Bill C-20

Public Complaints and Review Commission Act

An Act establishing the Public Complaints and Review Commission and amending certain Acts and statutory instruments

This enactment, among other things,
(a) establishes, as a replacement of the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, an independent body, called the Public Complaints and Review Commission, to
(i) review and investigate complaints concerning the conduct and level of service of Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Canada Border Services Agency personnel, and
(ii) conduct reviews of specified activities of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canada Border Services Agency;
(b) authorizes the Chairperson of the Public Complaints and Review Commission to recommend the initiation of disciplinary processes or the imposition of disciplinary measures in relation to individuals who have been the subject of complaints;
(c) amends the Canada Border Services Agency Act to provide for the investigation of serious incidents involving officers and employees of the Canada Border Services Agency;
(d) amends the English version of federal statutes and orders, regulations and other instruments to replace references to the “Force” with references to “RCMP”; and
(e) makes consequential amendments to other Acts.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Okay. If there's no need to read the motion again, I'll be brief if I'm not interrupted, but I will be longer if I am interrupted. I would like to be able to quickly get out there the ideas that I want to get out there.

It is simply that my colleagues who are regular members of this committee have been trying to work towards a solution that would allow one meeting before Bill C-20 is completed to allow representatives of victims' families to tell their stories before this committee. We have members of the Liberal Party who are no doubt deeply embarrassed by their failure here and their failures on crime more broadly, so they are trying to silence representatives of the families of the victims. That is a crying shame.

Conservatives will not apologize for standing up for victims' families, for standing with victims' families and insisting that they be heard, and for using the tools and the leverage we have to ensure that they are heard.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Absolutely, Chair, I will stick within the rules, which are to speak to the motion as well as the context of the motion. I know those rules very well. They don't require me to reference Bill C-20 in, say, every sentence. In debate in the House, you'll see members who draw on philosophical texts and go on at great length to set the stage for subsequent points.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Doug Shipley]

Mr. Genuis, can I just remind you that we need you to stick closely to Bill C-20, please?

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Thank you.

I'm going to request unanimous consent. The witnesses have gone. Discussion on Bill C-20 might be pointless at this point. I think we could use this time. I'm asking for unanimous consent to discuss a potentially revised motion that we can all accept in the remaining 40 or 30 minutes of this meeting. Then we can move on to Bill C-20.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Doug Shipley]

I think that would be out of order, as we're talking about Bill C-20 right now, Ms. Ferreri.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

I have a point of order.

I would argue again that the debate that is about to happen needs to stick to the motion that the member himself moved, which is extending the meeting for Bill C-20. I would argue that any other committee business is outside of the scope of his own motion.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

It's that the committee invite additional witnesses to appear in regard to Bill C-20 and that any new amendments to the bill be submitted to the clerk within 48 hours of the completion of the agreed-upon witness meetings.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

First, could we have the most current motion in terms of extending the study for Bill C-20, which is what I understood?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Doug Shipley]

Mr. Genuis, if you could stick to Bill C-20, please, that would be appreciated.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

I have a quick point of order.

If I could call one more time for unanimous consent that we approve that we're going to study this so that we can have the rights of victims..., then we can go right to Bill C-20. It's a unanimous consent motion. I'm putting it on the floor for the second time. I think we all want the same thing because Mr. Julian is exactly right.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

If the intention is to provoke a filibuster to delay consideration of Bill C-20, I think there are two considerations, Mr. Chair.

First, of course Mr. Genuis would be aware of both the rule of repetition and staying within the scope of his motion, and that will mean repeated points of order, because he does have a tendency to repeat and to fall outside of his motion.

Second, though, we've now had the witnesses before us for two consecutive meetings. If his intention and the Conservatives' intention is to filibuster the rest of the meeting, it would seem to me it's being inconsiderate of the witnesses and that we should contemplate releasing them again. The cost of this meeting and the previous meeting, both of which were filibustered by Conservatives, has been in the tens of thousands of dollars. All of our witnesses before us have important jobs they are taken away from to become witnesses for this committee and for clause-by-clause on Bill C-20. I find it very unfortunate that their time is being wasted, the public's time is being wasted and resources are being wasted on this filibuster that really could be resolved off-line, I think, over the next few days.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Doug Shipley]

I will keep that in mind.

We are discussing Bill C-20 right now, Mr. Genuis. If you could keep your comments to that, it would be appreciated by all.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

If the member's motion is about expanding the study on Bill C-20, then he's outside of the scope of his motion. I'd ask that you rule that he stay on the subject matter of his motion.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to move that the committee invite additional witnesses to appear in regard to Bill C-20 and that any new amendments to the bill be submitted to the clerk within 48 hours of the completion of the agreed-upon witness meetings.

This motion is being put forward in the hope that we can do further study on Bill C-20. I think further study would be useful to set the stage on this bill, but also to allow committee members to have broader conversations about some of the other issues in terms of the committee's agenda.

As we get into this discussion of what the agenda of the committee will be going forward, it's important to note that it is always the tendency of government to want to prioritize the advancement of government legislation. That's obviously understandable. It wouldn't be government legislation if the government weren't supportive of it. It's the job of parliamentary committees to scrutinize that legislation, to review it, to consider amendments and possible improvements, to hear from various experts and to determine its agenda in terms of how many experts it hears from, on what matters and on what timeline.

However, the committee also needs to prioritize other issues before it. In particular, some members of this committee have been seized with the hope that we will actually be able to honour the desire of representatives of the families of the victims of Paul Bernardo—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Doug Shipley]

That fails, so we will now move to Bill C-20.