Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear today as part of your 2026 pre-budget consultations.
My name is Brian Sauvé. I am a sergeant in the RCMP, and I am also the president of the National Police Federation, the union representing about 20,000 members of the RCMP across Canada and internationally.
The federal government has emphasized the need for fiscal responsibility, nation-building investments and protecting Canadians in an increasingly complex security environment, including in the Arctic. Our recommendations will speak directly to those priorities.
Public safety procurement is not a back-office function. It's a mission-critical issue. When procurement fails, our officers end up carrying expired equipment and working with 20th-century tools against 21st-century threats. This is bad for members' safety, bad for public safety and bad for the federal balance sheet.
Today, RCMP equipment procurement is split across internal RCMP units, central agencies and Public Services and Procurement Canada. Because no single entity owns the full life cycle, from business case to contracting to renewal, projects get delayed, retendered or simply overtaken by other priorities. Life-cycle management is piecemeal, and there is no one office that is clearly accountable for ensuring that critical equipment is replaced before expiry rather than years later.
We have lived the consequences. For example, the RCMP service pistol replacement took more than a decade from life-cycle expiry to contract award, while comparable police agencies completed similar procurements in two years or less. Body-worn cameras and other core technologies have followed similar multi-year paths. Across just the pistol and body-worn camera procurement programs, these delays have driven a conservatively estimated cost overrun of $6 million in wasted spending, avoidable inflation and redundant tendering, as well as the cost of keeping legacy equipment on life support instead of replacing it once with the right tools.
The government has already demonstrated, through the new Defence Investment Agency, that it is willing to treat mission-critical capabilities differently with a strategic road map and a single point of accountability. That same logic must now be extended to public safety.
Our primary recommendation is that the government establish a public safety procurement secretariat and a public safety industrial and procurement strategy parallel to the defence industrial strategy, initially focused on RCMP equipment but scalable to other public safety agencies. This would create clear ownership from start to finish, streamline approvals, align RCMP and PSPC under a single mission-critical framework, and embed life-cycle planning so equipment is renewed on schedule and on time. Every dollar invested in that streamlining will be repaid many times over in reduced delays, fewer failed competitions and less money wasted.
Beyond procurement, we support the government's budget 2025 commitment to add 1,000 RCMP personnel to federal policing over the next two and a half years, which I guess is what we're down to now. Canadians expect that promise as 1,000 police officers dedicated to tackling organized crime, cybercrime and foreign interference. Anything less than 1,000 sworn members, whether they be regular, fully sworn police officers or special constables with police officer status, falls short of that expectation and commitment and of long-standing expert recommendations to bolster federal policing capacity. These positions must be sworn, and they must be truly additional, not simply lateral transfers that leave other parts of the RCMP short-staffed.
Finally, we urge the committee to support a public safety broadband network. A PSBN is critical infrastructure for a modern, resilient Canada. It would give first responders secure interoperable communications built by leveraging existing telecom infrastructure. It would directly support Arctic sovereignty and northern security, improve broadband-based emergency services and align with the government's goals around rural communities. Threats from wildfires to foreign interference occur every day, and our communications infrastructure must be built for that reality.
Taken together, these recommendations represent practical investments that will save money over time, strengthen national security and support the government's nation-building agenda.
Thank you.