I want to make some comments regarding the oversight committee and its independence from the minister.

A couple of days ago we were debating an opposition day motion about doing a review of the Parole Board and the Parole Board process for appointees, in light of the release of a previous killer into the streets to kill again.

I bring that up because during the debate, some government members intervened and put through an amendment to change that to condemn not the Parole Board, which knew about the situation of the man visiting a prostitute, but to condemn the parole officer and make the officer the scapegoat, rather than blaming the Parole Board in general.

I worry that instead of focusing on the process in general and the lack of training and the lack of resources, the new oversight committee will go after individual CBSA officers, so I look forward to the bill getting to committee and seeing this issue being brought up so that there is a clear delineation between the government and the board. I hope the oversight committee is appointed through a transparent process and not through patronage appointments of underskilled people, perhaps like the people on the Parole Board who released that murderer.

There is another thing I want to bring up, and I am really glad that so many people have it brought up already. I want to thank CBSA officers who are working to protect and serve Canadians.

CBSA has been one of our best government departments in hiring veterans. A rule was brought through by the Conservatives stating that if anyone serves on our military and is released for medical reasons, that individual will go to the very top of the hiring charts in the public service. After that, before anyone else, is the individual who retired from the military after serving three years in uniform.

We brought in legislation as well that recognized their seniority. If someone has served Canada for 15 years, perhaps served overseas or served five years in Afghanistan, that time serving Canada would be recognized when the individual joins the public service. These seniority rights would count towards vacation and in work scheduling.

We have a lot of problems with getting government departments to hire veterans, but CBSA is probably at the top and has done the greatest job. However, we heard that the Liberal government bargained away seniority rights from veterans who had been medically discharged and had joined the public service.

It is nice to hear members of all parties in the House today praise the CBSA and all the workers, but I hope they put their talking points aside and stand with the CBSA veterans who served our country overseas, those who were perhaps medically discharged or who served in uniform and then found a job with CBSA. I hope members stand together and demand the Liberal government bring back seniority rights for those veterans who are now working with the CBSA.

That said, I want to get to Bill C-3 itself.

The backgrounder says that CBSA ensures Canada's security and prosperity by facilitating and overseeing international travel and trade across Canada's border and interact with thousands of Canadians and visitors to Canada at airports, land border crossing ports and other locations, ensuring a free flow of people and goods across the border.

It continues to say that “the government recognizes that robust accountability mechanisms can help ensure that the public trusts Canada's public safety institutions.”

I want to make sure that we actually have robust oversight of the oversight. It is kind of like the Watchmen comic book, “Who's Watching the Watchmen?”. I want to make sure that these are not just people fulfilling some government agenda, as was suggested during the debate on the opposition day motion, when there was an attempt to make the parole officer the scapegoat instead of addressing the general issues at large.

Bill C-3 would also legislate a framework for handling a serious incident regarding CBSA personnel. This includes giving the PCRC responsibility to track and report on serious incidents. That is great, but I want to come back to the CBSA officers.

As I mentioned during a previous intervention, we have serious issues with the cultural structure of the CBSA. I mentioned how the government stripped veterans' benefits from those serving in CBSA. During the most recent employee survey within CBSA, 63% of the members said they do not believe they can bring up concerns without fear of reprisal.

Remember, this is the same government that, when it was presented with a unanimous report from all three parties in the last Parliament to strengthen whistle-blower protection to protect public servants, Scott Brison threw it in the garbage.

We had an operations committee on TV, with a commitment from Scott Brison to come back to explain what his government was doing. He did not come back. For five months before he left the House, left Parliament, he refused to come back. I hope the new President of the Treasury Board will come back and explain what the government is going to do to protect public servants.

Think about it. Almost two-thirds, 63%, of people at CBSA are afraid to come forward for fear of reprisal. In the operations committee, we heard what some of these reprisals were. Lives were destroyed, people were thrown out of work or blackballed from work. We heard of someone who brought up an issue, and the government actually sued the person.

When the whistle-blower blew the whistle on the Liberal government's payout to Omar Khadr, Liberals were not concerned about paying a confessed murderer $10.5 million. They spent tens of thousands of dollars investigating and going after the whistle-blower.

We have all the parties in the government saying CBSA officers are valued workers. The CBSA workers are saying they do not trust their senior managers or the government. We have a serious issue and I hope we will address these issues in ongoing legislation.

Another issue that came up is that 57% do not have confidence in senior management. These are the same workers who we are expecting to be exposed, in a way, and held to trial, in a way, by this new oversight process. It does not mention the oversight of the management, nor does it mention the fact that perhaps there is a culture of fear within the department. Again, I look forward to these things being hashed out at committee so we have a proper system.

Also, 51% do not believe senior management act ethically. Think about it. These are the people who are supposed to be stopping smuggled goods, protecting us from bad people coming across the border and dealing with hundreds of billions of dollars of trade throughout the year. However, 51% do not believe their managers act ethically, and 63% do not believe they can come forward to the government to bring this up without reprisals against them. Again, I hope these issues are brought up.

We have a lot of problems at CBSA. This is from the departmental plan the government tabled as part of the estimates process. Ralph Goodale tabled it last year, but these are some of the Liberals' goals for the coming year.

The percentage of high-risk commercial goods targeted by CBSA examined at the border was 94%, and 96% under the Conservatives. The Liberals' goal for this year we do not know. It actually says “to be decided”. Last year, the government put the goal for this year as “to be decided”.

For the percentage of threats identified that lead to an enforcement action or inadmissibility recommendation, the goal was 18%. They are saying only 18% of the threats identified would actually be held to enforcement. They are saying 80% of threats identified, they are not going to go after. This is a problem.

The percentage of high-priority foreign nationals removed for issues such as war crimes is 80%. They have dropped their goal from previous years, so their goal is only to remove 80% of war criminals from Canada.

The reason I bring this up is that it is a serious problem. If we look at the same departmental plan tabled by the government, over the next two years the Liberals are cutting $410 million from the budget, according to their plans. This is on top of $150 million that was cut from last year to this year.

The government wants to do this, this and this, but it is actually doing something completely opposite. I hope the government will get on track and support CBSA, and we will get on track and support this bill if it does so.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I always find it interesting when statistics are brought before us. There is a lot of validity to the idea that they can be manipulated at times. I do not necessarily know all the background of the report the member across the way cited, but I suspect it was a fairly thorough report.

One of the things anyone following this debate will have detected is that there is a wide spectrum of support, from all political parties in the House, to see the bill pass, so can it go to a standing committee. Many of the concerns that have been raised during second reading will be afforded some limited discussion and dialogue at the standing committee.

My question for the member opposite is related to the standing committee and the important role it plays in looking at the possible amendments. Does the member have any tangible amendments he will move forward with on this legislation? Does he know if his caucus has any amendments?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, I want to assure the member for Winnipeg North, since we are flying out of Ottawa at almost the same time today, that I have looked online and his flight to Winnipeg is on time. I was hoping that would be his question.

I was not quoting statistics earlier, I was quoting facts. These cuts are directly from the Public Accounts. The Speaker was on the public accounts committee, so she knows full well that these are actual numbers. These are not made-up numbers like the Liberals throw around all the time, like saying they have housed 100 million people in their housing program, which is not true, or that they have created this or that. These are actual, truthful numbers.

When I quote from the departmental plan, showing that it is reducing funding to CBSA by $410 million over the next couple of years, that is from its own plan on which its minister signed off. These are not made-up numbers. One side can say whatever it wants, but these are actual numbers.

As for what I would like to see put forward, although I am not on that committee, I would like to see a very strong overview plan so we protect Canadians who have legitimate complaints. However, I also do not want us to scapegoat the CBSA.

My colleague across the way mentioned there was support for this around the entire House. There was support from every party for our motion about a proper review of the Parole Board, but the government tried to change it to scapegoat the Parole Board officer and not the general problem.

I hope that in committee the members will look at a system that protects Canadians and protects CBSA officers and workers in general, but that it is not used for perhaps scapegoating someone to further the government agenda.

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have somewhat of a two-point question here, but I will be very brief.

Is this the most pressing priority facing Canadians today? We have a rising number of illegal firearms, rising shootings by gangs, skyrocketing overdoses, mental health challenges, court blockages, repeat offenders out assaulting Canadians, serious rural crime issues and more. Why is this the top priority for the public safety department?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, I do not know why this is the top priority for the government.

The election was October 21. When Britain had its election, Boris Johnson recalled parliament within six days. I can see, with the change in government from Conservative to Liberal like in 2015, it takes two months to recall Parliament. However, there was no reason we had to sit on our hands, waiting for the Liberal government to recall Parliament. This is only the third week we have been sitting in three months. If there was such an urgency, I do not know why the government did not just get on with it.

It is the same with committees. Three months after the election, most of the committees dealing with such issues, including the CBSA, still have not had their first seating. The government, just like the 42nd Parliament, seems to be wandering aimlessly from point to point, waiting for an issue to pop up so it can tackle it. I am not sure why it has placed this ahead of opioid issue or the jobs crisis in Alberta, but that is typical of the government.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today on this stormy Friday in Quebec. Obviously, as usual, everything is going smoothly here in the House with no sign of a storm.

We are here on this Friday afternoon to talk about Bill C-3, an act to amend the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act and the Canada Border Services Agency Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts. Essentially, this bill would create a committee that would oversee the operation of these two organizations. It is also the logical next step to a bill that was introduced and passed in the previous Parliament, Bill C-98.

As members probably already heard from some of the previous speakers, the official opposition is in favour of this bill. I wanted to say that right off the top. However, we have some concerns that we will raise during the debate at first and second reading and in committee.

First, I would like to take this wonderful opportunity to pay tribute to those who work for the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency. Every day, they work to protect, sometimes at the risk of their own lives, our security both within Canada and at our border crossings.

We do not think about this often enough, but we are extraordinarily privileged to live in such a safe country. That is due to millions of Canadians, of course, but above all to the people whose job it is to protect us all. That includes the members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It also includes the officers who protect border crossings across Canada, both those working on the ground, right at the border, and those working in our airports and ports. We must not forget that we share the longest land border in the world with the United States, and we can be very proud of it because we know it is well guarded by these officers. We owe them so much.

As I was saying, this bill flows from another piece of legislation from the last Parliament. Members will recall that in 2015, the current government got itself elected by saying it would table a bill addressing the concerns this document is about.

Today, we can see that the people on the government side seem surprised that things are not moving along as fast as they hoped. I would remind them that, despite getting elected on that promise back in 2015, they did not table Bill C-98 until the very end of their first term. If they really thought it was so important, so integral, so essential, so vital to their commitment, they could have tabled that bill much sooner.

I will not mention certain promises that were not kept during the Liberals' first term, such as the “modest deficits” and the return to a balanced budget in 2019. However, this also proves that this government, which got itself elected on the strength of certain promises, did not accomplish what it said it would.

Since we are talking about border services, I want to share a sad episode in Canada's history, perhaps the saddest episode in the history of our border services. Unfortunately, this episode was not provoked by our workers, our employers, our public servants, our RCMP officers or our border services officers, but by the Prime Minister of Canada himself. He is the one who is fully responsible for the refugee crisis we have had and continue to have in Canada. We are sad to say that it has been nearly three years since the Prime Minister himself unwittingly created a crisis.

It was the evening of January 28, 2017. I remember because I got a Twitter alert on my smart phone indicating that the Prime Minister had just tweeted something.

The Prime Minister, who was all too happy to tweet something to outdo the Americans, but especially to give himself some brass and prestige on the world stage, wrote a tweet that essentially said, you are all welcome here in Canada. The Prime Minister's tweet came on the heels of the U.S. government's announcement that it was closing its doors to all refugees from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

That tweet set off a border crisis the likes of which we have never seen in this country. Over 40,000 people entered Canada illegally at Roxham Road, showing complete contempt and disregard for the honour and hard work of other people from around the world who followed the rules and dreamed of coming here to enrich Canada with their presence. Unfortunately, those 40,000 people got the Prime Minister's green light to come into Canada through the back door, which is illegal.

I am choosing my words carefully because I know that there is a war of words going on. Some people call it “irregular”, not “illegal”. If it is indeed irregular, why is there a huge sign at the entrance to Roxham Road saying that it is illegal to cross the border except at an official crossing?

Once something illegal has been done, how can it then be considered “irregular”?

This is a big deal. This is why those guys, the Liberals, are talking about irregularity instead of illegality. My colleagues and I have been asking the government for the last three years why there is a huge sign at the entrance of Roxham Road that says it is an illegal entrance. People cannot go there. It is illegal.

If the Liberals cannot accept what their own government is writing on signs they should resign, but they will not.

That is the problem with this government. It likes to crow about its lofty principles, wears its heart on its sleeve and brings everyone to tears talking about how Canada is the most beautiful, most wonderful country on the planet, a country that will welcome every last living creature with open arms.

The actual fact of the matter is that Canada has laws and rules that must be obeyed, not because one leans left or right but because everyone needs to follow the rules and the rules apply to everyone.

When we were in power, we took in 25,000 refugees. Unlike the current government, we did not make a big show of it when people arrived at the airport. We did not convene the media, the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the minister of this, that and the other thing and an opposition member to please everyone and get some air time.

We focus on being a serious, rigorous and humanitarian country that cares about individuals more than those TV appearances the Liberals like to use to show that they are the best and the nicest. Our serious Conservative approach allowed 25,000 refugees from around the world to come enrich our country.

Refugees and immigrants contribute to our country's wealth. I know what I am talking about. This is a bit of a conflict of interest for me because my parents came here in 1958 as immigrants. It is important to disclose any conflicts of interest, and I just did. I cannot thank Canada enough for welcoming my parents in 1958.

Some 40,000 people have crossed illegally into Canada at Roxham Road. I remind members that this sparked a battle with the Government of Quebec, which had to wait three years to get reimbursed for all this.

What is worse, these illegal crossings were an insult to the thousands of people from around the world who follow the rules and contact various embassies, consulates and border services. As members of Parliament, we know how this works, since we see all kinds of cases at our riding offices. These people were not fortunate enough to see the Prime Minister's tweet, take Roxham Road and automatically gain access to Canada.

On April 3, 2018, the National Post reported that the first secretary at the Canadian embassy in Mexico warned the government that the Prime Minister's tweet was causing all kinds of problems.

In conclusion, I want to sincerely thank all of the RCMP officers as well as all the Canadians, from both the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency, who keep us safe.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent reminded us that Bill C-3 pertains to the handling of complaints within the Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA. However, he then went on to speak for 10 minutes about irregular migrants who cross the border at Roxham Road.

Am I to understand that he believes that irregular migrants are to blame for the poor handling of complaints at the CBSA?